Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies [Paperback]

Steve Watters (Author), Candice Watters (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2009

  

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’re 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?”, and “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

From the Back Cover

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’re 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?”, and “How can we fit kids into our lives?”     “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 (January 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802458300
• ISBN-13: 978-0802458308
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #445,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

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

By 

Callie - See all my reviews

This review is from: Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies (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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

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

By 

WatermarkedOne - See all my reviews

This review is from: Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies (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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clarity, and Great Inspiration!, July 14, 2010

By 

Ash - See all my reviews

This review is from: Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies (Paperback)

This book sat on my shelf unread for quite awhile. I think I was afraid to be convinced about the merit in considering children so early in marriage. We weren't ready by any stretch of the imagination emotionally, relationally, and certainly not financially.

After my husband and I read the book, though, our hearts were changed. Where else are you going to hear CLEAR, REASONABLE, and HOPEFUL thoughts on the benefits of starting your family, and early in marriage? Our culture, on one side, says, "Wait for perfect circumstances! Wait until you've experienced all your adventures to suffer the pains of child-rearing!" The other side, our Churches, often don't encourage their members to go from the place of knowing a theology about faith and risk, to living that out as so many have throughout history.

I encourage those considering this book to ask themselves these questions:

1. Am I going to allow myself to at least hear the obvious message of this book?
2. Will I allow my faith and the Bible's message of family to supersede my inhibitions, if necessary?

Happy reading!