How many kids should you have?

How many kids should you have?

That’s a pretty personal decision, but even personal choices should be guided by biblical principles. One clear principle from Scripture is that fruitfulness is a blessing and should be cherished. This applies to the fruit of the womb, meaning children. Another principle is that God opens and closes the womb. This opening and closing works out through God’s providence and the human means of decision-making.

But how many, you ask?

Some will say, however many you can physically have. Others will say it’s completely arbitrary, and your conscience should be bound by nothing. We take a more organic approach that may be frustrating to those looking for a blueprint approach to family.

Our counsel: Don’t immediately decide how many. It’s presumptuous. You may only be able to have one.

You may discover that you had the bandwidth for ten. That’s not something you can know for sure at the beginning of your childbearing years. So, considering how fruitfulness is a blessing, simply take it one kid at a time. We thought that we were done at three. And here we are, six kids later. We had friends who thought they would have 12 but only had one child.

Have a baby. Reassess. Have a baby. Reassess. Sometimes the reassessing will be easy. Sometimes it'll require some deep soul-searching. A lot of people are willing to lay down hard principles. Remember, they will not be the ones responsible for your children's well-being or, perhaps, your loneliness later in life.

This is really something for you and your wife to work out with respect to one another through the twists and turns of life together. Children are great. God is sovereign. Parenting is hard. You are responsible for your decisions.