Children and Family – Page 2 – MD Harris Institute

Overpopulation is a myth – the world’s real problem now is not enough children. And children are worth to a family and a nation than almost everything else.

My in-laws had two children, one girl and one boy, but my father-in-law always wanted more. My parents had two sons, and sometimes said they wished they had also had a girl. I have often met people in the autumn of their lives who wished they had had more children, but never any who wanted less. Despite this, the fertility rate in America, the number of children per woman, is below the replacement level of 2.1, meaning parents are not having enough children to replace themselves. According to the 2013 CIA World Factbook, the US birth rate is 147^th out of 224 countries worldwide. People chatter about how important family is to them, and then endlessly complain about children being too troublesome, too expensive, and too much of an interference with what they want to do. My goal today is to remind readers of a truth that for millennia was taken for granted; children are a gift from God and large families are a blessing.

Continue reading “Life’s Biggest Blessings – A Large Family” →

Parenting is not over when a child leaves home. In many ways, the hardest part is just beginning.

By Mark D. Harris

I was chatting with a friend, a professor of government late of Georgetown University, during our Wednesday night church dinner. He mentioned several Christian youth he had recently met who had lived a sheltered life of homeschooling and church activities, and his concern of how they would do when confronted with the belligerent anti-Christian staff and libertine lifestyles prevalent in most secular universities. As my oldest will be starting a state college this fall, I was intrigued by his observation. This educated and devoted man was certainly right to be concerned, and mentioned that he wanted his children to attend a Christian school when the time comes. There are many sad tales of students raised in Christian homes who are too unprepared intellectually and too undisciplined morally to resist the temptations of living on their own. How many make mistakes that haunt them for the rest of their lives?

At the same time, Jesus and His disciples lived and worked in Galilee, the most cosmopolitan place in Palestine. He clearly tells us to be in the world but not of the world (John 15:19, 17:14-16), and to be as salt (Matthew 5:13) to preserve and light (Matthew 5:14) to illuminate the fallen world. How does a faithful Christian know what to do in the face of such important principles?

Continue reading “A Child Leaving Home, and the Providence of God” →