A Baby - An Inheritance from God

Posted by Ruslim Chang at 11:11 PM - Tuesday, June 24, 2008

My friend, Vijay and his wife are staying in US. We ever worked together for a while in Malaysia before he decided to work in the States. In one of his email to me, he told me that they are expecting a child in October this year. I congratulated him and wife for the good news, and hope they have made good preparations for this joyfull occasion.

Yes, arrival of the new baby in a family is a joyful and at the same time - challenging occasion. It's a joyfull occasion, as baby can be seen as the fruit of husband and wife, and precious inheritance from God. We can learn to work together to take care of the baby, which in turn strengthen the relationship.

However, this period also poses challenges to parents as they have to make necessary adjustments in their lives. Baby requires almost 24 hours a day attention for one thing. When the newborn quite naturally becomes the primary object of the mother's affection, husband may feel neglected. Further more, many sleepless nights can create tension and stress and put a strain on the relationship. We suddenly realize that we have lost most of our freedom. Now we can not go to places and do things as freely as we did before.

Raising a child involves years of sacrifices. It's a big investment in time and energy. Our life especially our wifes' will change totally, as a baby naturally is more attached to the mother. That's why as caring husbands :), we need to do all we reasonably can to help to look after the child.

Responsible parenthood involves much more than providing children physically with food, clothing, shelter, health care and education. We also need to provide them values, principles to follow, healthy recreation for their mental faculty, tell them a sleep time story, and the like to create emotional bond between parents and children. The latter part is more difficult to do than the first part, as it really requires parents to spend time with their children.

Some may arguably says that as long as parents have provided quality time with their children, even it's just a small fraction of time a week, that's sufficient. "It's not number of hours that you spend with your children that matters, but quality of time you have together", they argue. Unfortunately, history proves them wrong. Emotional relationship between parents and children is only getting strengthened if we spend enough time with them. Undoubtedly, quality time with children is important, however it will never replace the amount of time that is required to build strong bond with our children...

Life is beautiful! Let's make it meaningful and colorful!