Handouts Are Often Better Than a Hand Up

On average, children in poverty have lower I.Q. scores than their wealthier peers. Recent research has made it clear that just the stress of growing up in a poor family can be toxic to the growing brain.

.. in 2011, 1.5 million families with children lived on $2 per person a day.

.. Per-child cash allowances may have the greatest impact. They do not change if you find work; they are generally larger than standard welfare payments; and they don’t have eligibility requirements.

..  Cash allowances in Europe and Canada, for example, are usually unconditional. In Canada the allowance is up to about $230 a month per child.

Quiverfull

Quiverfull adherents typically maintain that their philosophy is first about an open, accepting and obedient attitude toward the possibility of bearing children. Within the view, this attitude may result in many, few or even no children, because God Himself maintains sole provenance over conception and birth. The duty of the Quiverfull adherent is only to maintain an “open willingness” to joyfully receive and not thwart however many children God chooses to bestow.

.. “just because something is a gift from the Lord does not mean that it is wrong to be a steward of when or whether you will come into possession of it. It is wrong to reason that since A is good and a gift from the Lord, then we must pursue as much of A as possible. God has made this a world in which tradeoffs have to be made and we cannot do everything to the fullest extent. For kingdom purposes, it might be wise not to get married. And for kingdom purposes, it might be wise to regulate the size of one’s family and to regulate when the new additions to the family will likely arrive. As Wayne Grudem has said, ‘it is okay to place less emphasis on some good activities in order to focus on other good activities.'”[34]