Vipers in Diapers?

When you become a parent, it takes nearly no time at all for a crowd to begin forming around you, replete with all sorts of well-meaning folks and their polished nuggets of unsolicited parenting advice.

Advice—coupled heavily with words of woe and caution. “You think taking care of your pregnant wife is hard? Just you wait until the baby comes.” Or, “Newborns aren’t too bad once you’re out of the trenches; things really get tough once they become infants.” Then, “They don’t call it the terrible twos for nothin’.” And before you know it: “Little kids are a walk in the park; the real challenge begins when they start asking for the car keys.”

My oh my, you’d think it never ends! (Namely, the so-called words of ‘advice’ don’t end, as my wife and I were already well aware that parenting ever-growing and changing children is something of a given).

In my experience, advice like this is largely rubbish and, at best, simply unhelpful, as it completely dismisses everything good the Bible has to say about marriage, the family, and raising children.

Indeed, words, and the way we use them, are of the utmost importance. And what are words? The words we use in everyday conversation are subjective associations we’ve agreed upon for objective realities. In this way, the objective meaning behind words essentially renders the words themselves—though subjective in and of themselves—objective as well.

In English, everyone agrees that a “rose” is called as such, not because the syllables arranged in that order—R-O-S-E—correspond to some intrinsic, eternal reality, but because we as a society have determined that the word “rose” is a fitting name for those beautiful flowers you give to your wife throughout the year. You can call a rose a “frog”, yet a rose it shall remain. As the Bard himself wrote through the lips of Juliet, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Words, dialects, and languages may change; reality does not.

The trouble begins when we start using the wrong words. Much to the everlasting chagrin of progressives, leftists, and the woke mob everywhere, words do not change reality. Used improperly, however, they can indeed change us. Words, the way we use them, and the varied meanings we attach to them all contribute to moulding the subjective way in which we think about objective reality around us. And, as it says in the book of Proverbs, the way a man thinks will inevitably determine the rest about him.

Look no further than just a handful of the many phrases used in our culture, and even in the church, when it comes to parenting young children: “The newborn trenches,” “the terrible twos,” and among my personal favorites, “vipers in diapers.” What exactly do these idioms communicate about parenting? About children?

If you bang young people over the head all their lives with how miserable parenting is through jokes, phrases, and idioms, is it then any wonder why they are apprehensive about having children? Or, for that matter, terrified of marriage or even going on a date? Indeed, similar language is in near-constant use on the topic of marriage as well—“Best enjoy your freedom while it lasts,” some say, while others harp, “Marriage?! You are far too young for that. What’s the big rush?”

The West is in a population crisis and grappling with plummeting birth rates precisely because society’s language regarding marriage, children, and the family has so shifted in our culture from off of Scripture and onto self. Is entering into a lifelong covenant with another sinner one of, if not the, hardest things you’ll ever do? Yes, it is, but it’s also among the most joyful and rewarding adventures one can embark on in life—as with parenting. The best things in life are rarely, if ever, the easiest. So often, God’s greatest blessings in life demand much of us, while always giving far more in return.

And, if we are to be faithful stewards over these manifold blessings, we would be wise to have our minds properly renewed—“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). We must see the world through the eyes of God, adopting into our vocabulary the language of His word as opposed to the twisted syllables of this world.

To my shame, worldly lies about both marriage and having children kept me longer than I would have liked from enjoying God’s good gift of either. One remedy to these age-old lies is experience. For example, when I met the woman who became my wife, any fears or apprehensions I may have had about marriage in the abstract faded away in the very real light of the beauty that such a gift marriage to a godly woman promised. In like manner, the joys of parenthood became unflinchingly clear to me when I first met and then fell in love with my little niece as though she were my own daughter.

Another remedy is simply to take God’s word at face value right from the start—for in the end, it will never contradict any goodness or beauty you might discover through experience alone, and will in fact save you a good deal of time as well. If God says that “children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward,” we would do well to simply trust, obey, and then freely enjoy His gift.

Indeed, a proper, Biblical perspective is crucial. True—the early days of taking care of a newborn can sometimes feel like trenches, and though my wife and I aren’t quite there yet, doubtless some days with a toddler can feel as though they are terrible, as if you’re wrestling with a viper in a diaper. However, do you want to know what will make those moments even harder? Going into them with a lopsided perspective; with the assumption that, no matter what, things will be miserable and that it’s just a matter of gritting your teeth and getting through it.

Only, with such an outlook, you’ll never truly “get through it,” will you? Without a Christ-centered perspective, there will always be another dreaded season just over the horizon—the newborn trenches will give way to the terrible twos, which themselves will eventually turn into those teenage years that at one point seemed so far off. And if you aren’t vigilant, your children will be out the door before you know it, and their childhood will have passed you by.

And so, out of a loving, concerted effort to be fruitful and faithful in each season of our God-given role as parents, let us renew our minds with what Scripture has to say about the glory of both parenting and children:

• “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” (Psalm 127:3-5).

• “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:13-16). 

• “[But] Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven’” (Matthew 19:14).

• “Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers” (Proverbs 17:6).

• “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).

There is much more that God’s word has to say about the beauty and wonder and weight of having children, but the overall thrust is this: God loves little children, and so should we. When His disciples tried to shoo away the little ones from Christ’s presence, Jesus immediately welcomed them back into His embrace—“Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).

Far from saying that children are innocent and in no need of a Savior, Jesus nonetheless exposed His beating heart of love for little ones in that encounter—a posture He adopts with all mankind. Are children likewise fallen as we are, enemies of God until reconciled to Him through Christ? Yes, they are; all the more reason to preach Christ daily in your own household, praying that He would be merciful to your children as He was to you. And are some children, as Jonathan Edwards was fond of saying, “vipers in diapers”? More than a few. Like young vipers, Edwards goes on, little children are yet bound by original sin, bearing a malignant nature without the means to carry it out—effectively appearing, for a time, as being harmless.

And yet the Bible is not simplistic. It affirms, on the one hand, that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), while nevertheless reserving an attitude of affection for little ones. Indeed, God’s word makes clear that little children are near and dear to His heart, having prepared praise out of lips in their humble, childlike dependence upon Him (Psalm 8:2). We should be of a similar mind, always and ever taking to heart the whole counsel of God as it pertains to children.

Some of the best parenting advice my wife and I received before our son was born came from her own mother and father. If I do say so myself, they had raised a pretty wonderful daughter, so I was keen to listen to anything they had to say. As with all of their advice, much of it wasn’t actually their advice to begin with, pointing us rather to God and His revealed truth. What they impressed upon us most was the joy and high calling accompanying the weighty responsibilities of raising children. Children were not a burden in life, nor were they a barrier to joy—on the contrary, God says that children are a sweet gift, something we would do well to keep in mind during the hardest of moments.

In preaching Christ to our children, trusting that the word of God will go forth and accomplish that purpose for which He sent it, we both honor Him and love them. In so doing, we anticipate that day in faith when Christ is fully formed in our sons and daughters, such that they instead become our brothers and sisters in Christ in that perfect place where babies shall no longer be as vipers, and vipers themselves harmless as babies—“The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest” (Isaiah 11:8).

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Photo by Lane Gore, Unsplash

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