I was listening to the radio this morning and I heard a little snip-it: “Here’s a thought: Children are a great comfort in your old age. They will also help you reach it faster.”
While this made me chuckle inside, almost immediately it also made me indignant. There is a grain of truth in the fact that children cause a good deal of stress and require a great deal of attention and work. Some of the hardest work in the world is training, shaping, and loving a person from infancy into adulthood. Getting them to decent adulthood is even harder than that. And training mighty men and women up from the selfish children they start out being is a task so big only God can do it.
However, I do not believe children rob us of our youthfulness. I believe they extend it! There is nothing to keep you young like a 18 month old who likes to get into everything. Talk about a work out! It also keeps my mind sharp to be always aware of where he is, not to mention being aware of how I am training him. Yes, it is also tiring, but just because it tires me out does not mean it is stealing my youth. Nothing worth having was easily attained.
Just for giggles I looked up synonyms to “youthful” and these are some: enthusiastic, fresh, full of life, keen, vigorous, active, buoyant. In my opinion, these things are encouraged and grow stronger in my life BECAUSE I have children. Some reduction in these qualities is normal because…well…big surprise…..I’m growing older. But they are kept alive longer because my children keep me young.