By Ella Alencar, Staff Writer
Wheaton College’s Philosophy Department hosted Naomi Fisher, associate professor of philosophy at Loyola University, for the first lecture of the 2025-26 Philosophy Speaker Series. Her Sept. 24 talk, “Why Have a Child? Choosing Life in an Age of Fear,” was based on her article “Little Life Ruiners.”
Fisher explained the reasons behind the reluctance of most people, in general, to have children and offered a solution to this issue.
Fear, said Fisher, is the main reason people choose not to have children. This fear often stems from financial worries, responsibilities of parenting and the disruption children cause to future plans or career goals. She also said that the desire to minimize a child’s potential suffering and disadvantages as much as possible contributes to this fear.
“I don’t think that rejecting such a culture of fear and control is only necessary for having kids. It’s necessary for a life well-lived,” said Fisher.
Fisher was invited by Ryan Kemp, associate philosophy professor, who has also written on the value of having children in his new book, What We Are in the Light: Essays for Humans.
“More than just talking about having children, she’s diagnosing what I think is a cultural sickness,” Kemp said.
First-year student Rebekah Han said the lecture “really helped me to be more prayerful, to be more understanding of others who don’t want to have kids, to have more empathy for those who think having kids is a trouble.”
During her lecture, Fisher also mentioned modern society’s obsession with having control over their lives and their children’s lives. She was critical of treating children as a part of a long-term plan or a point on their checklist. As an example of society’s controlling mindset, Fisher mentioned the new technology of embryo screening, which allows parents to select specific features for their future children.
To make her point, Fisher told the story of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony — written at a time when Beethoven was struggling with illness and legal issues. “If he hadn’t composed a ninth, we wouldn’t particularly feel its loss,” Fisher said.
Having children, she explained, is a “gratuitous kind of good added to the world,” just as it would be difficult to properly value Beethoven’s unwritten symphony because one wouldn’t know which beautiful lines of composition they were not hearing.
Olivia Kaspar, a sophomore philosophy major and Voice for Life cabinet member, said, “Her words helped encourage my pro-life convictions, reminding me to deeply consider God’s individual love and care for every person from their earliest moments of being.”
Similarly, first-year student Sam Ziegler said that he came in thinking that having children was one of the most fulfilling things a person could experience. “But it’s not even about that,” he said after the lecture, “It’s not about you; it’s that you’re bringing a soul into the world.”
To close the lecture, Fisher said that Christians should not live in fear or obsess over control, but to live in hope. “Having a child is one such act of hope,” she said, “an embrace of love and vulnerability, and gratitude for the gratuitous and unexpected gifts that come.”
