A fragment of the Christmas story states that the announced messenger of the Lord, before Messiah’s coming, will “turn the hearts of parents to their children.” (Luke 1:17 NRSV)

The angel could be talking to us today: to rescue the family back from obsolescence.

The New York Times columnist David Brooks suggests we’ve become a society in which we don’t want children because they close off our options. We want maximum personal freedom throughout adulthood. Following such a policy to the extreme eventually threatens our existence.

We no longer need children for economic reasons. In fact, children now cost a great deal, in terms of care, schooling, and time. Not all of us are called to be parents. Better that we not return to the days when parenting defined a person’s, especially a woman’s, only purpose. Better perhaps that we look to children as belonging to more than the immediate family. They are the future of our communities. Our care for children may relate to our understanding of our need for community, whether we are parents or not.