Answer

Is It Okay to Wait Until We Feel Financially Ready to Have Children?

Maybe you and your spouse want children, but the timing feels difficult. You may be finishing school, paying down debt, or trying to become more established at work. You may be told by the culture around you that you need to feel completely secure before having children. Those are reasonable concerns, and questions a lot of couples are asking today. The voices of the world may be telling you a lot of things, but what does your Heavenly Father want you to know about having children?

After God created Adam and Eve and joined them as husband and wife, He commanded them to “be fruitful, and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that this commandment “remains in force.” This means that having children is actually central to God’s purpose for marriage, not simply something couples consider after every other part of life is settled.

President Dallin H. Oaks taught that “the decision on how many children to have and when to have them is a private matter between the husband and wife and the Lord.” He also warned that “we should not be influenced by the world’s message that children are a burden or that having children is selfish.” That counsel invites us to examine whether the desire to feel completely secure has quietly become more important than the willingness to receive the children God may want to send. See “Parents and Children.”

The difficulty is that “ready” can become a moving target.

One cultural message can make that harder. Responsible adulthood is often pictured as getting everything in place first: education finished, career established, debt reduced, savings built, housing secure. There is wisdom in preparation. The problem comes when preparation quietly becomes a requirement for near-perfect stability. Satan can magnify understandable financial fears until faith starts to feel irresponsible and postponement always feels safer.

Heavenly Father’s message is something very different: faith. A couple can plan to go forward with faith instead of waiting until life feels perfectly convenient. He wants to bless your life with children and will help you to do this every step of the way. You can seek and expect miracles as you exercise deep faith to have children.

Research by Lyman Stone adds helpful perspective. In a survey of 2,700 Canadian women, those who were older and waited to have children experienced significant regret. Despite reproductive technologies and the idea that they could wait did not mean they were able to have children when the timing was ideal. They were able to have half the number of children than they said they wanted. The research cannot tell any particular couple when to have a child, but it does show that many women experienced regret for waiting because they had smaller families than they had hoped for. Read Stone’s research.

Questions to Think About

• Which of our concerns really require preparation?
• What has shaped my idea of being financially “ready”?
• Are we seeking the Lord’s direction as seriously as we are seeking financial security?

What You Can Do This Week

Talk honestly about the concerns making you hesitate. Separate the things you can prepare for from uncertainties you cannot eliminate. Then pray together about the next step rather than feeling that you must solve your entire future now.

Jesus Christ can help you plan wisely and move forward with faith when the Lord gives direction.