Latter-day Saints typically understand the nuclear family, consisting of father, mother, and children, to play a central role in God’s plan for humanity. The phrase “multiply and replenish the earth” occurs six times in our canonical texts, but only twice in the Bible, in Genesis 1:28 and 9:1. Two of the modern references are from Joseph Smith’s revision of Genesis, Moses 2:28 and 5:2, but only the first of these corresponds directly to one of the Genesis usages. A final reference to the phrase in a creation context arises in Abraham 4:28. The last remaining occurrence of this phrase, in Doctrine and Covenants 132:63, suggests a connection between childbirth and exaltation. Clearly, in light of this last reference, procreation has a higher theological status in the distinctively Mormon scriptures than in the Bible.
The emphasis on the theological importance of childbearing is, if anything, more pronounced in statements by the church’s leadership. Consider Melvin J. Ballard’s remarkably pointed statement from the middle of the 20th century:

There is a passage in our Scriptures which the Latter-day Saints accept as divine: ‘This is the glory of God—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man’ [see Moses 1:39]. Likewise we could say that this is the glory of men and women—to bring to pass the mortality of the sons and daughters of God, to give earth-life to the waiting children of our Father. (Sermons and Missionary Services, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1949, pp. 203)

More recently, in the April 1995 general conference, M. Russell Ballard made a similar statement, reiterating the absolute centrality of reproduction to the purposes of mortality:

After the Fall, God instructed Adam to cleave unto his wife, Eve (see Moses 3:24; D&C 42:22). “God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Gen. 1:28), a commandment that has never been rescinded.

That fall, a remarkably similar statement became part of the Proclamation on the Family:

The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.

In light of all these statements–and the many, many more that I haven’t quoted here–it seems clear that childless couples are failing to meet one of their most profound and fundamental mortal obligations. They are disregarding the first commandment given to humanity; they are neglecting their work and their glory; and they are failing to develop the relationships that are the basis for exaltation.

Having established the moral gravity of childlessness for Mormons, I have a confession to make. Serenity Valley and I are childless. We’ve been married for almost six years and we still have no children. This is a source of some sadness and great deal of disappointment to us; we first started trying to get pregnant a couple of months after we were married. And yet here we are. Serenity is currently going through a cycle of medical testing to see if there are solutions available for our particular difficulties, and if not we’re going to register to adopt as soon as our finances will make us look viable to adoption agencies. For the time being, we are forced to simply accept our situation.
One part of that situation is the strange way that we are treated by many other Mormons. Drawing on the church doctrine discussed briefly above, as well as on copious reserves of folklore, others in our community frequently assign motivations for our childlessness. Some assume that we are childless so that we can travel. (In fact, travel is part of my profession and will necessarily continue to be a part of our lives when we have children.) Others imagine that we have financial motivations for delaying “starting a family,” or that we are waiting until I finish graduate school. Not infrequently, people suppose that one or both of us dislike children.

I understand that, in light of the heavy theological emphasis on childbirth within our tradition, many people will need to provide themselves with some explanation for why active, faithful Latter-day Saints like us have no children. However, people often seem to need not just to develop such an explanation, but to share it with us. The resulting conversations are, almost without fail, socially awkward, invasive, and painful.

Equally painful are people’s well-meaning but frequently ham-handed attempts to encourage us to decide to have children. People have, for example, remarked on how great the two of us would look with children. When one or the other of us has had a calling related to children, people (although never, to date, the bishop–fortunately) sometimes comment on how the experience might help us get over our fear (repulsion, etc.) of children.

Individuals and families that fall outside the image of the nuclear family, with a mother, a father, and children, all share a set of common complaints within the Mormon cultural world. Like single parents, single adults, individuals within extended- (rather than nuclear-) family systems, and others who fall outside the norm, childless couples can suffer from the unjust judgment of their fellow Saints. We also experience some degree of (probably unavoidable) social isolation in a community as profoundly child-focused as our own. All this on top of the personal sorrow that Serenity and I face because we can’t as yet have children.

I can’t change this situation, and neither, dear reader, can you. But, since we believe in work by proxy, let me act as a proxy for childless couples in general and ask you (as a proxy for the rest of our friends and fellow believers) that you make an extra effort to be tactful and understanding in interacting with childless couples. This is, after all, a wonderful way for you to bear our burdens that they may be light (Mosiah 18:8).