Why Jen Wilkin Wants Kids To Understand Genesis 2

After writing numerous books and Bible studies for adults, Jen Wilkin has stepped into the world of children’s picture books. In Made Like Me: A True Story from the Beginning of Everything, she helps kids understand the beautiful truth from Genesis 2 that God made us to need and help each other.

I asked her to reflect on what led her to this new endeavor and how her passion for biblical literacy carries over into writing for kids.

Having written so much for adults, what led you to write a children’s book?

I can’t say I felt a strong desire to start writing children’s books in general, but the idea of this particular children’s book set my mind humming.

In all my life, I’ve never come across a children’s book about Genesis 2, but it’s such a vivid and important story. Many children’s Bibles fly past it to Genesis 3. And having spent a great deal of the past 20 years teaching Genesis, I also know that many adults haven’t spent much time in chapter 2 either.

Combine that with a love of rhyme and the birth of seven grandkids in four years, and I decided I was ready to write a children’s book.

How does this story help children understand that being alone isn’t God’s plan?

The focus of Genesis 2 is on the aloneness of Adam in contrast to the rest of the living creatures. In Genesis 1, we see the repeated wording of “each according to its kind,” meaning that each creature is paired with another according to its kind, by which it can fulfill the command to be fruitful and multiply.

But in Genesis 2, we find that Adam is initially not created with a corresponding helper. He’s alone in a way that no other creature is, and God pronounces his aloneness “not good.” Children understand feelings of aloneness and of needing help. The creation of Eve shows that God is concerned with those feelings—and with the reality that prompts them. He provided for Adam, and he provides for us.

What led you to focus on the sameness of men and women rather than their differences?

Both descriptors matter. God could have solved Adam’s aloneness to some degree by creating another male as the second human. Male friendship is a beautiful antidote to male loneliness, and men in partnership accomplish much. But the aloneness in view in Genesis 2 has to do with bearing offspring, so woman is distinctly what is lacking.

Recognizing this, we might expect that when Adam sees Eve for the first time, he would sing a hymn about how different she is from him. But Adam’s first words on seeing his corresponding helper instead emphasize how alike they are. He first recognizes that she is same-of-same. She, too, is made in the image of God.

This is why the concept of “helper” can be used about men, women, and even God himself. All humans are made to help each other, created in the image of our helper God. We may help in particular ways, according to our sex, but we also help in general ways, according to the need at hand.

How does our sameness reflect God’s image to the world?

When men and women stand shoulder to shoulder, partnering in the work of the church in same-but-different ways, the full image of God emerges. Like a human family, the family of God is made up of fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers. None of these is interchangeable with the other but all thrive in partnership. And all are essential to the mission of God.

All humans are made to help each other, created in the image of our helper God.

When we forget our familial sameness, we tend to turn on one another as Genesis 3 predicted we would. We tear each other down and divide over the smallest matters, like quarreling siblings. We become rivals instead of allies, and the work of the kingdom stalls before the eyes of a watching world.

God is not divided in himself, nor should the family he has made in his image be. What more compelling witness is there to the truth of the gospel than the reconciling work it does among spiritual siblings and the thriving partnership that results?

How can viewing ourselves and others as helpers change the way children engage friends and family?

It’s no secret that we’re in the middle of a loneliness epidemic—due in no small part to the triumph of radical individualism in our culture. We tend to view loneliness as normal, needing help as a sign of failure, and giving help as pity or even meddling. But the Bible tells us that we’re made for interconnection and mutual support. Helping others is fundamental to what we were created to do! And offering help is often the beginning of ongoing connection, as is receiving it.

We all need to be reminded that we aren’t meant to navigate life alone and that sharing the load is its own sweetness. Instead of viewing relationships as simply a means to an end, children can learn to view them as opportunities for the reciprocal blessings of mutual support. If we normalize the need for help from others, we become quicker both to ask for it and to accept it.

Why does it matter for children to understand that they, too, are helpers?

Children want to contribute. They understand needing, asking for, and receiving help intuitively because of their stage of life. As they grow, they notice that to be an adult is to possess the ability to offer and supply help to others. This is why they love to help parents make a pie or plant a garden. They enjoy both the partnership and the ability to contribute. It makes them feel very grown up!

Instead of viewing relationships as simply a means to an end, children can learn to view them as opportunities for the reciprocal blessings of mutual support.

My 3-year-old grandson follows my son around with his toy mower on lawn day, just the way his dad did as a little boy. At some point, his contribution to the yard work will be material. In my experience, our kids were less likely to complain about household chores when they understood them not as tasks for training them but as actual, necessary, valuable contributions to the functioning of the household.

This extends to the family of God, as well. Children can help in the church! They can help with volunteer cleaning days, with trash pickup, with planting flowerbeds, with handing out bulletins. And as they grow, their areas of service multiply. Older kids can help in preschool classrooms on Sunday morning or with Vacation Bible School in the summer. Children who learn to help at church learn to value church at a personal level.