The Joy of Parenthood

Commentary by Cantice

This weekend a friend and I attended the Georgia Right to Life Annual Conference. It was my friend’s first conference (my second) and understandably, she had some preconceived notions about the people she would encounter. To her surprise, nobody wore a baseball cap with buttons shouting “abortionists deserve to die”-type slogans. My friend enjoyed Scott Klusendorf’s (the keynote speaker’s) address on how to engage the pro-choice other side in meaningful discussion.

Many of you might be wondering how I came to feel so comfortably a part of the pro-life movement. The short story is that while in college, more than a couple of my friends became pregnant by the spring of my freshman year. Prior to this time I was passively pro-choice, believing that abortion was wrong, but that a person should be able to choose. For all my religious jargon, I knew that I didn’t have the substance to endure the nine months of shame that pro-life single mothers bore, nor was I unselfish enough to allow motherhood to alter my plans for academic and professional greatness. Maybe that’s why, when I was promiscuous, I feared pregnancy worse than death. I thank God that before I ever had to make a personal decision for or against life, my heart was turned to sympathize with the unborn.

As college drew on, I became more than passively pro-life. I read “Jane Roe” Norma McCorvey’s book, Won by Love, and began researching abortion procedures. A friendly local organization sent me a video called “Silent Screams” and others that either showed aborted baby remains or ultrasound footage of abortions being performed. Through sonography, one of the films depicted a gestating baby trying to escape the suction apparatus that would annihilate its tiny body. Before viewing the films, I was pro-life for religious reasons. After the films, I realized that abortion could be opposed on the basis of human rights violations.

Add to this negative milieu the fact that Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was sacrilegious and a proponent of eugenics. (For those wondering, eugenics is the proposed improvement of the human species by encouraging or permitting reproduction of only those individuals with genetic characteristics judged desirable.) That said, it should not be surprising that Sanger and others marketed contraception to African Americans in a eugenic experimentation that “peacefully” related to the violent actions of Nazi Germany against Jewish and Polish populations in Europe. But I digress.

It is my belief that today and in the years to come, more people will need encouragement to choose parenthood. As a community, we are backward in our thinking when we shun pregnant singles but condone extra-marital sex. I worry that married couples who aspire to be wealthy, but not to be parents, do not fully embrace the vocation of marriage. I fear that a society that prefers abortion over birth has lost its fear of God and its hope in the future. No abuse that a child could suffer is more gruesome than death at the hand of its parents. But a society that expects nothing more than abortion from its citizens deserves the abortionist and the unregretful consenter as its neighbors.

Abortion Reality Link: www.abort73.com

Response to The Joy of Parenthood
By Wanda

I think almost every woman I know has had a pregnancy scare. I believe that abortion is immoral since it can only be performed during the 6th week of pregnancy which is 3 weeks after the heart has been beating and blood has been flowing through its veins. Calling abortion a right is a fallacy, however, I will not condemn anyone who has had an abortion or condone it. Each individual makes decisions in their lives that they have to answer to God for, whether good or bad. I do know that many women who have experienced it were never the same again.

Now, on to my disagreement with your position that parenthood is a vocation of marriage. Are you trapped in 1602? Do I need to call Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown from ‘Back to the Future’ to bring you into the year 2006? Parenthood is wonderful; Marriage is wonderful; if it is for YOU. Neither marriage nor parenting is a commandment given by Christ, although somehow I am sure you and your cronies have figured out some way to state it is. There are couples who decide not to have children, delay having children, or can’t conceive a child naturally and that doesn’t mean that they are not fulfilling their marital vocation. How can we assume that pursuing wealth and not having children is not a couple’s vocation? Who is to say that they shouldn’t wait? Why is it selfish and less ethical to decide to not have children? Valuing life not only means protecting it through Pro Life, Gun Control, Crime Prevention advocacy but also allowing those with life the opportunity to live in the liberty of Christ.

The HHIC: The Head Hu(Man) in Charge

Commentary by Wanda

As a result of our recent postings, I have had the privilege of engaging in conversations with several of my male acquaintances about the meaning of manhood. My question to these self-assured individuals is “What does it mean to be a man in the 21st century?” Their understanding of manhood and how it functions in gender relations is intriguing. Many times my counterparts define manhood as God given responsibilities as leader, provider and protector of the family. But how do we see these roles being played out in our personal situations? Most of these men had working wives, typically she has more “Christian experience” than him, and they owned car theft and home security systems. There were also several generative themes that reoccurred: receiving respect, honor and support from their wife. When I reflect on this list of determining factors to affirming ones manhood, his needs didn’t seem any different from my needs as a woman. Overwhelmingly, these men defined manhood in terms of spiritual headship.

Understanding leadership as divine and orderly is a confusing theme to me. What is out of order, what is disorganized by virtue of the man not staking his claim as the leader of the family? In my opinion, full participation in the health of your family is not leadership it is assuming the responsibilities of your marriage vows and your parenting obligations. I acknowledge and celebrate the differences between male and female but those differences don’t determine “divine order” they demonstrate God’s unique creative abilities. However, we immediately resort to referring to biblical times to reaffirm the role of women – which is an enormous mishandling of history. First, male headship is not Judeo-Christian concepts; these ideologies can be seen in many socio-religious settings. Secondly, before the last 200+ years, women many times were illiterate, unless of the middle classes and nobility, and they did not possess rights to own land, right to vote and even power over their children, unless a widow, and even in those cases there were definite limitations. So manhood for those times could rationally be defined in terms of provider, leader, and protector. But how do you translate those societal norms into today?

Now, don’t misunderstand my diatribe against male headship, if you are a woman who agrees with male headship, more power to you! I know that many of us (women) feel that our natural inclination is to support and nurture others however that does not translate to the necessity of male headship. Although, I don’t agree with headship in any terms, I wanted to give you some food for thought:

If God, who could possibly be understood as female - since God creates, births, nurtures, loves all creation- wanted a head wouldn’t God have chosen the woman to be the HHIC? For the woman has the power of the womb and typically functions as the spiritual and moral agent through child rearing.

A Response to HHIC
by Cantice


Wanda is trying to have her cake and eat it too. She continues to attempt to incorporate the voices of men by speaking to them in person and through poetry, but she stops short of considering the validity of their desires to be given some controls and leadership in the family that are not accorded to women.

What Wanda and other women don’t admit is that in any institution, it is confusing for the subordinates and for the leadership to have no concept of there being a final authority. Perhaps this is the true reason for God assigning roles in the marriage relationship. The same hierarchy is demonstrated in the concept of the trinity as understood by orthodox Christianity. In the trinity doctrine, Jesus (God the son) is subordinate to God the father in the economy of redemption, even though the father and son are equal in being and attribute (Sproul 80).

Further, perhaps leading to Wanda’s confusion about leadership (“Understanding leadership as divine and orderly is a confusing theme for me.”) is Wanda’s unwillingness to recognize God the way Jesus described him. I think it would be confusing at best to understand God as female, mostly because Jesus (who knew God better than Wanda and I) understood him to be Father. The words Jesus uses for father are not gender neutral.

Lastly, Wanda says that “we” refer to biblical times to reaffirm the role of women. I’m not sure who “we” is, but I refer to the inspired manuscript, not biblical times to take my instructions on the roles of men and women in marriage and family. There is a big difference. Christian themes in the Bible, especially those for women, in the centuries immediately preceding and following the death of Christ were revolutionary (see MacArthur’s Twelve Extraordinary Women).

Having said all this, I’d like to bring this theme home in a literal way. The reason that I can embrace this male headship so whole-heartedly is because I have seen it in action in my husband. Few men embrace leadership the way Jesus demonstrated it—as a servant. My husband demonstrates servant leadership daily in our marriage and in his relationship with our children. His headship looks less “manly” than the men Wanda surveyed would expect. Few men have accurately grasped this concept of leadership, which is why few women are quick to comply. But, show me a man who is a servant leader, and I’ll show you a throng of women in line to follow him.

MacArthur, John. Twelve Extraordinary Women: How God Shaped Women of the Bible and What He Wants to Do with You. Nashville: Nelson (2005).

Sproul, R.C. Essential Truths of the Christian Faith Wheaton, IL: Tyndale (1992).