Children and the Household

Before the Industrial Revolution, households were centers of productivity. The entire family unit worked together to accomplish an overarching goal. Let’s take, for instance, two families: in one family, the father runs a grocery store, and in the other, the father is a farmer. Both families have a wife and two sons and three daughters. The husband’s priority is putting food on the table and ensuring that his family is productive and efficient; the wife’s priority is ‘keeping the home’ and making it a livable and productive place. Her homemaking encompasses a lot: producing food and clothing, raising the children, and putting her husband’s produce to good use. The children aren’t there as unnecessary add-ons but as integral features of the family unit; the children are needed as much as they are wanted. If the grocer wants to expand his business, he needs help at the store and in his expansions; if the farmer wants to expand his holdings and increase his crop, he needs extra hands to work the fields. The sons fulfill this role: not only are they learning how to do be grocers or farmers for when they build their own households, but they’re participating in the household’s productivity. The daughters have an important role as well: in learning domestic duties, not only are they preparing for the time when they bud off and build their own households, but they are also participating in the household’s productivity. Mom has a lot on her plate, and the older daughters are enlisted not only in helping with cleaning and cooking and fashioning clothes and finding the best deals at the market, but they are also assisting in the rearing of the younger daughters. In households prior to the Industrial Revolution, every member of the house – the father, the mother, and the children – had vital parts to play. The children weren’t burdens, or add-ons, or simply ‘little gifts from heaven’: they were absolutely necessary for the maximizing of the household’s productivity.

We have lost this sense of a productive household in large part due to the changes the Industrial Revolution wrought not only on society but also on families. With the advent of mass production and factories, more and more men left family trades and crafts and farming to work in factories; they were removed from the home, and their role as teacher and mentor for the children corroded. At the same time, the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution made life easier for the women: instead of fashioning clothes themselves, they could purchase them cheaply from the store, and instead of helping to grow food in the garden, they could purchase it from the grocery. As the Industrial Revolution continued to advance, women had a lot of free time on their hands, their husbands were away, and they began to feel slighted, as if they had lost purpose in life. This played no small part in the rise of feminism and the movement of women away from the home into careers, and as this movement took place, children started being raised by daycares and being trained at public schools; when parents stopped raising their children, the state stepped in. The Industrial Revolution paved the way for modern consumerism: when goods are cheaply made, money is readily available, and people have a lot of free time on their hands, it only makes sense that they turn to consuming goods. Thus families became consumers rather than producers, and this ties in with the modern mindset of having kids do ‘chores’ around the house so that they can earn their own money with which to consume. One of the most grievous aftershocks of all this is that the role of children changed: no longer were children needed on the homestead. Children are necessary if a household is to produce, but children are a drag on consumerist society. Our culture’s hatred of children, evidenced in how younger generations – among them plenty of Christians! – are vowing not to have children. Not only are they no longer needed, they are also no longer wanted.

When we look at the bible’s commands to children – about how, for instance, they are to obey their parents – and its commands to fathers – to discipline them in the Lord without being harsh towards them – it’s mighty difficult to divorce our reading of those texts from the current cultural mindset. We are instinctively led to view the households of New Testament times as if they were mirror images of our own; children are ‘happy accidents’ or temporary family residents whom must be provided for, so it only makes sense that they obey their authorities so as not to get in the way. Fathers are to discipline their family to keep them in line. When we look at these texts from the perspective of productive households, however, the texts begin to morph: children are to obey their parents because their parents are the chiefs of the household, and an authority structure is necessary for the productiveness of that households; fathers are to discipline their children not merely to keep them in line, or even to prepare them for the ‘Real World,’ but to ensure their productivity in the household. Discipline isn’t only about punishing bad behavior; discipline’s goal is to provoke the right behavior, and that is behavior that is directly linked to the household’s productivity. When children ‘help out’ around the house, they aren’t simply making Mom and Dad’s life easier: they’re contributing to the productivity of the household. It is the father’s job to keep the household not only productive but also efficient; he is to ‘oil the gears,’ so to speak, in order to promote a well-run organic household. Indeed, the biblical authority structure given for the family – the father being the head of the household, the mother being the ‘homemaker,’ and the children being obedient and disciplined – all lends itself to a well-oiled, highly efficient, productive household. 

That our culture has drifted so far from the idea of a ‘productive household’ is evident in several ways, not least the rejection of household authority structures. Those who reject the headship of the husband, the submission of the wife, and the obedience of the children are the same who promote these very authoritarian structures in businesses and government! Why is this the case? Well, it’s quite simple: secularists believe that businesses and government are productive and deny that households can be so, too. Indeed, they don’t want this to be the case: big-government secularists have sought to destroy the household and to raise Big Brother government in its place. They’re not opposed to hierarchy or authority; they’re just opposed to hierarchy or authority in the home. Productive households chafe against government overreach; only when households are inefficient or inept can government step in and take control.

Children need to know that they aren’t just temporary fixtures to a household but integral components of it. They need to know that they don’t do chores to earn money to spend frivolously on their wants and needs but because by doing so they are contributing to the household’s productivity. Our culture hates children, and children can sense it. In a society where households are corroding, children can often feel out-of-place and sense a lack of belonging. They need to know that not only do they have a place, not only do they belong, but they also have purpose. So often (and I am guilty of this!) we tell children that it is the parents’ job to teach them and discipline them and mentor them so that, when they grow up, they can be productive members of society. But what about the here and now? The unspoken message is that until that time, children aren’t productive. The reality is that children are necessary for a productive household, and the lessons they learn and the discipline they receive in the moment isn’t only tailored for some future reality but for what the home needs in the present moment. In my own household I’ve stopped talking in terms of modern consumerist households and focused on our household’s productivity; I’ve made it clear to my children that they don’t have chores ‘just because’ but because those are important things that need to get done and they are the ones to do it; I’ve emphasized how they aren’t only wanted by Mom and me but also that they’re needed; I’ve honed in on the fact that they are vital members of our family, and they aren’t only important for the future but in the present moment – and they’ve loved hearing it. As my wife and I have shifted in the way we talk about ‘chores’ (or, rather, household responsibilities), our children have been far more helpful, have had far less attitudes, and have been much more obedient. My suspicion is that the shift in the way we approach their responsibilities has struck something in the core of their hearts: they know not only that they’re loved, not only that they’re liked, not only that they’re wanted, but also that they’re needed. If children need to hear anything in our culture, it’s precisely that.