We Need More Crying Children in Tennis Stadiums, Homes and Churches

On Monday, Great Britain’s Emma Raducanu wasn’t happy when the sound of a crying child could be heard during her tennis match against Aryna Sabalenka at the Cincinnati Open.

So, the 22 year-old, who is ranked number 10 in the world, complained to the umpire, claiming the crying was a distraction and had been going on for ten minutes.

“It’s a child, do you want me to send a child out of the stadium?” asked the official.

Several fans sitting within earshot of the umpire responded by shouting, “Yes!” Others cheered.

It’s always been a bit curious why a baseball player is expected to hit a 95-plus-mile-per-hour fastball with upwards of 50,000 fans screaming – and a tennis player can’t serve a tennis ball that’s in their hand unless it’s perfectly quiet all around them?

Ditto for golfers hitting a sedentary ball off a tee or putting on a green. Some golf courses are quieter than most churches. 

Call it tradition or something else, but cheering for the removal of a crying child from a tennis stadium points to a sobering sickness.

Culture is increasingly cheering the childless. The birth rate in the United States continues to decline. Now at 1.6 children per woman, it’s well below the replacement rate of 2.1.

In a society where voluntary childlessness is increasingly accepted or even celebrated, we see a greater value placed on possessions than people. Whether it’s the big house or the second house, newer cars, world travel or any other physical trophy or toy, it’s the accumulation of wealth rather than the large gaggle of children that’s championed.

It’s true that children can introduce new frustrations, but those children can also divide our sorrows and multiply our joys. 

Intentional childlessness can have a way of shrinking one’s world and turning the person selfishly inward.

Oprah Winfrey, who never married and never had children, once observed:

“If I had kids, my kids would hate me. They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would’ve probably been them.”

Did you catch that? Is Winfrey suggesting she would have been frustrated having to sacrifice for her children and then taken out frustrations on her children?

What we saw in the stands in Cincinnati is also a product of many adults choosing to forgo having children. Any mother or father knows well the challenges of a crying child. Having been in a similar situation somewhere else, it’s the parent who has empathy. Conversely, someone who has never navigated a similar situation is more likely to be agitated and aggrieved – and cheering the prospect of the crying child’s removal.

We need more crying children in tennis stadiums. 

Most importantly, we need more crying children in America’s homes and churches. 

As the old pastor said of his congregation, “If there aren’t children crying in our church, we’re a dying church.”

The same is true as a nation. 

Image from Getty.