Taiwo Akinlami is a
Child Protection expert in Nigeria and he recently wrote post titled Hard
Choices (18/01/15). Now if you have ever
read his posts, he could be called a poet, I just love how he writes and even
speaks. To get the full gist of what he
wrote I refer you to his post https://taiwoakinlami.wordpress.com/2015/01/18/hard-choices
I am however going to go through each of
his points here so you can see the hard choices I have made, where I am
struggling and what I am learning along the way.
First choice: To have children or not to. As he puts it, “gone are those days when we
have children for any other reason than being ready to effectively protect and
raise them properly, knowing what to do per time, how and when to do it and the
fortitude to do it”.
My answer and my
choice: Unfortunately, I don’t think those days are gone at all. When I was much younger (under ten years old)
I thought I would have ten children because I love children (babies
really). When I was in my teens I
stopped at two, especially when I watched someone in labour on TV, at some
point I even thought I wouldn't put myself through the pain of labour, I would
rather adopt. In my early 20s I felt I
was a total mess and wouldn't make a good mother. Besides the world was just so cruel, why
would anyone want to bring forth children in such a world?
Now if I wasn’t going
to have children would there be any need to get married? Nah…Marriage wasn’t an option for me at all. I was going to be a career woman and not
bother some poor dude out there with who I was; I really was a mental and
emotional mess at the time. However we
grow and we develop and change and along the line I met my best friend and
husband and nothing was going to stop me from marrying him. Well with marriage comes the - should I call
it - natural instinct to want to have children.
Of course, the prayers that came my way then were for me to have lots children. My husband and I were living in different
continents early on in our marriage so having children was not on our
minds. I wasn’t going to raise children
as if I was a single parent when I wasn’t.
However family and friends alike were profusely praying for us and
asking if all was well.
However I continue to
advice couples not to have children immediately you get married. Take out sometime to enjoy and know each
other and in the process prepare the home for the new arrivals that will
eventually come. I cannot say that I
could totally be as articulate as TA states; I took it for granted that I should
be ready to protect and raise them. And
this is the mainstream attitude to having children; like me I see so many
people out there who just want to get married and have children because that is
the way of the world; that’s what society demands, after all the Bible says “be
fruitful and multiply”. Not too many
people are asking what to be fruitful in or what to multiply. This is just translated that you have many
children. It is the economic situation
around the world that is putting some sense to the amount of children people
have these days. So “almost” gone are
those days when couples had 6 – 10 children.
But are people sincerely
asking the fundamental questions TA states?
“What
is the purpose of multiplication, is it to achieve population or dominion, is
life a game of numbers or a game of dominion through values, etc?”
I’ll be honest; I did
not deeply think about that when I was going to have children. It was after I gave birth to my first child
that the task ahead really dawned on me.
There were aspects of my upbringing that I felt should have been done
better and I had to determine to do that for my children. When my 10 month old son picked up his plate
after eating and took it to the kitchen, it really dawned on me that he was
copying what he saw, then I had to start thinking of what I wanted him to
copy. Had I articulated my personal
values before I started having children?
Nope. It was when I was pregnant that
I got hold of some leadership books and I started reading. Application became the next step and I am
still developing. Luckily my children
are still very young, so as I develop I can model what I want them to copy from
me.
If you had the
patience to get to the end of this post, please do follow the continuation
where I will continue with the next Hard Choices by TA
Have a beautiful day
From the Homemaker....
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