Chapter 1, Introduction
by Brian G. Daigle
Parenting is no new occupation. There is no parent who can say they are on uncharted territory or untrodden ground. From the tragic to the tremendous, every moment of parenting has been experienced before, perhaps being experienced by another parent across the world or across the street, at the very moment we are experiencing it. Parenting is indeed a very old vocation, and so if we are to get it right, we had better learn from those who have gone before us.
Still, parenting, however old, is never stale, because it is we who experience it anew each day, and it is being experienced now, at this time, and with this child. Not only does the personal aspect of parenting make it unique, so does the temporal aspect of it, that it always happens in time and space, with a unique set of characters, plot points, settings, themes, and backdrops. So while parenting is nothing new, parenting in a certain era (or in a certain time and space) requires special attention, special consideration. Of ages and their uniqueness, C.S. Lewis states, “Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.”
Because every age has its unique characteristics, even its blinders, we then ought to be diligent about not just learning the age-old issues and principles in parenting but how those acquired principles may be applied today, in the here and now. That is the purpose of this series: to consider aged wisdom and how it applies to our parenting today, within the more specific attributes of the 21st century, the more specific soil with which we and our children are surrounded. Chesterton said that the modern world is full of the old virtues gone mad. This is quite true:
“The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered…it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.” (Orthodoxy)
In this series, we want to recover those old Christian virtues and make them sane, able to stand up straight and wisely discern the pitiful aim of contemporary culture as it drunkenly wobbles down the darkened pathway toward the forbidden city.
This series is not meant to be an academic, heady series. While there will be a healthy dose of deep ideas and rich vocabulary, this series is a mid-brow kind of series. It is meant to stretch mothers and fathers to consider anew the work set before them, to consider more deeply the seeds in their hands and the field at their feet. If this series has any lasting academic value, it is my hope that academic men and women will be more grounded (seeing that intellectual prowess is nothing without love toward one’s neighbor) and those who are well-grounded will lift their eyes higher to the heaven of ideas (seeing that our deeds ought to be the fruit of sound thinking.)
Growing up I didn’t like studying, and I didn’t enjoy reading. I didn’t care much for words until late into my undergraduate studies when I began to consider the weight of our words. From there, I have come to realize that words not only have weight, they have a kind of metaphysical hue, an insensible stench, an atmospheric quality about them. Studying words has made my world come alive. Each word I look into—considering its denotation (dictionary meaning), connotation (contextual meaning), and etymology (its origin and parts)—is like a door through which I step, if even for a moment. There have been word-portals so large for me that I find myself walking into that world often, even passing the threshold and looking back at the world where I live. The word education has been that way for me. So has the word propriety and logic and poetry. The word parent has also been one of those elephant-door sized words for me.
The word parent comes from the Latin word parere, which means to prepare. When I share this with my students or a room of adults, I always ask, “Now that we know this meaning, what question does it beg us to ask next?” It begs the questions “Prepare what? Prepare how? Prepare for what?” There is the heart of the parent’s work: to be purposeful preparers, intentional laborers, to consider what they are preparing, how they are to prepare it, and what the preparation is for. If my child were a tool, how would I fashion that tool? With what methods? Out of what materials? For what purpose? If my child were a work of art, what kind of artist should I become? If my child were a war tactic, what kind of war strategist or general should I be? If my child were a speech, what kind of rhetorician am I? The concept inherent in the word prepare is something akin to being a craftsman. Sloppy craftsmen are revealed by their work; the same is true of sloppy parents. Great craftsmen are also revealed by their work; the same is true of great parents. Alexander the Great once remarked that Phillip II gave him life but Aristotle (his hired tutor and that famous Athenian philosopher) taught him to live. Who then was Alexander the Great’s parent?
But our work is far more than that of a craftsman, for we are fashioning an eternal soul, made in the image of the one True God, given to us by divine providence to steward in this life, to prepare them both for this life and the life to come. How much more should we then seek to be excellent parent-craftsmen, skilled in the trade, in partnership with other master-craftsmen, in submission to our Triune God, taking care of and sharpening our tools, discussing the trade, identifying frauds, and ensuring that thieves and robbers do not break in and sabotage our work?
This series is about sharpening our tools. It is about providing anvils. It is about untying our proverbial tongues so that our children are a sweet sound to society, a pleasant aroma, like the scent offering, wafting heavenward to the nostrils of our God. This series takes its name from a passage by Seneca:
“The period of education calls for the greatest, and what will also prove to be the most profitable, attention; for it is easy to train the mind while it is still tender, but it is a difficult matter to curb the vices that have grown up with us…It will be the utmost profit, I say, to give children sound training from the very beginning; guidance, however, is difficult, because we ought to take the pains neither to develop in them anger nor to blunt their native spirit. The matter requires careful watching; for both qualities—that which should be encouraged and that which should be checked—are fed by like things, and like things easily deceive even a close observer. By freedom their spirit grows, by servitude it is crushed; if it is commended and is led to expect good things of itself, it mounts up, but these same measures breed insolence and temper; therefore we must guide the children between the two extremes, using now the curb, then the spur.” (Lucius Annaeus Seneca “On Anger” page 92-93 in Gamble’s The Great Tradition)
Parents at all times have at their disposal curbs and spurs to train our children in the way they should go or not go. Likewise, parents are to place upon themselves the right curbs and spurs which guide them in their parenting. The curb and spur of which Seneca speaks applies to adults, especially parents and educators, as much as they apply to children. Those who have a philosophy of education, a philosophy of training the youth and passing on values from one generation to another, have a great responsibility to be checked in some areas and encouraged in others. This is the nature of the broken human condition: some things must be crushed while others are constructed; some condemned, others commended. That is the goal of this series, which will present its ideas through sequential installments.
Each installment, or chapter, will take an idea we as 21st century parents hear often (e.g. identity, freedom, restraint, diversity), ideas which often quietly shape our parenting, which often quickly and subtly shape our educational and familial choices, and we will examine that idea under the light of Scripture. We will soak it in sound thinking; we will age it in barrels of Old World wisdom. And we will ask how it is we live as faithful witness of Christ at this time and with this blessed responsibility. At the end of each chapter will be a brief section titled “How Should We Then Parent?” It will offer more practical advice for applying the principles presented in the chapter.
This series should not only help parents see the curbs their child requires, it should provide curbs for parents. Every attempt to build must be preceded by a successful demolition, or at least a successful construction of boundaries and checks on a land already cleared. Some topics and ideas have been chosen for their particular strength in demolishing a modern framework of parenting, assumptions, and beliefs which have led to the family, the home, the parent’s craft as we know it. This modern framework is deeply imbedded in parents and educators alike. For those of us who have only known this way of bringing up a child, some chapters hit like a wrecking ball; they crash through our misconceptions and open to us a whole new world of what it means to parent well. Once taken together, these chapters are not only wrecking balls, they are curbs to keep us in check.
Likewise, this series should not only help parents see the spurs their child requires, this series should provide spurs for parents. A dilapidated house will not long stand. A lazy thoroughbred will not soon be of any use. While some topics have been chosen for their demolition quality, other topics and ideas have been chosen for their particular strength in building up a proper understanding of parenting, beliefs and practices which will lead to a flourishing and happy humanity. Like Socrates on the back of a complacent Athens, these chapters are a gadfly. For those of us who have known little to nothing of this way of parenting, these chapters stand before us like living water in earthen vessels; they quench our longing and strengthen our resolve to parent well. Once taken together, these chapters are not only scaffolding, archways, and window-dressings, they are spurs to encourage us.
To close, there are no ineffective parents. There are no unfruitful parents. Parenting, as Chesterton said of education, is not a word like theology. It is not an inferior or superior thing; it is a word like transmitting or arranging. It is a word like handling and shaping. “Becoming a parent” is a phrase like “making a difference” or “hammering out the details.” It tells us nothing of the quality or direction of the difference made or the details being hammered. It tells us nothing whatsoever about whether the details hammered out were imperfections needing conformity or stain-glass details that can never be replaced. Therefore, the need of the hour is not more advice on parenting, but parenting rightly considered, parenting dutifully directed. We could say the need of the hour is parents who have a right handle on curbs and spurs, employed in a 21st century setting.
How Should We Then Parent?
We should parent with our eyes open to the things about us and the things within us. We should have a healthy dose of self-reflection and naval gazing. We should be capable of digging into and discussing the details while also having a thousand-foot view of the landscape. We should parent in communion, in community, and in communication with other great parents, and with those great ideas that have gone before us. If I were asking someone to prepare my taxes, I would want an intelligent, seasoned, considerate, trustworthy, and timely CPA. How much more should we as parents seek to portray those characteristics in our parenting, knowing that what we prepare is far more precious than silver or gold, and our Auditor is far more knowledge, meaningful, and holy than a government department? Socrates famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living. We can recycle this for our purposes here: the unexamined parent is not worth having.
Completed Saturday of Pentecost 14, 2020
Brian G. Daigle
