Faith and Life commentary: Parenting is not for everybody
5/20/1998 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn. By Phil Wogaman* First comes Mother's Day. Then, six weeks later, we have Father's Day. Each year, I am reminded of the truth that while not everybody is a parent, everybody has had parents. It is always a good season for celebrating the nurturing support most of us received from our parents.
Most parents have been pretty good at that job, most of the time - due allowances being made for those parents who are more destructive than nurturing. We can celebrate the enduring and positive influence upon their children that most parents have had. And we can reassure parents that they don't have to be perfect to do well what parents are called to do.
There is, however, a certain mixed message about these celebrations. It is not just that some children have good reason to be bitter about their mothers or fathers. I am thinking of the unintended cruelty the celebrations inflict upon those who have yearned to have children but have not been able to.
To be sure, some have been able to adopt children - even single parents of adopted children have often been spectacularly successful. But circumstances have not always made that possible. Even those who do not choose to be parents can feel excluded by the celebrations. They may ask, is having children essential to human fulfillment?
A biblical passage, somewhat surprisingly, makes clear that it is not. In a cultural setting where one's whole future was tied up with having descendants, Isaiah 56:4-5 has a word for people who are not even capable of having children: "Thus says the Lord, To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give … a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off."
That is not against having sons and daughters. But it is an important reminder that it takes more than sons and daughters to create an everlasting future. We hope the human venture will last a long time. If we are responsible stewards of planet earth, that can mean millions of years. But the time will come when the human venture on earth will have played out. What then?
That is finally a religious question. Faith in God and cooperation with God is the only possible basis for an unlimited future. When Isaiah speaks of God's covenant, it is a reference to an everlasting community of love. Good parents, the mothers and fathers we justly honor, participate in that as they nurture children to be loving people.
Isaiah's point is that everybody, including those who are not parents, can also be participants in that community. It is better to be a non-parent who contributes to God's eternal purposes than a parent who does not. Not everybody is or should be a parent. But everybody can participate, with parents, in the creation of a future that matters.
I think Isaiah was right about that. For each of us, there can be an "everlasting name that shall not be cut off."
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*Wogaman, pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington and a seminary professor of Christian ethics, is the author of 13 books. He is a clergy member of the Baltimore-Washington United Methodist Annual (regional) Conference.
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