We live in a profoundly anti-natalist culture.

Just last month, the Pew Research Center conducted a poll which found that a growing number of American adults who are not already parents have no plans to ever have children.

“Some 44% of non-parents ages 18 to 49 say it is not too or not at all likely that they will have children someday, an increase of 7 percentage points from the 37% who said the same in a 2018 survey,” Pew found.

And it’s not because these adults can’t have children – it’s because they just don’t want to.

“A majority (56%) of non-parents younger than 50 … say they just don’t want to have kids,” Pew noted.

Among the minority of adults who gave a different reason for saying it’s not likely they’ll ever have children, 19% said it was due to medical reasons, 17% said for financial reasons and 15% said it’s because they don’t have a partner. Nine percent said it was due to the state of the world, while 5% cited environmental concerns.

The modern American mind, where most childless American adults don’t want kids, wasn’t brought about overnight.

Rather, it has been decades in the making, born out of the widespread acceptance of cheap birth control and the culture’s promotion of abortion.

These ideas have grown out of the nefarious practices of Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger, and the “father of the pill” Carl Djerassi.

In our culture, some have proclaimed that, “The future of the city is childless,” that “having children is terrible for quality of life” and that we may soon have “a world without children.”

But Christmas brings us a different message.

At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of the Christ-child. God, became man, who came into the world as a baby.

“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).

But not only did Christ come into the world as a child – Christ loved children.

“Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven’” (Matthew 19:13-14).

What does it say about our society, that the individuals to whom heaven belongs (children), we no longer want?

For my two cents – nothing good.

So, the next time you’re annoyed by that screaming toddler in church, remember that Jesus loves children. And so should we. For our salvation was brought about through the birth of a child.

“And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:31-33).

Merry Christmas!

Photo from Shutterstock.