The Church Told Me to Have More Babies, So I Did (A Cautionary Tale)

Inside: The church told me to have one more baby than I thought I could handle, and I took that mandate very literally. Here’s what I would tell you over coffee if you asked me whether or not you should have more kids.

I can still picture the church that day. The pastor at the front. The sunny gym where we were all sat listening to the sermon. 

He delivered the fateful advice with a smile, “Have one more kid than you think you can handle.” 

Looking back, I can picture the smile and the chuckle. I’m certain he didn’t realize how seriously an autistic woman would take that advice, or how much it would impact her life for years to come.  

I was that woman, though I was undiagnosed at the time. Now that I have an auDHD diagnosis under my belt, it makes so much sense why I took everything so seriously at church. 

Things neurotypicals brushed off as funny anecdotes or well-meaning advice (not mandates) I took literally. Like…

When a pastor said they didn’t let their kids watch Disney because “all the kids rebelled and followed their hearts, instead of their parents”, you better believe Disney was not coming into this house (thank god for deconstruction – Disney is the best 💙). 

When they said spank your kid every time they disobeyed because otherwise they would never follow Jesus, I obeyed, until I couldn’t anymore, but that’s a story I go into more HERE.

If a religious authority figure said it, it must be part of the formula for being a good Christian, right? Right?

So if a pastor said we should take the “be fruitful and multiply” verse in Genesis literally, I absolutely should. And I did. I had the “one more kid than you think you can handle”.

It turned out to not be very good advice…at least not for me.

Having a Fifth Child Pushed Me Over the Edge. I Should Have Stopped at Four.

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As much as I love my last child to pieces and I wouldn’t change having her in our lives, I only now feel like I am coming up for air. After almost eight years of massive struggle.

It started with intense prenatal anxiety during my pregnancy. I was dreading having another child. I was certain I couldn’t handle it, especially not now that I was working part-time, albeit in my own flexible online business. 

My body was telling me the truth: I couldn’t handle it. My nervous system wasn’t built for this.

Then immediately after labor and delivery, I had a massive fall out with a close relative. Maybe if that hadn’t happened, I would have managed better? But the relational fall out pushed me straight into postpartum depression. 

Plus, my husband went from paternity leave straight into studying for a required engineering exam every night and weekend after working all day. Interestingly, he would have taken this particular hardcore exam much earlier in his career had we not taken a six year detour in full time Christian ministry, but that’s neither here nor there.

So I was basically solo parenting five kids in the middle of postpartum depression. What could go wrong?

I was juggling too many things. I was homeschooling AND working part-time to bring us more financial stability, which my autistic self desperately needed (I had also been told by the church that my anxiety about finances was not having enough faith), but the baby was blocking that goal.

I had frequent bursts of white hot rage. Angry when she wouldn’t stop crying. Angry when I couldn’t accomplish my goals because of caring for so many children. Angry when I couldn’t make time to care for myself.

I would wake up my husband in the middle of the night, begging him to take the baby away from me, genuinely afraid I would hurt her. I would start sobbing when my other four kids were fighting, and I had to step outside because I couldn’t handle the noise, I was so overstimulated. 

Should I have gone to my doctor for antidepressants? Oh, definitely. But the church/religion had also scared me away from mental health meds (anxiety was pretty much a sin, after all), so I was stuck.

I put one foot in front of the other and had almost pulled myself out of the postpartum depression when my father died suddenly of a heart attack. That led to more complicated family relational dynamics. Deeper into depression I went. 

It was the second week of March 2020, and I was *this close* to pulling the lever to put the kids in school for the first time. But you know what happened next: the Pandemic hit and I didn’t have a choice. 

The whole world was homeschooling, so I had to keep homeschooling right along with them. 

There’s more to this story, of course. I was auDHD (with regular AND religious PTSD, to boot), and my husband has ADHD. We had five neurodivergent children (shocker) with subsequent challenges. Needless to say, it was difficult to navigate as a neurodivergent parent of five. 

But the moral of the story is this: if you’re thinking about having another child solely because your religion is telling you to, maybe don’t?

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The Church Is Still Telling People to Have Children Before They’re Ready, And More Than They Think They Should

In early 2026, at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference), one of the undoubtedly evangelical Christian speakers told women to have kids right away, “even if you can’t afford to.” 

Yes, really. 

And our government, which is currently chock full of Christian nationalist evangelicals, told us this week that American women are dangerously “underbabied”. The teen pregnancy rate being down is…a bad thing? We need to have more babies – STAT. 

In fact, Katie Miller, deputy chief of staff Steven Miller’s wife, recently said, “Our biological destiny is to have babies – not slave away behind desks chasing careers while our civilization dies.” The irony that she herself waited to have children and had a high-powered career while doing so.

(It’s always “not for me, just for thee” with these people.) 

And they want us to have more children while they strip away our reproductive rights and remove the social safety nets, also something often pushed by “pro-life” churches. But sure! Have more babies for the homeland, I mean, the late stage capitalist machine, I mean, your personal fulfillment, of course! 

Well, how very Handmaid’s Tale of them. Blessed be the fruit, Aunt Lydia.  

Side Note: I think The Handmaid’s Tale should be required reading in every high school in America. I said what I said.

When the church (and the government, I guess) tells you to have more children, they don’t tell you that sometimes, things get more complicated as they get older. 

They don’t take into account the possibilities of having neurodivergent children, having children with mental health issues or disabilities (or YOU having these issues), having difficult pregnancies, or anything out of the ordinary, really. They don’t take into account the fact that you might not be able to mentally or physically handle more children. 

And I’m not sure that they would see this as a problem necessarily? Because according to their worldview, trials are all part of God’s plan to shape you and refine you. Trials are a good thing! Bring on the trials, baby.

The Only Person Who Should Have Any Say in Your Family Size is You

Now that I’ve left the church, I can say with complete confidence that religion should not be telling you how many kids you should have, let alone the government. 

Before being effectively told I should have a freaking quiverful, I grew up thinking that I wanted two, maaaybe three kids. And you know what? That would have been a good number for me, with four being the max I should have had.

I can’t go back and change anything, and I don’t necessarily want to. It’s a special kind of grief when you realize that all of your major life decisions were directly influenced by a belief system you’ve since deconstructed and walked away from.

But I can help young moms wrestling with the decision to have more kids “because the church told me to”. And I can tell you what I wish I could tell my younger self: it’s more than ok to not have more kids. 

Family size is a very personal decision that shouldn’t be burdened by “have to’s” and “should’s”. It’s ok to take your finances into account, and it’s ok to decide you’re done having kids for any reason. It’s ok to say to your partner that you’re done: you don’t want to put your body through another pregnancy.

And while we’re at it, it’s more than ok to be child-free! Don’t let the church, the government, society or grandparents shame you into having kids. 

At the end of the day, the only one who should be making decisions about your family size is you, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. 

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