William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scriptures: Matthew 7:7-11, 18:15-17, 17:1-4
In case you missed it, let me report a story carried in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times (dated January 20, 2002) under the titillating headline: “Can a Kid Squeeze By on $320,000 a Month?” The story, under the byline of Alex Kuczinski, began:
The tale of Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, the 36-year-old former tennis pro who is demanding $320,000 a month in child support from her former husband (the 84-year-old billionaire Kirk Kerkorian), has caused a stir among hard-working Americans.
As well it might. Among the things desired for the three-year-old child of their union is $14,000 per month for parties and play dates, along with:
$5,900 for eating out. $4,300 for eating in. $2,500 for movies and other outings. $7,000 for charitable donations. $1,400 for laundry and cleaning. $1,000 for toys, books and videos. $436 for the care of the child’s bunny rabbit and other pets. And $144,000 for travel on private jets.
In her court papers, Mrs. Kerkorian said of her former husband: “Money was never a limitation or a consideration whenever Kirk wanted to construct, acquire, own, charter, hire or pay for such things as homes, airplanes, yachts, hotels, cars, staff or entertainment. Essentially, whatever Kirk wanted, Kirk got.”
But after reconsidering the size of her demands, Mrs. Kerkorian determined that she hadn’t asked for enough. “We forgot the category for major yacht charters,” she said. The story generated hefty correspondence in the press, including a number of comparisons to Marie Antoinette, whose idea of the good life cost both herself and her unfortunate husband, Louis XVI, their heads.
I don’t know what you think of that. To me, $320,000 a month for one child seems a tad excessive. I know I could raise the kid for less. So could you. Quite a bit less. But I can visualize a mother in what they call the “Third World” somewhere who might look at our per-child monthly expenditure and be equally blown away. Once you get beyond mere survival, the distinctions between necessities and luxuries vary from place to place and people to people. We could get a pretty good argument going about how much is too much….meaning that the jury is still out when it comes to definitions of the word “excessive.” But there isn’t one of us who wouldn’t rally around the notion that kids are expensive….and becoming more so, all the time.
In earlier eras, large families were an economic asset. More kids meant more hands in the field….more hands in the barn….more hands in the shop….more hands supporting the elders in their years of decline. Kids were cheap labor early and social security late.
But it has been a long time since I have seen a family business that ran on the backs of the kids. And, in that instance, it wasn’t a farm but a laundry. Two adults….five kids….and every one of them knew how to wash shirts, starch shirts, press shirts, fold shirts, box shirts and make shirt runs in the truck. Dad figured that “shirts would carry this family forever.” But I buried him one month and the kids buried the business the next.
Some of you, knowing that our daughter is going to walk out of Harvard Business School in a couple of weeks with a master’s degree, have said to Kris or myself: “There’s your retirement plan.” Which we laugh about. And which she laughs about. But it isn’t how we planned it. And it isn’t why she did it. All I know is that it took a lot of money to get us to this point (more money than it took to get her mother and father to a similar point). Not only because costs went up. But because expectations did, too. Along with our ability to pay. We had more. So we spent more. That’s simply the way it was. And still is.
People with big families do acknowledge that the cost per child goes down (ever so slightly) as the combined number of children goes up. This is due to that great ecological phenomenon known as recycling. Kids hate this, of course (“Why do I have to wear my brother’s pants out to pedal my sister’s bike?”). Moreover, some colleges will cut you a deal if you are paying for two or more at the same time. And there could be even more cost savings if only parents wouldn’t insist on purchasing things children would gladly do without….like well-balanced meals, haircuts, sets of encyclopedias and violin lessons.
How much is too much? Darned if I know. The Bible doesn’t make me an expert on everything. That’s why we have parenting classes here at First Church (to collectively and faithfully figure such stuff out). The Bible teaches that self-denial is good….that self-discipline is good….that charity ought to be taught early….and that delayed gratifications are often the sweetest gratifications. But it doesn’t say any of these things in a section labeled “Money and Kids – Ten Sure-Fire Suggestions.” No, you’ve got to do some foraging, cutting and pasting to assemble what I just said.
I think all of us wrestle mightily with the phrase “holding the line” when it comes to our kids. But there isn’t one of us who didn’t buy something at least once at the checkout line, for no other reason than to shut the kid up. And we knew the Pandora’s’ Box we were opening, even as we did it. But, at that moment, a bribe for peace and quiet was a bribe we were willing to pay. And if we weren’t, the kid’s grandparents were.
Frankly, I do not know where “giving our children every advantage” ends and “spoiling them” begins. If I could put a number on it, all of you would disagree with it. But half of you would say it was too high, while the other half of you would say it was too low.
And we all have our priorities. Kris and I were pretty thrifty….maybe even chintzy….when it came to cars for kids or trips for kids (unless the trips were taken with us and the kids). But when it came to tuition for kids, we never once looked at a bottom line and allowed it to influence a decision. But that’s us….who we are….how we operate….what we value. Which is really the only piece of advice I have on this matter. Namely, that in raising kids, you balance your checkbook twice….with the bank….and with your values.
So, are kids worth all the money it takes to raise them? Let’s face it. Not to everybody. This is the beginning of wedding season. Everybody I marry is older now….has gone together longer now….is almost always un-pregnant (at the time of the wedding) now….and highly unlikely (by their own admission) to do any serious thinking about starting a family now.
“We’re going to wait for children,” is what they say. So what are they waiting for? Two things, I think. One of which they do say. The other of which they do not say. The thing they don’t say is that they’re waiting to make sure they can make it together. Increasingly, their parents can’t. A lot of their friends can’t. And whole big chunks of the culture can’t. Stay together, I mean. So they want to make sure they can….before turning two into three, three into four, or four into more.
The thing they do say is: “We want to wait for children until we can afford them.” Which may mean: “Until we can live as well on one income as we presently live on two.” Which may mean: “Until we can give our kids everything we received (and took for granted) from our parents.” But which often means: “Until we get all the things we want, and which we may have to delay….or even go without….if we have children before we get them.” Which I would submit is a spiritual problem rather than economic one. Although I can’t prove it.
But were we to ask whether kids are worth the money in the presence of anyone who has ever lost a child (like the mothers of the murdered ones we read about yesterday in Detroit), I suspect they’d say (to a person): “I’d pay anything….spend anything….give anything….if only there were some place that would take my check.” Economically, that makes no sense. One child less, they should be better off….right? You know the answer to that as well as I do.
Where is all this going? Down a long, slow road from economics to theology….that’s where it’s going. Economics having do to with the word “costly.” Theology having to do with the word “priceless.” Economically speaking, the bottom line is that children are balance sheets (assets/liabilities, tax exemptions/budget drains, that sort of thing). Theologically speaking, the bottom line is that children are gifts….gifts of a gracious God….about which Jesus once said: “Anybody who receives these, receives me. Anybody who sees these, has seen the Kingdom.”
Which means that the value of children can never be determined by cost accounting. It would be like asking: “How pretty is a flower….expressed in dollars? How precious are your children…. expressed in dollars?” The lover who asked, “How do I love thee, let me count the ways,” answered her own question with a poem, not a column of numbers.
Does that mean we should not be prudent in planning our families? With apologies to His Holiness in Rome, of course we should be prudent. But does that mean we should monitor and squelch all lavish impulses in the process of raising our families? Of course we shouldn’t.
A few years ago, Bishop Fred Borsch published a book on the parables of Jesus, taking special note of how many could be called “parables of extravagance.” He noted that many of Jesus’ parables speak of extravagance and waste. Consider the farmer who goes out to sow. Does he do so like my grandfather taught me….prudently….spartanly….carefully? No, he slings seed everywhere, including a whole lot of places where anybody in his right mind would tell him: “It’ll never grow.” And Jesus said: “You see that seed slinger? The Kingdom’s like that. Yes sirree, Bob, the Kingdom’s like that.”
And it’s also like that father who blew ten grand on a homecoming for a hobo. A hobo who squandered what (?) in the far country….not his weekly paycheck….not the contents of his piggy bank….not the savings from his paper route….but the early cash-out of his inheritance. “That’s kinda like the Kingdom, too,” said Jesus.
Or it’s like the shepherd Jesus called “good,” who risked everything for one stupid sheep (a sheep worth all of $3.95 plus postage and handling). Or the woman who broke a $700 bottle of perfume over the body of Jesus. The Kingdom’s like her, too.
Leading Will Willimon to write:
Anyone who is called in service to this God had better be in the business of extravagant and occasionally wasteful effusiveness. Bean counters, accountants of all kinds, misers and anal-retentive types, they bore this God. Which is why the best pastors are those who are a little bit messy…..who will waste a couple of hours with an 80-year-old in a nursing home….spend a Sunday night (after MYF, when they’re already exhausted) listening to a troubled teenager….or pour their passion into some little church in the boonies for $26,000 and change when they could have gone to law school and started in six figures.
The Christian life is not about parsing out the treasure, but loving without measure. And where better to start than with the children, given Jesus’ words: “If you, then, who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give good things….(to you).” Which traces the extravagance back to its source, don’t you see. And which further demonstrates the wisdom of Dan Hubert’s favorite saying: “You can’t out-give God.”
Which also brings us parent and grandparent types full circle to the realization that (at the end of the day) we, too, are children.
The professor of preaching, wishing to hear each student preach at least one sermon in their field setting, showed up in the sunroom at Wesley Woods for a service on Sunday afternoon. One by one, the attendees for that service were shuffled in, assisted in and wheeled in. After which the preacher commenced to preach from Luke 18 about people bringing little kids to Jesus.
“Great day in the morning,” the professor thought, “why is she reading that text here, where the average age is 117?” But that’s the text she read. Following which, this is what she said:
I still can’t get over the fact that the helpers of Jesus….the twelve apostles…. the ministers....the clergy (if you will) said: “Let’s get these children out of here. This is serious business. We’re trying to have a kingdom.”
Well, in a way, I can understand it. I mean, after all, they make noise. They have to be cared for. Sometimes you have to get up and leave with them. They take everybody else’s time.
Besides that, they can’t give much….can’t teach class….can’t sing in the choir. They’re just (you know) a burden. I can understand that.
But Jesus said: “Leave ‘em alone. Let ‘em come. Can’t you see the Kingdom in their faces?”
And the old people in the sunroom of Wesley Woods just nodded, as if to say: “That’s right. That’s right. You tell ‘em, sister.”
Note: The idea for this sermon came from a re-reading of a delightful little book by Tom Mullen entitled Parables for Parents and Other Original Sinners. A very creative thinking and innovative Quaker, Tom taught for years at Earlham University. As concerns Will Willimon’s observations about the extravagance of ministry (derived from the parables), look for Will’s essay in a recent book entitled The Last Word. Finally, the story that concludes the sermon is, once again, one of those splendid recollections from the career of Fred Craddock.
