Let Our Legacy Be Our Children, Not Our Careers
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(3) Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. (4) Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. (5a) Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.’ (Psalm 127:3-5a)
A recent report in the news gives the alarming trend that, though overall the world’s population grew to become just over eight billion people around August 2025, many nations are beginning to see dramatic decreases in their populations. In Japan, it is estimated their population fell by almost 900,000 people, as deaths exceeded births in the nation of the ‘rising sun’. In China, after years of a ‘one-child’ policy that forced many families to abort female fetuses in an attempt to gain a male heir, the shortage of females has caused China’s population to also drop and will likely cause an economic downturn by the 2030s for the US’ biggest rival on the world stage.
In the US, the population is growing slightly, but with illegal immigration now being enforced with deportations of illegals rising in number, and with the number of American natural-born citizens having children averaging under 1 (or couples averaging 1.8), the ‘replacement citizens’ are now under the count of ‘departing citizens’, or the number of births is under the number of those deported plus the number of those who are passing away.
While in China the trend points to the one-child policy as the culprit, in Japan and the US there are several factors. The generational change of attitude on abortion in the US, giving women the ‘choice’ is part of the equation, but it is also the changing attitude of career importance and career advancement, for both men and women, in Japan and the US, that also accounts for much of this loss of replacements. Men and women are focused more on their career, and the limited availability of free time that is more focused on self-gratification and personal happiness instead of building and raising a family.
In the past, it was proper for women to have children early and often, and it was not unheard of for families to have 5 or more children, with some having offspring in the double-digits. Today, those families are considered oddities, as couples often wait until they are in their late 30’s, sometimes as they have a sense of establishment in their careers, to begin having children. This late-in-the-game planning of children limits the number of children, to often only one or two. Some do not plan on having children at all, to focus on enjoying their time without the burden of having to raise offspring.
This career-first attitude, especially in the recent trend for women, has reduced the population of children and is about to cause economic and cultural crises in Japan and the US, as ‘native citizen’ workers cannot be replaced by new citizens, as they don’t exist. In Japan and the Us, there is great consternation in opening jobs currently unfilled to foreigners to fill. The US is less averse to this, though the ‘H1B’ visa program is not viewed favorably in many American eyes.
The ‘living to work’ attitude has almost taken the focus in the US away from God and placed in on the corporate mindset, where the worship of prestige and money has replaced Jesus and our service to Him. But this ‘love of money’, a form of greed, reduces taxes collected as well as commerce transactions as less people are around to buy goods and services, or to offer them.
Even for us ‘seasoned citizens’, this loss of replacements can affect us; it is estimated the loss of workers will decrease the ‘Social Security piggy bank’ by 2035 to where current payment levels may be reduced in order for the nation to continue its promise to provide seniors a stipend. While some may point to the increases of people who qualify for payments, it is the loss of workers who pay into the system that will impact the funding the most.
The entirety of Psalm 127, written by King Solomon, is of this negative trend of ‘living to work’ instead of ‘working to live’. We have the mindset of we need to work and only focus on that, which I was guilty of starting out. Many of us have a spouse and children, but we often make the mistake of ‘career comes first, the family second’. This usually occurs when Jesus is not yet in the life of the person, who doesn’t have an identity in Christ so the identity assumed is the occupation they have.
I made this mistake while our son was growing up, and while I made as many sporting events and scholastic activities, I was focused more on my career, which had me travel almost half of the year, in increments of months at a time, and our relationship, though better today, is strained because of it. With our daughter, who is six years younger, due to my life with Christ, who I accepted as my Lord while she was not yet in school, my life changed to where the focus was more on the family and so that relationship is a bit better.
The Lord became involved as the ‘General Contractor’ in ‘building the house’ instead of me trying to build it, and there was immediate improvement when God was allowed to take charge. My attitude greatly improved, and I became more mellow, welcoming and warm. My wife and children were no longer there to ‘enjoy the ride’ of my life but instead to be partners in it. It has been a change in the dynamic to where not only our children but our son’s family – his wife and children – are now part of that dynamic.
Eventually, like our children, the grandkids will grow and becoming adults as the children did before them. We pray that they have success, and more importantly, gain Salvation in Christ. It is a blessing, though, to see them grow and though they have struggles as we did, that they search for solutions as we did, and learn those things that we also had to learn. Being around to help them and give advice is a benefit I often did not have with my parents, including the encouragement to have a relationship with Jesus.
The joy is not just between my spouse and I, but is in the knowledge our legacy and prayerfully the legacy of Christ is in our children, our children’s children, and (though we may or may not see it) our great-grandchildren! Our children are the best investment we can make in the future of America!
