Do you want to be with your children all day and all night long? Well, if you said “yes,” you are apparently “weird” and untrustworthy—at least according to the viral comments made by podcast host Angie Sullivan on the political pop culture podcast, I’ve Had It. Her comments are very revealing about how our culture views children!
Sullivan’s comments were directed toward homeschooling moms, who she thinks are “weird” because they want to be with their kids all day! She said:
You would not believe how many people in Bible study homeschool their kids, and you just think, ah, I worry about that . . .
I just think homeschooling is a bad idea from soup to nuts. I don’t care if you’re a nuclear physicist. I think it’s just [expletive] weird as [expletive] that you want your kids around you all day, every day, and all night . . .
For me personally . . . I would have gotten up on my hands and knees and strapped them to my back and crawled to get them to school every day, just to get them where I wasn’t. So, I don’t trust somebody that wants to be with their kids 24/7. I think a lot of dumb people do it because it’s just easier, and that’s a concern . . .
I just can’t think of very many good things about homeschooling.
Of course, her ridiculous comments had many homeschool moms laughing (I’ve spoken to enough homeschool moms, and watched my wife homeschool our five children for several years, to know that no one homeschools because “it’s just easier!”). But it also reveals how many, especially those on the left like her, view children: They are a burden, an inconvenience, and they just get in the way. God’s Word tells us children are a blessing to be desired.
One writer shared with me that her mom (who has 15 kids and homeschooled them all) is part of a class with several other middle-aged women who, when chatting between classes, often mention that they actively encourage young people not to have kids but rather to get dogs instead because kids are just too hard (a view our writer’s mom heartily disagrees with!). Sadly, it’s an increasingly common view.
Contrast that message, and Sullivan’s anti-homeschooling rant, with Jesus’ words: “Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, ‘Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’ And after laying His hands on them, He departed from there” (Matthew 19:13–15).
When children were brought to Jesus, the disciples treated them as an interruption to the important work that Jesus was doing (in context, Jesus is teaching the Pharisees, surrounded by large crowds). Instead of ignoring the children or shooing them away so He could continue teaching the adults, Jesus takes the time to rebuke His disciples for their attitude, take the children, lay His hands on them, and bless them. He valued them and treated them—and their interruption—as a good thing, worthy of His time and attention.
This attitude toward children is seen throughout Scripture. In God’s “very good” (Genesis 1:31) original creation, Adam and Eve were told (after God said He “blessed them”) to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28), and Noah and his family were told the same thing after the Flood (Genesis 9:1). Psalm 127 says children are a heritage from the Lord, and a man is blessed when he fills his quiver with them. Sarah, Hannah, and Elizabeth are all examples of women who longed for children and were eventually given a son, with great rejoicing.
In a biblical worldview, children are a gift from God to be rejoiced over, cherished, discipled, nurtured, loved, and yes, given time and attention. But this doesn’t necessarily come naturally. We’re all sinners with selfish hearts turned inward, desiring to meet our own wants and needs, rather than serving others and sacrificially giving of ourselves. It’s interesting that the Holy Spirit, through Paul, instructs older women to teach younger women to “love their children” (Titus 2:4). It’s not always easy, but it’s a joy when we live submitted to Christ, ordering our lives with Jesus first, others second, and ourselves last. That order is backward to what the world tells you, but that’s what honors God and brings lasting joy and eternal reward.
Personally, I would say that the podcaster is focused on self and wants to put herself first in everything!
