Childbearing is a unique adventure. And would-be parents have special obligations. Properly viewed, parenting should be related to a growing understanding of God's fatherhood and motherhood. Healthier, better offspring are the result.

The real, perfect man, as understood in Christian Science, is not constituted of matter—blood, bones, muscles. This spiritual man is the child of God, the incorporeal likeness of Mind, expressed as idea. This truth of man is implicit in many Bible passages. Man is not matter, good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. As the perfect conception of God, man is as eternal as Father-Mother God.

Man has no beginning. And his destiny depends only on God, immortal and sinless. The perfect man's development is unlimited by human opinions, medical laws, or mortals' doubts and fears, because the reality of man's spirituality overrides the unreality of all materialistic theories. Human beings need to perceive and claim these truths, however.

Mrs. Eddy says in the textbook, Science and Health: "Even in Christian Science, reproduction by Spirit's individual ideas is but the reflection of the creative power of the divine Principle of those ideas. The reflection, through mental manifestation, of the multitudinous forms of Mind which people the realm of the real is controlled by Mind, the Principle governing the reflection." ^{Science and Health, pp. 302-303;} In this spiritually mental sense of reproduction, matter isn't mentioned.

Childless couples who want a family need not accept the belief of barrenness as law. For more than five years, a young married couple tried unsuccessfully to have a child. After extensive medical tests, they were told that it was unlikely, if not impossible, that they could ever have their own child. In their extremity they turned to Christian Science.

They were encouraged to study carefully the several examples in the Bible where childless parents had, through listening closely to God, been able to conceive and bear children. Heartening examples were: the birth to Sarah of Isaac, to Rebekah of Esau and Jacob, to Rachel of Joseph, to Manoah's wife of Samson, to the Shunammite woman of a son, to Hannah of Samuel, and to Elisabeth of John the Baptist. ^{See Gen. 21:1-3; 25:21-26; 30:22-24; Judg. 13:2, 24; II Kings 4:12-17; I Sam. 1:1-20; Luke 1:7-25, 59, 60;}

In each case, the material limitation—the inability to conceive a child—was overridden and disproved by a higher, more spiritual sense of God's control. Then normal human conception was possible. All real laws concerning man's origin are spiritual, and they set aside false, mortal, changeable laws. Mary's spiritual conception of Christ Jesus, giving the Virgin-mother a unique place in history, was based entirely on the fact of man's incorporeal origin.

Mrs. Eddy states very clearly how the conception of Jesus took place. She writes, "Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self-conscious communion with God." ^{Science and Health, pp. 29-30;} No material element entered into Mary's communion with God. Mrs. Eddy also writes: "In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions prior to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law of his being." ^{ibid., p. 63;}

God's child does not come from material happenings. Rather, the child of God is coexistent with God, alive and present always. God's child, His spiritual idea, is born of infinite Mind.

Even a limited understanding of these truths brings to our human experience evidence that corresponds to spiritual fact, setting aside material limitations and paving the way for a normal birth. The couple who turned to Christian Science for help earnestly studied the Bible and the writings of Mrs. Eddy to gain a clearer perception of the relationship between God and man. Soon the wife became pregnant, and a lovely daughter was born.

During the pregnancy, the attending doctor found himself reversing one after another of his medical predictions. The mother proved that conditions were harmonious and healthy, not because the doctor finally said so but because she knew that spiritual harmony had always been the fact. Although the visits to the doctor met a legal requirement, she realized on every visit that the only creator is our Father-Mother God. Before each visit her thoughts returned to the statement in Psalms, "Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart." ^{Ps. 26:2.}

A desire to express the fatherhood and motherhood of God can be fulfilled, as it was for this young couple—with joy and expectancy. The reproduction of spiritual ideas is natural to infinite Mind, and it is unhindered by material laws. Married couples can affirm this truth and anticipate the blessing of God.