>>Historically, chidren were cherished as Gods gift, the perpetuation of His image in His creation, never as livestock. If we are merely undesireable livestock, its not wonder we are condemned to the progressive zoo.
Everything is God’s gift. No culture ever had kids to please the true God because he doesn’t work that way. Every child is born a sinner and they will sin until they die. Genesis explains that they will work to eat, etc. So, while we are no livestock, as you put it, we also do not pop out of our mothers as a gift of sinless grace either. Historically, people have children to propagate their DNA. It is a biological function, not a Godly one, since animals do it too.
Whether you have 1 child or 20, you have accomplished the biological imperative, produced a sinner and a worker, and God may or may not save them. In a high-tech world, you don’t need a minivan full of crotchfruit to prove your value to God. He already loves you fully.
Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward