Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies [Paperback]

Steve Watters (Author), Candice Watters (Author)

Book Description

Release date: December 29, 2008

Starting a family is a soul-shaping, world-altering experience. Unfortunately, in a culture of competing values and protracted timelines, couples are increasingly backing their way into parenting or missing it altogether. By the time the average couple tries to have kids, they are often beyond their late twenties and surprised to learn they are sliding past the peak of their fertile years.

In Start Your Family, Steve and Candice Watters encourage couples to be intentional about their timeline in the early years of marriage and to trust God to help them boldly launch their families. Responding to the most common doubts and hurdles, they offer biblical inspiration for the questions: Why have kids? When is the best time to start?  How can we fit kids into our lives?

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This book is astutely wise. It cuts against the grain of weak and fearful thinking. It will startle you and free you to trust God with your family and your future. That’s when you find what real life is all about.  You can never afford to have kids—so why not trust God and get started?”

—Steve and Mary Farrar, authors of Point Man and King Me (Steve), and Reading Your Male (Mary)

 

“A remarkable, go-against-the-grain book, with wisdom, practical advice, and biblical application bounding from every page. The Watters have written an emotionally aware and intellectually astute book that is as sensitive as it is compelling.”

—Gary Thomas, author of Sacred Marriage and Sacred Parenting

 

“Ably written and offering both practical advice and spiritual encouragement, Start Your Family should be read by every Christian couple entering into marriage or considering whether to start a family or have another child.”

—Allan Carlson, president, The Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society

 

“Just like ‘in the beginning,’ the family today is at the center of a great spiritual battle. Start Your Family will certainly inspire couples to reclaim the blessing of children and, through that, build a true culture of life.”
—Christopher West, Fellow, Theology of the Body Institute, and author of The Love That Satisfies and Good News about Sex and Marriage

Review

This book is astutely wise. It cuts against the grain of weak and fearful thinking. It will startle you and free you to trust God with your family and your future. That's when you find what real life is all about.  You can never afford to have kids--so why not trust God and get started?
-Steve and Mary Farrar, authors of Point Man and King Me (Steve), and Reading Your Male (Mary)

A remarkable, go-against-the-grain book, with wisdom, practical advice, and biblical application bounding from every page. The Watters have written an emotionally aware and intellectually astute book that is as sensitive as it is compelling.
-Gary Thomas, author of Sacred Marriage and Sacred Parenting

Ably written and offering both practical advice and spiritual encouragement, Start Your Family should be read by every Christian couple entering into marriage or considering whether to start a family or have another child.
-Allan Carlson, president, The Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society

Just like 'in the beginning,' the family today is at the center of a great spiritual battle. Start Your Family will certainly inspire couples to reclaim the blessing of children and, through that, build a true culture of life.
-Christopher West, Fellow, Theology of the Body Institute, and author of The Love That Satisfies and Good News about Sex and Marriage

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Moody Publishers; New Edition edition (December 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802458300
• ISBN-13: 978-0802458308
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #351,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Passionate, Honest, Humble ... February 4, 2009

By Callie

Format:Paperback

As a new bride, Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies, by Steve and Candice Watters, was one of the most timely books I have read in the last year. After all the work required to plan a wedding and transition into a new season of life, my pre-engagment excitement about having a baby dwindled as I simply did not want to transition yet again. This book refreshingly reminded me of my desire for children, excitement about motherhood, and the purpose of my new marriage.
Passionate, but not preachy, the Watters illustrate how their shared heart to see the next generation come forth is not just a personal conviction, but in fact God's heart and plan for His creation, even a means of fulfilling the great commission. Scripture, statistics and scientific facts come to the defense of their thesis, but not once in an overwhelming, dry, or legalistic manner. Rather, all the information is eloquently woven together in love and vulnerability through sharing their own story of having and raising babies.
Together Steve and Candice take on current cultural standards and weigh them against the word of God. Whether it is a matter of fear, ambition, or lack of desire, they challenge readers to evaluate before the Lord the source of our reasons for waiting to have children, with the reminder that a woman's fertility declines much more dramatically with age than many of us realize. Together they explain how the ways we have conformed to the world have put children on the back burner for most young couples. Today we trade having babies for dream careers and dual incomes; the richness of family homes for pottery barn style; and the rootedness of growing mulit-generational family trees for soul-mate inspired companionship marriages. Candice and Steve present a biblical call to once again view having children as part of being married, noting that though the bible condones singleness for the sake of ministry, not once does it condone voluntary childlessness as an obedient lifestyle option for married couples.
In perfect Watters fashion, this book is a call to intentionality, but even greater than that, it is a call to holiness. They don't paint a one-sided happy picture about all the joys of having a family without emphasizing the great sacrifice required to raise godly offspring for the Lord (Malachi 2:15), but with encouragement that this lifestyle of sacrifice produces selflessness and strength of character.
As my husband and I read this book together, it strengthened our understanding that having children is part of our purpose in being one flesh. We are grateful to have had access to the wisdom and facts presented in Start Your Family so early on in our marriage. I would recommend this book to all newly married and engaged couples who are interested in gaining some scriptural truth and basic facts about how (and when) to open up their lives for the possibility of babies.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Makes good points, but doesn't thoroughly examine Scriptures re: children/conception/etc, but only what fits their purpose December 20, 2011

By HeatherHH

Format:Paperback

The authors' goal with this book is to encourage Christian couples to start their families young. They make a good case for the fact that it's not necessary to have everything completely planned and that it's not a healthy mindset to feel like you want your years of "fun" together before adding children. They also make the point--which many couples miss--that a couple's fertility is not as certain as they often think it is. Many couples wait years to have children, and then don't find it as easy as expected.

This book has a very counter-cultural message, one not even that common in the church today. It's good to read a Christian book where the reader is pointed to the fact that God intended couples to have children, that it's He that provides for them, that children are a blessing, and that we need to die to self and be willing to make sacrifices for our children.

The book does contain a lot of Scripture verses, but only those that pertain to the authors' point. The authors do not take the approach of looking at what the Scriptures say about children, conception, etc, and then build their framework from there. Instead, they take the typical framework (pick x number of children), and encourage you to plan to have them early on in your marriage. And so, they look for Scriptures that might support that. The authors are definitely still in the camp of believing that Christians should be deciding how many children to have and when. There are several references to the wisdom of having your children young, when you are more energetic, your body is stronger, etc. There's an unspoken feeling that it's an unwise thing to be having children in your late 30s or 40s if you can avoid it. The assumption throughout the book is that you are going to have your "x" number of children, and so have them in the early years of your marriage, and then be done.

The authors never try to examine the question of what the Scriptures say about number of children, family planning, etc. The authors much ignore the many, many verses that make it clear that it is God who opens and closes the womb, that it's never an accident, that lots of children are a blessing, and so, they never go on to ask the questions "Why aren't we willing to have more children?" "What are the reasons we would try to stop God from giving us another child?" "Are we supposed to be the ones planning our families?"

The book is from a relatively big Christian publisher (Moody) and thus has the potential of a large audience among conservative Christians. It would be nice to see more Christian couples putting aside the mindset of putting off children longer so that they can have their "us time" first, or get more established in their careers, or whatever. It was nice to see the authors throw out our culture's assumption that we should wait to have children and see what the Scriptures said about it. It would have been much nicer to see them be willing to throw out all the assumptions and actually start with what Scripture said in making an overall framework for how Christian families should be formed.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Relevant and Encouraging April 13, 2010

By WatermarkedOne

Format:Paperback

I admit I started this book with rather negative expectations (maybe it was the horrible 1980's looking cover), but I was pleasantly surprised. I was afraid it would present a very conservative, legalistic viewpoint (something like "Wives, you should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen with a head covering or you're a sinner"), but it DIDN'T.

Our culture tells us two things about kids:
1) They're an inconvenience that will ruin your dreams, marriage, freedom, and furniture
or 2) You should only have children once you're "ready" (and what does that mean??) and have accomplished everything you want to in your career, marriage, and finances, or you're being unfair to your kids.

I wanted something that would actually present what GOD says about children. The Watters point out how we've been bombarded with messages that marriage is all about our individual happiness, and that the root of many of the anti-children messages we hear is just plain...selfishness. Next, they give examples of what the Bible says about children (do you know how much it talks about having children? Why do we never hear these verses?), both as commands and promises. The book (of course) communicates a strong message to have children, but the Watters aren't unrealistic about what it takes to raise a godly family, and they encourage practical wisdom, sacrifice, and, most of all, dependence on God. My main takeaways were:

1) God wants good things for us, and He commands us to have children (simple as that). Therefore, having children is a GOOD thing, and we don't have to listen to all the doom-and-gloom about kids
2) It's said, "Where God guides, God provides." God commands us to have and raise children for His glory, so He's going to provide what we need to do it. Don't give in to fear ("We won't be able to make ends meet!") or selfishness ("But I really, really want this set of furniture.")
3) While the Bible mentions not getting married in order to minister, it never says it's okay for a married couple to not have children in order to be in ministry. Children ARE ministry, and a beautiful, important one.
4) Fertility doesn't last forever. The feminist movement has been all about our right to "choose," but they don't tell us how easily we could miss the opportunity to choose TO have children. We need to be educated about our bodies' natural rhythm of fertility.

Some of the most profound parts of the book were quotes from Gary Thomas' book Sacred Parenting: How Raising Children Shapes Our Souls. Thomas talks about how God uses children (and all the experiences that come with raising them) to mold us into Christ's image. I want to be like Jesus, so why would I pass up such a powerful tool that God obviously uses to sanctify us? It's like choosing to take a journey to Mordor--we know it will be difficult, but we'll be far different people at the end than if we stay apathetically in the Shire. The crucible is worth it. (Gary Thomas also wrote an amazing book called Sacred Marriage, where he talks about how God uses marriage to sanctify us. It's by far the best marriage book I've read.)

The Watters are brave to write something that is so counter-cultural (I can't imagine the backlash they must get) that manages to stay applicable to the struggles modern young couples are facing. If you know what our culture says about having children but want to read something that explores what the Bible says, you'll enjoy this book.