August 19, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A child is an ordinary miracle, and I am thrilled to announce that my wife Charmaine and I were blessed with the arrival of a second one, a little boy to join our gorgeous little girl. He is already loved by his parents, his extended family, many friends, and his big sister, who sensed that the interloper was a ruse to distract her from coloring (her most recent obsession). It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to get to know our first feisty one, and we are looking forward to seeing who our little boy is, too. So far, he is simply content to sleep as long as he is in close proximity to his mother.
Those of you who read my column regularly will know that I spend quite a bit of time analyzing and reporting on the cultural decline that we see unfolding all around us, as we lustily trash everything from morality to reality. (Two or three generations without God, and we cannot even tell the difference between a girl and a boy anymore.) But I was reminded that there are still incredible blessings that we have today which did not exist for our grandparents. When our daughter was born, my wife lost a lot of blood and had to be rushed from the delivery room for emergency surgery. Fifty years ago, the doctor told me, she may not have survived the hemorrhaging. A century ago, it would have been fatal. There are moments when I am unbelievably glad to live now, in this time.
It is also heartwarming to receive congratulations from members of the pro-life and pro-family movement from around the world, and to be reminded once again that there are pockets of resistance in every country filled by those who reject the suicidal and selfish sentiments of the secular class who advocate an end to children due to impending climate catastrophe. (They say we must do this for the children they say we should not have, and do not seem aware of the irony.) Despite the high-profile spokespeople these grinches have bagged – Prince Harry being the most recent example – those who fight for life and family respond to the arrival of another little one with joy, and that joy is infectious.
As someone who works in the pro-life movement, I have also seen how difficult having a child can be for so many people. As our society has atomized, marriage has become increasingly transient. The family has fallen apart. People have fallen through the cracks and stumbled in the rubble of the Sexual Revolution. On the streets, we hear it over and over again: Women and girls desperate with worry, scared that if they have a baby, there will be no one to help them. In one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives, they fear that nobody will be there to help them through – not the father, not an extended family, not a church community. In contrast, my wife recently remarked how nice it is to have to not worry about meals or cleaning or rides to appointments due to all the offers from family, friends, and members of our church community. This is what real privilege looks like, and we are grateful to be reminded of it.
Watching my little boy reach for his mother and calm down the moment he senses her, I was reminded again of the profound power of motherhood, an influence that the secular world has forgotten as they attempt to work out how we can best outsource the raising of our children to strangers so that we can be fulfilled working for strangers and making more money, losing time that can’t be bought. In the words of William Ross Wallace:
They say that man is mighty,
He governs land and sea,
He wields a mighty scepter
O’er lesser powers than he.
But a mighty power and stronger
Man from his throne has hurled:
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.
Jonathon’s new podcast, The Van Maren Show, is dedicated to telling the stories of the pro-life and pro-family movement. In his latest episode, he interviews Bobby Schindler, brother of Terri Schiavo. They discuss the inside story of the fight to save his sister’s life and the work he does now to protect the medically vulnerable. You can subscribe here and listen to the episode below:
