I didn’t expect to be a girl dad right out of the gate. My wife and I both presumed our first child would be a boy, and maybe our second and third, and then we’d get around to having a girl. We obviously know nothing. I love being a father to my girls, and as a father I have certain hopes and desires for them that seem counter cultural these days.
What I want for my daughters is to want to be mothers. I don’t just want them to want to have a kid or two at some point, but I want them to see motherhood as the normal, natural, and blessed outcome of a woman’s life as she lives for God. Other outcomes are possible, but motherhood is the normal and desirous expectation.
And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
Genesis 3:20
In one sense, I don’t care if my daughters go to college. (For that matter, college is becoming less a priority for me as a parent in general). I don’t care if they have careers or professional achievements. This doesn’t mean that I think their only utility is to be some kind of baby hatchery. I expect that my daughters will be wise, compassionate, competent, and skilled people whom the labor force will try to woo. But I hope that they choose to lavish their wisdom, love, and talents upon their family, their church, and their community instead of on a corporation.
Her children arise up, and call her blessed
Proverbs 31:28a
I want their babies to be the product of a loving covenantal marriage. I want them to want a man who can measure up to me. Maybe that’s prideful, but if I thought I was doing a terrible job as a man I would strive to do better. I want to set the bar high for them. I want them to choose a man who can lead them and their future children. A man who expends his energy and muscles on earning a living and caring for his family and improving his community, so that when he sits down-exhausted from his labors-she can bring him a cold beverage (and maybe a rockin’ sandwich) that expresses her gratitude and respect. In turn, he wakes up to lavish his love on her again the next day until no one can tell anymore where the cycle of respect and love stops and starts.
Her husband also, and he praiseth her.
Proverbs 31:12b
My perception is that motherhood is not considered a high and noble calling by the culture of expressive individualism in which we find ourselves. Motherhood must be selfless or it becomes poisonous. Women who want a baby to accessorize their lifestyle are comic parodies of Eve. This perception is supported by the evidence of a society that is having fewer and fewer children, targeting girls with a barrage of “you can be anything you want to be, especially if what you want to be in in the STEM fields”, and loses its mind at the thought of not being allowed to abort its babies should they be inconvenient.
So I want my daughters to want motherhood to be at the center of their being. Should they be barren, I want them to be like Mother Dimble who managed to embody motherhood without being a mother. Should the Lord bless them with children, I want them to want to raise their own babies. I don’t want them to have a child and then find the shortest route back to the work force. And after they raise their baby, I want them to want to have another baby.
Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
1 Timothy 2:15
And I want all of this because I love my daughters and think they have a high and noble calling that comes not from the world, but from the heavens. That calling is to nurture life and enrich our world. This is not the easy way out. This is a calling to live the crucified life as much as any other calling, and perhaps more so.
Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also
Luke 2:35
A calling that will require the grace and strength of God to fulfill. A calling that will shape and form their very souls. A worth while calling.
Nathan Writes 