Essay

Why Have Children?

You may have wondered:

Why should I have children when raising them seems so expensive and exhausting? What if I want children someday but do not feel ready yet? Can I still have a meaningful life without becoming a parent? What does this commandment mean for people who cannot have children?

These are understandable questions. Young adults today hear a constant stream of messages about what children might cost—time, money, sleep, freedom, travel, career opportunities, and personal space.

But Jesus Christ invites us to see children as more than a list of sacrifices. Heavenly Father has a plan for His sons and daughters, and bringing His spirit children into mortality is part of that plan. Marriage and parenthood are not merely traditions or social expectations. They are part of God’s plan to help His children receive bodies, grow in families, make covenants, and become more like Him.

That does not mean parenthood is easy or that you must feel completely ready before moving forward. Most people probably never feel fully prepared for something as important as becoming a parent.

Nephi faced a very different commandment, but his words can help whenever God asks us to do something that feels bigger than we are:

“I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them” (1 Nephi 3:7).

Nephi did not know exactly how everything would work out. He moved forward because he trusted that if God asked something of him, God would also help him do it.

Why Was Parenthood God’s First Commandment?

The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches:

“The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife.”

That teaching begins in the Creation story. In Genesis 1:27–28, God creates Adam and Eve, male and female, in His image. Then He blesses them and commands them to “be fruitful, and multiply.”

Parenthood appears at the beginning of the human story—not as a burden added later, but as part of the life God invited Adam and Eve to build together.

Modern revelation makes this connection even clearer. Doctrine and Covenants 49:15–17 teaches that marriage is ordained of God and connects marriage with the purpose for which the earth was created.

Heavenly Father’s spirit children need bodies to continue their eternal journey. He allows husbands and wives to take part in that sacred work—to bring children into mortality, love them, teach them, and help them come to know Him.

What Could Parenthood Give You?

It is one thing to understand this doctrine and another to imagine what parenthood might mean for your own life.

In this short first-person reel, Drew Harrisberg describes how he once thought of himself as someone who did not want children:

“I don’t want kids. I’m a dog guy.”

But becoming a father changed the way he understood what he wanted from life.

Your Eternal Identity Includes a Family

Elder Kim B. Clark taught in “Identity and Purpose in God’s Eternal Plan” that one part of our eternal identity is becoming “fathers and mothers in an eternal family.”

He later made the teaching more personal:

“You are husbands and wives, mothers and fathers in God’s eternal plan.”

This does not mean your worth depends on being married or having children right now. It also does not mean that every person will experience marriage or parenthood in the same way or at the same time.

It does mean that marriage and parenthood are connected to the eternal future Heavenly Father is preparing His children to receive. Knowing that can change the way you think about marriage, children, sacrifice, and the decisions you make today.

Who Is Shaping the Way You See Children?

Many online conversations focus on what children might take away: freedom, money, sleep, travel, career flexibility, and personal time.

Those concerns are real. Raising children requires time, money, patience, and sacrifice. But social media often shows only one side of life. A single, child-free life may appear more flexible, peaceful, or exciting when the difficult parts of that life remain off-camera.

What can be left out is what children can give and what caring for them can help adults become.

If freedom, comfort, luxury, and personal achievement become the main measures of a successful life, nearly every serious responsibility can begin to look like a loss. Marriage, parenthood, service, and discipleship all require us to give something away—but they can also enlarge our capacity to love.

The adversary may not need to convince people that children are bad. It may be enough to make parenthood seem inconvenient, frightening, or endlessly postponable while other goals always feel more urgent.

What if some of the strongest cultural messages about children and happiness are incomplete?

Do Marriage and Children Really Make People Happier?

In a 2025 survey of 3,000 American women ages 25–55, Jean Twenge, Jenet Erickson, Wendy Wang, and Brad Wilcox found that married mothers reported particularly high levels of happiness. They were also more likely to report meaning and purpose in life:

This research does not mean that every mother is happy all the time or that marriage and children remove hardship. It also does not mean that people who are single, childless, infertile, or not yet parents cannot live meaningful and joyful lives.

It does challenge the assumption that parenthood is simply a threat to women’s happiness. For many people, marriage and raising children are sources of meaning, identity, connection, and fulfillment.

When the Desire for Children Brings Grief

For some people, the question is not whether they want children. It is whether children will ever come.

Infertility, miscarriage, health challenges, delayed marriage, divorce, or other circumstances can make parenthood impossible for now. That can bring real grief, especially when you sincerely want to follow what God has commanded.

In “Children,” Elder Neil L. Andersen acknowledged this pain and offered reassurance:

“Faithful members whose circumstances do not allow them to receive the blessings of eternal marriage and parenthood in this life will receive all promised blessings in the eternities”

Heavenly Father knows the difference between a commandment someone is unwilling to keep and a righteous desire that circumstances have prevented someone from fulfilling.

For some couples, adoption may become a beautiful way to welcome children into their family. Others may find meaningful opportunities to foster, teach, mentor, serve in the Church, or become a steady and loving presence in the lives of nieces, nephews, neighbors, and other children.

These opportunities do not erase the grief of infertility or delayed parenthood. But they can help people continue giving and receiving love while trusting God with the future.

A Few Things to Think About

1. What voices are shaping my fears about having children?
2. Are those voices helping me understand God’s purposes, or are they focusing only on what children might cost me?
3. Could raising children become part of my growth in Christ rather than an obstacle to it?
4. What would it look like to move toward marriage and parenthood in faith instead of waiting for everything to be perfect?