Ep. 303: Am I Ready to Be a Parent?

Voiceover:

Welcome to the indoubt Podcast, where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s word. For more info on indoubt visit indoubt.ca or indoubt.com.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, this is Daniel Markin with indoubt, and today I’m talking with Bonnie Pue, her and her husband run The Union Movement, and basically what they’re doing is they’re bringing a gospel-centered holistic approach to the topics of sexuality, identity, and relationships. And so, what we’re talking about today is parenting and looking at, okay, as young adults we’re looking forward to, many of us are looking ahead to being parents, but we feel so woefully ill-equipped to do this, we don’t have the skills, we don’t know what to do, should we do this? And so Bonnie and I actually talk through this, and she shares, hey, here’s the biblical vision for children and how we can actually all go about doing this. So if you’re looking to get married and you think about having kids one day, we hope that this episode will be helpful.

Hey, welcome to indoubt, this is Daniel Markin, and today I’m joined by Bonnie Pue, her and her husband run The Union Movement. So rather than me explaining this, Bonnie, why don’t you introduce yourself, say hello to our audience, but then also tell us a little bit about what The Union Movement is and how you maybe got into that in the first place.

Bonnie Pue:

Yeah, you bet. Well first of all, thanks for having me, it’s a privilege to be here and to chat with you about all these things. Yeah, my name is Bonnie, and I live in Western Canada, in the Fraser Valley area with my husband, and we’ve almost been married 15 years, and we have six sons that range from almost 14 to almost two years old, so it’s a busy, busy life that we lead, but we are loving it, and we love them.

Daniel Markin:

I just can’t imagine, sorry, I can’t imagine the grocery bill that that’s going to be in a few years here, or even now.

Bonnie Pue:

Legit. I am like, okay, there’s a thing called Meatless Monday, and just trying to find ways to be a creative cook.

Daniel Markin:

Wow, yeah.

Bonnie Pue:

Yeah, it’s legit. They’re keeping up with, some of the older ones are keeping up with their dad now.

Daniel Markin:

Wow.

Bonnie Pue:

Taco salad night is, it’s a sight to behold.

Daniel Markin:

It’s the whole cow.

Bonnie Pue:

Yeah, yeah, legit. Yeah, so that’s a large part of our life, but another thing that we have started is this ministry called The Union Movement, really to help people find wholeness in the areas of sexuality and identity and relationships, and also to be a resource and an encouragement for the local church, local church leaders, who are also wanting to do that for their congregations but might feel underequipped or not sure how to talk about things in a biblical, compassionate tone.

So we create resources and do events and are just wanting to multiply voices who are willing to share their own testimony of how God has restored in areas of sexuality, be willing to just start talking about it, because there really is a generation who is desperate to hear the truth, and it’s an intimidating topic to go near, but we just believe that the church is supposed to be the safest place for these conversations.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. So where we’re going to head today in this is we’re going to be talking a little bit about family, and talking about young adults and looking forward to families, because I know a lot of young adults, a lot of people my age, that’s a desire, and many are, they want to be married, and then the next step in that is, hey, I want to have a family, hey, I want to know what that looks like. But then there’s so many other questions and a sense of, I’ve no idea what to do, and maybe even questions of should I do this? Am I equipped to do this? Am I the right type of person for this? Would it be better for me to just not do that and let other people be parents? And so maybe as we begin to jump into this, what are some of the cultural philosophies right now in Canada that are either persuading or dissuading young adults to have kids?

Bonnie Pue:

Yeah, that’s a good question. Well one thing that I think in Canada particularly is going to be dissuading a lot of people is just going to be the sense of the cost of children, the sense of could I be rich enough to raise children? And I know there’s even numbers of, “So and so says it’s going to take this many thousands of dollars to raise a child to adulthood,” and sometimes I wonder if those people are estimating knowing that you’re allowed to shop at thrift stores, you’re allowed to use coupons for grocery bills. But I also wonder, they might not know how many tubes of toothpaste get squeezed into the sink, and how many bottles of shampoo are used as bubble bath. That’s been a reality in our life. Anyway, so I would say cost is probably a big question, and I would even say fear, in people’s mind of what if we don’t have enough?

I think also culturally there’s been a big shift where once children were seen as an incredible gift, I think that a lot of people see them as a liability, and I don’t know if that’s been the case for you. I know you have children as well, but sometimes it feels like I have to defend my kids from this, I don’t know, a cultural atmosphere that’s just like, you’re a burden little child, you’re messy and you’re loud and you’re invasive.

And so I think that kind of philosophy comes in, I’ve definitely had conversations with people, I think especially because we have a large family, then maybe it becomes people want to talk to me about it, or we become a target for some of that negativity towards children, whereas scripture, God is very clear children are a blessing. It says in Psalms 1:27, “Children are a reward, they are an inheritance, they are a blessing.” And so when we start to think of children the way God does, I think that shapes whether we’re going to be willing to include them in our lifestyle or our plan for the future.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. One thing I sense as a guy, and one of the things I was worried about is can I actually provide for a little family? Right now my twin girls are six months old, and they don’t cost us a whole lot. The food bill’s pretty low, but I know it’s going to get more expensive, so that’s definitely something. But we also are in a time, and I think you were getting to that, about there’s a real stronghold over Canada, and the Western world, the children being at burden. But I think that stems away from a culture of death, and we, rather than bring on this beautiful family and experience life with them, so often it’s the case of no, it’s going to interfere with your life, put that life to death so that your life isn’t affected. And so at the heart of it maybe it’s a selfishness, and being a parent, but even being in a relationship, being married, that’s selfless, and the more selfless you are, I think the easier it gets. What do you think?

Bonnie Pue:

Yeah, absolutely. If I can say something quickly about the provision thing.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bonnie Pue:

And then we’ll come back to this thing of selflessness. In our life I have been, I mean, we have definitely had the months where it’s like, is there going to be money, God? The ups and downs, you see inflation, or there’s economic downturns. My husband got laid off when we were first married, first had twins, it was chaotic. And the amount of fear that we faced, you had to face it, you couldn’t just let it wash over you, and we just started saying, “Good thing the gas company or the gas station isn’t my provider. Good thing this employer isn’t my provider, but God is my provider,” and time and time again there has been just miraculous provision, even at the last minute where it’s like, where was that? There’s no way we could have manufactured that, thank you God.

And it actually, even as our children are dependent on us for provision, it’s almost like they are a blessing because they force us to be dependent on our Heavenly Father in a new way, where it’s like we can kind of manage our life like, oh, I’m just single, or just me and just a few of us, me and my spouse and one or two kids, okay, we can do this on our own, but there is a blessing in children that it actually pushes us to dependence on our Heavenly Father and it reminds us of our frailty as humans. And so just for those who are listening who are like, I’m scared about money, just lean into that, God, are you actually a provider? Can you miraculously do things for me? And I, from 15 years of experience, would say absolutely he can.

So it’s a beautiful thing, but it does, it links into this selflessness, to the death to yourself, to when you try to hold onto your life, you lose it, but when you are willing to lay it down suddenly you find it in a different way, through the words of Jesus. Yeah, you know what? There’s a story that I read in a book about the missionary Amy Carmichael, are you familiar with her? She did some work in-

Daniel Markin:

I’m not.

Bonnie Pue:

She did some work in India, I’m not really good with all the details of life, I get the bigger themes. But this one part of her story, she was a single woman, felt this grip, gripped her heart, was the story of all the orphans in India, some who were being used as temple slaves, and she was like, “I want to go to India and I want to make a difference there.” So she goes there, and she would go and rescue orphans and then bring them to, she created an orphanage and set up education for them, and liberating girls, and all this stuff.

But what she started to realize was that these children, so she kept going out, she would come back to the orphanage and be with the kids, and then she’d go out and rescue some more and then come back, and come and go, be a speaker, and be all these things. But she started to realize that those children needed the permanence of her maternal figure there with them, and so she gave up the more, I don’t want to say flashy, but the work of I’m going out there and I’m doing something in the public eye, and she just was like, I’m just going to stay here with the kids, and in a bit of a secret place I’m going to minister to them.

And she says this line, she says, “May my feet be bound for the sake of him whose feet were pierced.” And when I read that, as a mom, I mean, by having lots of children, and deciding to even be a stay at home mom, and now we’re deciding to homeschool, there are times where I go, I am giving up of my, some of my dreams still haven’t come true. Here I am, I’m 37 years old, I still haven’t done all the things that I dreamed I would do when I was 16, 17, 18. But I think of her and I go, may my feet be bound for the sake of him whose feet were pierced, that I would be devoted to this little group right here, raising up disciples, trying to show them that they’re valuable to me, and I just think that there is, I don’t know, there’s a beauty in the quiet hidden sacrifice for our children.

Daniel Markin:

Totally. Let me ask you this, so imagine a young, new married couple, how do they know what it takes to be a parent? Or can you know? I feel like there’s a sense of it’s like, you can read all the books you want, but it doesn’t matter. But how would you counsel someone who’s like, we don’t know if we have what it takes, and we think maybe we’re not the right people to be parents, what would you say to them?

Bonnie Pue:

Yeah, that is a really good question. I would say that I would probably, if I was having a one on one conversation with someone who was saying I don’t know that I have what it takes, or I don’t think I could do it, I would probably ask them maybe about their own story, because a lot of times there’s some pretty deep wounding that comes from your family of origin that can make you just right away say, first of all, what I went through, I never want anyone else to have to go through, and I’ve never seen a good mother or a good father in action and I don’t want to mess it up, which I get that, that makes a lot of sense.

So for me, my husband and I got married at 22, and three months after we got married then we found out we were pregnant, and then we found out it was twins. So we had two babies by our first anniversary, and it was real. I wanted children, my family of origin wasn’t perfect by any means but definitely was a place of, good values were passed to me and I knew that we were important to my parents. So I wanted children, and was leaning into that, and yet when you are in the middle of it it is exhausting and you’re like, what? You’re just sending these babies home with me and now I’m supposed to know what I’m doing? And yeah, you have Google, and you have these books, and you hopefully have a community around you, but you’re still like, you’re the one who has to get up in the night, and you’re the one who has to change that diaper again and figure out how to do solids.

Anyways, so I remember feeling very overwhelmed. I remember this went, so we have, like I said, all sons, so twins are Samuel and Micah, they were probably six or seven months at the time, and I remember one day just being particularly exhausted, and my son Samuel had woken up early from a nap and I was giving him a bottle, and I had laid him on the couch, and I was just kneeling in front of him, just so tired, but praying/crying/exhausted and I just remember saying, “God, I can’t do this.” Well first I said, “God, I didn’t ask for twins, I didn’t know that that’s what I was signing up for.” And then the wisdom of God, he just gently was like, “Which one would you not want?” And I was like, never mind, never mind, wrong question, okay, never mind. But still, in exhaustion, “God I don’t think I can do this.”

And probably hormones included in the mix of it all, that’s real, that’s really real, for any young mom listening. So then I felt that the Holy Spirit say another thing to me, he said, “I never told you thou shalt have a clean kitchen.” So it’s just like he’s trying to just take these layers off me, no, no, some of that pressure, I can’t do it all, I can’t keep up. Okay, that’s one more thing. But still just my heart, God help me, I don’t know how to do this. And I’ll never forget what I heard him whisper to me is he said, “Can you look your son in the face and tell him that he’s valuable?” And I was like, “Yeah, I could do that.”

So then it was almost like this bar set for me, when I felt overwhelmed, when I was like, I can’t do this, this is too hard, then I would, at that age, when they were three year olds, when they were six year olds with temper tantrums or learning things and I’m overwhelmed, I would just be like, “Boys, look at me. You are important to me, I’m so glad you’re in my life,” and I just would just defy, I guess it was like I would defy my inadequacies with just, I’m just going to try to love you, I’m just going to try.

So that’s a base level, but then another thing for those who never had an example of a parent and didn’t have it modeled, then I would just say spend time looking to the heavenly Father and ask him to reveal himself, and then point to the heavenly father all the time, look to him and see how he is and that be your model. Because even the best parents are still flawed, and we’re still going to hurt our children, and we’re still going to, ugh man, we are just imperfect. But if we just keep pointing towards the father, looking towards him, it says that, “As we behold him we will become more like him.”

And then I would say also, just look for moms and dads who look like they’re enjoying it, and again, not perfect, but ones who look like they’re enjoying their children, or their grandchildren, and who are enjoying them without idolizing them, or smothering them, or spoiling them, and ask them real questions. And I think that that’s one of the beautiful pieces of the local church, the body of Christ, is that for those who maybe have felt orphaned, whether literally or just metaphorically, where they feel alone, it’s like God always intended that there’d be a backup family, like here’s a family that you can be around and you can glean from, I think it’s an underrated piece of the local church, the value of being a part of a community.

Daniel Markin:

Absolutely. I would also say too, for those maybe listening who are like, I didn’t have that, I actually had no dad, I had no mom. As a new young couple, as a young, married, expecting couple, you can change that narrative. That family history controlling you. In the same way that we were slaves to sin and now we’re slaves to Christ, we can actually be not slaves to our past, but walk in a new way, and show these children, hey, we’re going to do our best to not do what our parents did, or what they didn’t do because they weren’t there. So there’s actually an opportunity to have that narrative going forward and to build that, which I think is really, really, really important and really cool.

Bonnie Pue:

I am with you, I just really, I think that’s really important. I think so many times we feel that the past has to dictate our future, and it’s simply not true. I’m thinking of somebody I know where I know that this person believes that because of the choices they made in the past, even around the area of abortion, they feel like there’s no way they’re worthy to be a parent now, even though their life has been transformed, but that’s still just something in their mind, they’re like, I can’t be a parent, I’m not good enough. In these really painful places I have failed, or I have sinned, and I hate that about my past. And that’s even the message we always want to bring, is God actually has the ability to make you a new creation.

So I love what you were saying there, a new narrative, a new creation where it’s not just you are a new and improved version of yourself, but you are brand new, fresh start, and God starts to heal those painful, shameful places of your life and you end up living a life you never dreamed possible. And I was a church kid, my husband was not, and his teen years he would say, “I don’t deserve the life I’m living right now.” I mean, neither do I, but he is all the more aware of it because of the darkness that he walked in for so long. And so even in that, being a parent has actually brought healing to him, because he realizes the grace of God and the kindness of God in giving him a life he didn’t deserve.

Daniel Markin:

It’s so good. We’re coming to a little bit towards the end of the time we have here, but one common thing I always hear is people saying, how can I bring a child into this broken world?

Bonnie Pue:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

It’s always like, this world’s so messed up, I don’t want to bring children into it. Elise and I definitely thought about that and we’re like, our world’s so crazy right now, especially because we got pregnant during the whole COVID, in the middle of that, it’s like, oh wow, this is going to be wild. And yet, one of the things I’ve learned, is and while not everyone can have kids, it is the mandate of God to be fruitful and to multiply, and as believers it’s not actually a choice, like maybe we’ll be fruitful and maybe we’ll multiply. It’s actually God’s design is that you’re married and that you multiply. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a guarantee. For example, parents who struggle with infertility, you might not be able to multiply in that specific way, but you can multiply in other ways, and you can be fruitful in other ways. And so that, to me, I always just think about, oh it’s such a broken world, actually we are commanded to do this.

Bonnie Pue:

Yeah, I just recently read that the majority of, I think it was a statistic from the States, but I could imagine Canadians might agree, but a large percentage of the population was in agreement that they believed that fatherlessness was one of the greatest travesties of this generation, that they were seeing that so many other social issues were stemming from fatherlessness. And a Canadian stat is that lone parent families have actually increased by 145% since the 1970s. So you think, okay, so if fatherlessness, I’ll even say motherless, because I believe that that is an epidemic that is growing that doesn’t get talked about a lot, is the pain that can come from not having a present nurturing mother in your world, if those are the things that are breaking our nation, then would it not be true that the heart of a mother and a father could also heal the nations?

And I love what you’re saying there, it’s not about how many kids you have, it’s about what you do with the kids you do have, and the children around you. And that’s where I, again, don’t know that the church talks enough about the way Jesus embraced children, and he wasn’t too busy for them. There’s that story of where the disciples were like, “No, no, no, hey, Jesus is just in the middle of some stuff right now,” and Jesus said, “Don’t stop the children from coming to me,” and he would say, “The Kingdom belongs to people like them.” And so he was so honoring to children, and I think that men and women, whether you’re single, whether you’re married, whether you are able to have children biologically or not, what do you do with the children around you? How do you treat them?

And every time I talk about this kind of stuff I’m like, I’m convicted, this isn’t like I’m nailing this every day, but oh, Lord, let us get closer to what you’re like. So I think that even just our posture, will we mother and father those around us? And then also this how can I bring a child into this broken world? And I think of the story in Exodus of Jochebed, and how at a time when the Israelites were enslaved to the Egyptians, and there’s this mandate that goes out from Pharaoh saying all little boys to and under are going to be massacred, and yet Jochebed and her husband have another son, and his name is Moses. So I just go, if they had a… I mean, I know birth control is not the thing, it wasn’t an option, but I just go, what if they didn’t have a child? Then I’m sure the Lord could have raised up another deliverer.

But we don’t know who our children will become, and I think that’s where the hope of destiny, which I think is almost like this resource buried deep in the soul, I think of most people that just have this sense of, I think I’m made for something great, but what if also my children could do something great, and what if I could invest in the ones, what if I could multiply myself into children who could rise up and be deliverers, and maybe they could be the leaders of a nation, maybe they could be, I’m thinking maybe they could be coaches of a basketball team and they could mentor that kid who doesn’t have a father, maybe that kid could become something. Just the exponential effect of our lives when we think beyond ourselves. And so yeah, you never know when Moses might be born, and so I go let’s be hopeful, believe for deliverance.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, and do some difficult work. But just as we end this here, all good things in life, the best things, are some of the hardest things.

Bonnie Pue:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

But oh, they’re so rewarding. And I had, before Elise and I got married, we had so many people being like, “It’s so hard being married, so sanctifying, it’s such an adjustment,” and we were like, oh. And then we finally had some other friends who said, “Guys, getting married, being married, is so fun, it’s really fun.” And there’s a sense of that, it’s like, oh yeah, as soon as we got married Elise and I are like, this is how we were designed, this feels so normal, so natural. And the same way with kids, it’s a lot of fun.

Bonnie Pue:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

We’re in six months, my girls in the other room screaming their heads off, it’s hilarious, they’re in the Jolly Jumper. There’s the late evenings, but it’s fun, it’s beautiful, and so as we think about that, it’s be fruitful and multiple.

Bonnie Pue:

I love it. It is truly one of, it is such a rewarding thing, and it is, I mean, the other day I went for a hike with my twin sons, Sam and Micah, almost 14, and I’m like, “Let’s just go do this hike together.” And then we get to the top, but we’re able to just laugh together, and I’m like, my children are becoming, not quite, I still have to be their parent, but they’re becoming my friends, I want to hang out with them, how incredible. And that we’re running down the mountain together and I’m just like, God, I’m so glad that I’m still young enough to enjoy them, and I don’t know, it is truly a beautiful thing to build a family.

Daniel Markin:

Well Bonnie, thank you for your time, thank for joining us, I feel like we could keep going on this for a while, but yeah, we really appreciate it, thank you for being with us in the program today.

Bonnie Pue:

Yeah, it’s an honor to be with you guys. Thanks for having me.

Voiceover:

Thanks so much for listening. If you want to hear more, subscribe on iTunes or Spotify, or visit us online at indoubt.ca or indoubt.com. We’re also on social media, so make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Daniel Markin:

Indoubt is a ministry that exists to engage young people with biblical truth and provide answers for many of today’s questions of life, faith, and culture. Through audio programs, articles, and blogs, In Doubt reaches out to encourage, strengthen, and disciple young adults. To check out all the resources of In Doubt, visit indoubt.ca in Canada, or indoubt.com in US. Or if you’re in a position, or share a passion for the ministry of young people, you can support the ongoing mission of engaging a new generation with the truth of the Bible. First you can pray for this ministry, and second, and if you are able, please consider a financial gift by visiting indoubt.ca in Canada, or indoubt.com in the US. Your gift of any amount is such a blessing and an answer to prayer. Thanks.