Essay

The Commandment to Multiply, and the Decisions Around It

Maybe you and your spouse want children but are not sure when to begin. You may be finishing school, carrying debt, getting established in work, or simply wondering whether you are ready for the responsibility. And once children come, another question can become just as personal: How do we know how many children our family should have?

Those are sincere questions. It helps to begin with what God has already made clear: the commandment for husbands and wives to bring children into the world remains in force. Having children is not merely one possible lifestyle among many equally desirable paths for a married couple. God created marriage with the power and responsibility to welcome and raise His children, and The Family: A Proclamation to the World explicitly reaffirms that commandment.

At the same time, it does require faith to trust that if Heavenly Father wants us to have children and we are able, He will always provide a way. As you prayerfully work with Him to understand how to move forward in faith, you can resist the voices of the world that try to instill fear, remembering that God is able to help you.

God Commanded Husbands and Wives to Have Children

The commandment to have children reaches all the way back to the Creation. After God created Adam and Eve and joined them together as husband and wife, He blessed them and commanded them to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28).

The setting matters. This was the first commandment God gave Adam and Eve as husband and wife. Parenthood was not introduced centuries later as an optional religious ideal. From the beginning, God connected marriage between a man and a woman with the creation and nurturing of new life.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World repeats that doctrine in unmistakable language: “The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.”

That declaration matters in a culture that can increasingly treat children primarily as a limitation on freedom, money, travel, education, career plans, or personal fulfillment. Children certainly require sacrifice. Scripture never pretends otherwise. But God does not describe them first as burdens. Psalm 127 calls children “an heritage of the Lord” (Psalm 127:3)—something entrusted by God and received as a blessing.

That makes parenthood part of our eternal purpose. Each child is a son or daughter of Heavenly Parents who lived before mortality and came to earth to receive a body, exercise agency, learn, form covenant relationships, and progress toward eternal life through Jesus Christ. A husband and wife who welcome children are participating directly in Heavenly Father’s work by helping His sons and daughters enter mortality and then teaching, nurturing, protecting, and loving them.

So the question for a married couple is not simply, Would children fit comfortably into the life we have planned? The deeper question is, How does the Lord want us to fulfill this commandment and stewardship in the life we are building with Him?

What If We Are Not Sure We Are Ready?

The Church’s teaching on birth control encourages husbands and wives to “pray and counsel together as they plan their families.”

But the same counsel reminds us not to postpone children for purely selfish reasons. That reminder is important because it can be easy for almost any sacrifice to become a reason to wait indefinitely. There will usually be another financial goal, career milestone, trip, degree, house, or measure of security that could make parenthood seem easier later.

The purpose of personal revelation isn’t to determine whether God’s commandment still applies—He has already made that clear. Rather, revelation helps you and your spouse understand how to faithfully live that commandment within your actual circumstances.

Drew Thought He Would Never Want Children

Sometimes the life we imagine without children feels complete—until we actually become parents and realize how much deeper joy can be.

In this first-person Instagram reel, Drew Harrisberg shares how different his expectations once were. He thought he might never have children and pictured a good life filled with dogs, freedom, and the things he already loved:

Elder Andersen: The Commandment Is Real, and the Decision Is Sacred

Elder Neil L. Andersen brings these two principles together particularly well in “Children.” He first reaffirmed the Lord’s commandment concerning children and then explained how couples should make decisions about their own families.

He taught:

“When to have a child and how many children to have are private decisions to be made between a husband and wife and the Lord. These are sacred decisions—decisions that should be made with sincere prayer and acted on with great faith.”

Interestingly, Elder Andersen does not say that having children itself is simply a private preference. The commandment has already been revealed. The private decision concerns the circumstances, timing, and number of children within a marriage.

Elder Andersen also taught, “We should not judge one another on this matter.” A couple with two children may be seeking the Lord just as sincerely as a couple with six. Looking at another family from the outside tells you little about pregnancies, infertility, miscarriages, health problems, personal revelation, or other circumstances that shaped their decisions.

When Children Begin to Look Mostly Like a Burden

One of the most important cultural messages to notice is the way children are increasingly discussed in terms of what adults must give up to have them.

Young adults may hear that children will restrict travel, slow a career, strain finances, reduce freedom, complicate relationships, interfere with education, or make life more stressful. Some of those costs are real. Raising children does require sacrifice, and pretending otherwise would not help anyone prepare for parenthood wisely.

The distortion comes when cost becomes the primary way we measure the value of children.

Satan can make understandable concerns more spiritually powerful by keeping our attention fixed on everything children might take from us while obscuring what God intends children, mothers, fathers, and families to become together. The answer is not to pretend sacrifice is easy. It is to remember that sacrifice and joy are not opposites.

What Does the Research Suggest About Marriage, Children, and Happiness?

Brad Wilcox’s work gives useful context to that cultural message. In this conversation about Gen Z, marriage, and children, Wilcox discusses projections from the Institute for Family Studies suggesting that a substantial share of Gen Z may never marry or have children. He also challenges the increasingly common assumption that avoiding marriage and children is more likely to preserve freedom and produce a happier life.

Research summarized by the Institute for Family Studies complicates the idea that avoiding the responsibilities of family necessarily leads to greater happiness. Analyses of national survey data have found high levels of reported happiness among married mothers and fathers, even though parenthood brings significant responsibilities and sacrifice.

That research does not prove the doctrine, and it cannot tell you when to have a child. Revelation establishes why marriage and children matter. But the findings are worth considering because they challenge a cultural assumption that can become easy to absorb: that the life with fewer obligations will naturally be the happier one.

Marriage and parenthood ask much of us because they draw us into deep relationships and lasting responsibilities. Yet those same relationships can also become some of life’s deepest sources of meaning, belonging, love, growth, and joy. That fits remarkably well with the Lord’s description of children not primarily as burdens to manage, but as a blessing entrusted to us.

What If Our Circumstances Are Complicated?

For some couples, this question carries much more than ordinary uncertainty. Pregnancy may place unusual demands on a mother’s physical or mental health. A couple may experience infertility, repeated miscarriage, serious financial instability, or circumstances they did not choose.

The Lord knows those realities. Church guidance specifically tells husbands and wives to consider physical and mental health when planning their families. Taking a serious health condition seriously is not the same thing as rejecting the commandment to have children.

Sometimes a faithful couple’s family will simply not become what they once imagined. Elder Andersen has spoken compassionately about couples who long for children they cannot have and those who expected a larger family than mortality allowed. God knows the difference between deliberately setting aside His commandment and faithfully desiring to follow Him while facing circumstances outside your control.

That is also why judgment has no useful place here. You can teach confidently that children are a commandment and blessing without assuming you know why another family has the number of children it does.

A Few Questions Worth Thinking About

• When I think about children, have I started viewing them mainly through what they might cost me, or do I also see the eternal purposes God has connected to parenthood?
• Are my spouse and I treating having children as a commandment we are prayerfully trying to fulfill, or merely as one possible addition to the life we have already planned?
• Which of our concerns reflect wise stewardship, and which might be fears or cultural assumptions that we need to bring more honestly before the Lord?

A Few Things You Can Do Right Now

Study what God has actually said about children. Read Genesis 1:28, Psalm 127:3, and the sections on children and parenthood in The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Before deciding when or how many, make sure you understand why God gave the commandment in the first place.

Talk together about what is shaping your thinking. Ask each other what you hope for, what concerns you, and what messages about children you may have absorbed from family, social media, work, friends, or the surrounding culture. Listen without trying to win the discussion.

Then pray specifically about your family. Bring Heavenly Father your health, finances, education, hopes, fears, and limitations. If medical or mental-health concerns are important, seek trustworthy professional information so you understand your circumstances clearly. Then ask not merely, What do we want? but Father, how would Thou have us fulfill this commandment?

You do not have to determine the entire future of your family today. But you can begin from the truth God has already revealed: children are part of His plan, bringing them into the world is a commandment for husbands and wives, and parenthood is meant to be received as sacred work rather than viewed principally as an obstacle to the life you want. As you counsel together and seek the Lord sincerely, Jesus Christ can help you become wise enough to consider your real circumstances and faithful enough to follow His direction. He can help you build a family life shaped not primarily by fear or cultural expectations, but by covenant, revelation, love, and the good purposes of God.