1. The Essential Value of Children

World Scripture

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”
Genesis 1.28

He who refrains from procreation is as though he impaired the divine image.
Genesis Rabbah 34.14 (Judaism)

Lo, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward… Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them!
Psalm 127.3-5

Children are the clothes of a man.²⁵
Yoruba Proverb (African Traditional Religions)

The whole future of the race depends upon its attitude toward children; and a race which specializes in women for “menial purposes” or which believes that the contest of the sexes in the spheres of business and politics is a worthier endeavor than the creation of tomorrow’s generation, is a race which is dying. L.
Ron Hubbard, Science of Survival (Scientology)

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

Once we marry, we should have children. Some may think that it does not matter whether or not we bear children. But that is not the case. Unless we bear children, we cannot fulfill the will of love.
There are four directions of love: east, west, north and south, around the center. When love is centered, its root can spread in all four directions and support the tree.
(214:12, February 1, 1991)

Why do we need children? It is to know God’s love, His love as our Parent. We need children to know how to attend [God] as our Parent… So we should not only give orders to our children, we should attend them and live for them [as God lives for us]. Only then can we comprehend God’s love.
We need our children as a textbook. Without children, we are incomplete. We cannot know God’s love because we cannot know how much God loves human beings, His children. Just as we cannot know the love of a husband or wife unless we become a husband or a wife, we cannot know parental love for children until we become parents. God created us so that we can learn to love by relating with each other. Hence if we do not have children, we cannot become true parents.
(133:138-39, July 10, 1984)

Mothers and fathers cannot achieve unity without children. Why do parents prefer their children’s love? They cannot help it. Mother and father love each other as they love their children together, not just individually.

It forms a rope of love that binds mother and father into one. A chain made of iron will eventually rust and break, but the rope of love lasts forever. Neither money nor food can bind parents and children. Only love can bind them.
(18:329, August 13, 1967)

What is marriage for? It is to establish a family with children. If you do not have children, your relationship may begin to deteriorate. Only after giving birth to children can your family be secure. Even if a husband might want to divorce his wife out of resentment, if his wife gives him a son, he cannot easily divorce. He feels committed to keep his family intact. For the sake of our families, we should have children.
(23:25, May 11, 1969)

You should love your children more than you love your spouse.
(130:163, January 8, 1984)

If you women are asked, “Who do you like better, your husband or your children?” the correct answer should be, “My children.” You can divorce your husband, but you cannot separate from your children. Even if you were to disown them and have their names removed from the record of your family tree, you would still be connected to them in lineage. After divorcing your husband, you might forget him. Yet if you were separated from your children, as time goes by you would miss them more and more. Anyone who has children can understand this.
(18:112, May 28, 1967)

Parents want their children to be better than themselves. No parent wants his children to be inferior to him. A good-looking man and a beautiful woman married each other and bore a homely child. Yet if you say to them, “Your child is better looking than you are,” they are happy. It is true. No parent would take offense at that statement.
(77:102, April 1, 1975)

True Mother²⁶ gave birth to thirteen children. She once remarked, “Nothing in the world has given me more pleasure than giving birth to my babies and nursing them at my breast. Now that I have grown old, I look back on those times as the most pleasurable of my life.”
(44:199, May 7, 1971)

There is no multiplication in the spirit world. The multiplication of children happens only on earth. The earth is the only place where the citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom can be multiplied. That is why on earth, you should give birth to many children, centering on God’s true love.
(218:200, July 28, 1991)