A world that has lost its innocence has trouble appreciating beings that are innocent.
By SHMULEY BOTEACH
A funny thing happened to me the other day when my wife and I had, thank God, another baby (a boy). Many of my friends didn't seem all that happy for me.
Sure, they went through the motions of smiles and congratulations. But it was evident that many thought me insane. Why would a young man and his wife ruin their lives with eight children? Who could afford the Jewish day school bills? Didn't we want to live a little and not just be burdened with kids?
It got downright surreal when a European film company pressed me - while my wife was in labor - to finish shooting a segment that had an urgent deadline. I told them they were insane. And the next day I was mildly criticized by a Jewish organization that was supposed to be hosting me for a lecture for having to cancel on them because the timing clashed with the baby's brit.
I don't mind that the world doesn't really love babies, just that it pretends to. It's time we got honest about our priorities.
Most people get a new car every two or three years, but one or two babies through the life of their marriage is plenty. You can get drunk on an airplane, laugh hysterically with your mates, and still not really anger people. But if you dare bring a crying baby on board you will be given malicious looks as if the little thing was a package that ticks.
Walk your dog along the street and people will stop you to tell you how cute he is. The same walk with a baby might find a woman or two who coos. But, for the most part, you'll be utterly ignored.
THE CONTEMPT shown to parents of large families is the last acceptable prejudice in our society. As such a parent I find myself apologizing wherever I go, as if I had committed a crime. The frequent and loaded stares from scornful onlookers seem to imply that the famine in Africa was caused by my selfish insistence on overpopulating the earth.
Long ago my wife and I discovered that few hotels were prepared to accommodate so many children, even if we took three or four rooms - which is why we bought an RV for travel.
How strange to live in a world where loving children casts one in infamy. Having a large family implies a backwardness and primitivism deemed unbecoming in the developed countries of the West. Large families, it is thought, exist only among religious weirdos or the teeming hovels of the third world. Rich countries, by contrast, prefer to increase their standard of living rather than the number of the living.
Looking at Western birthrates for the year 2001, the United States averaged only 14.2 births for every 1,000 Americans, and the birthrate among white Americans is so low that the country will soon lose its white majority. One can go for days in a wealthy city like Manhattan without encountering a single pregnant woman.
Riches and children have become inversely proportional such that the more of the former the less of the latter. Hence the high birthrates of extremely poor African nations like Uganda (47.52 births per 1,000) or Niger (50.68 births per 1,000) are deemed to be prime causes and indicators of their penury. The abundant fertility and unconstrained sexuality of these countries confirms the unspoken Western mind-set of these countries' inhabitants as being just one step above savages. Contraception has becomes a synonym for civilization.
A Christian mother of six once wrote to me: "I find it troubling to worry about getting pregnant again because I don't want to face the criticism of friends and family. Why do people not see children as a blessing?" It's a fair question, which deserves a fair response.
WHY IS IT that even many synagogues today are not children-friendly? Why are people impressed that Jay Leno owns 20 motorcycles, but disgusted that some religious families choose to have 10 children?
Let's not finesse the response. We all know why. A world that has lost its innocence has trouble appreciating beings that are innocent. A world that has become selfish has soured to the idea of leading a life of selflessness. A world that has become grossly materialistic is turned off from the idea of more dependents who consume resources.
And a world that believes that freedom means a lack of responsibility is opposed to the idea of needy creatures who "tie you down." They can go fly a kite.
By just looking at my children I become more innocent. By loving them I become more noble. By spending my money on them rather than on myself I find transcendence. And by being a father and liberating all of the love in my heart my spirit soars.
I work hard to support a large family and I give up no pleasures in doing so, because my children are my foremost pleasure.
I AM OFTEN asked by women dating men how to tell whether they are marriage material. I tell them, "See if he enjoys children. A man who loves children is playful. He will spend his life joking with his wife because he loves to see her laugh, and will flirt with her because he loves to see her smile."
Once husbands and wives worked hard to ensure they could afford the blessings of a large family. Today the higher your earning bracket, the fewer children you have. Many turn money from a blessing to a curse.
Before he died, the Lubavitcher Rebbe launched a campaign asking parents to have one more child than they had originally planned. It is a campaign that a dwindling Jewish community should revive as it continues to disappear.
The writer, a rabbi, is the host of TLC's upcoming family dynamics TV show, Shalom in the Home‚ and author of the upcoming Ten Conversations You Need to have With your Children. (www.shmuley.com)
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store