Do not listen to those who quote sixty-year-old sociological studies and ignore 2,000-year-old wisdom. The former studies have an agenda and they replicate about as well as a coin toss. Their job is not to inform nor to make you a better parent. Their job is to give you a sense of superiority while you abdicate your responsibility.

Yes, you should spank your children. And yes, you should do it with a clean conscience. Spanking is not “hitting,” and those who conflate the two, especially if they make a big deal about not spanking, are trying to cover up their own guilt.

How Often to Spank

A lot of the time, people who bring up spanking picture a reign of terror where you are constantly swatting kids on the bottom and constantly nursing a sore hand.

But if you spank right, spanking will be rare. Sure, there are times when it might not seem that way or you need to go on a “reign of terror.” And every child is different. You may go weeks or months before you need to spank.

Most of a child’s spankings will come before they are 5 years old. If you are faithful in this short timeframe, one that will pass faster than you realize, then the rest of your parenting job will be much easier and much more enjoyable. It also results in a happier, guilt-free child.

Spankings are there because you can’t argue with a toddler. And if you tried to calmly explain things they wouldn’t understand or internalize most of it. But toddlers understand pain. Very clearly. It is much more humane to give them a quick spanking than subject them to emotional manipulation in the form of long lectures and guilt trips.

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Yes, the Rod Can Be Used for Striking

Whenever “the rod” is brought up in the context of the Bible, people are quick to point out that the intended context is a shepherd’s rod and that it was strictly meant for guiding and protection.

But let’s look at the verses.

Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

Proverbs 13:24

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

Proverbs 22:15

The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.

Proverbs 29:15

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.

Proverbs 23:13-14

The last one is explicit and leaves no room for doubt.

The goal of the rod is to inflict temporary pain with no damage. Very, very temporary pain. You will not ruin your children. They will not die.

But it is a matter of life and death. If you do not discipline them now, the world will discipline them later, and the world has no mercy.

Spanking in the proper context is an act of love for the child, an act of love for that child’s siblings, and an act of love for anyone who interacts with that child in the future.

Know Their Frame

All that being said, know their frame. They are but dust.

And as they get older, it’s ok to give them second chances. Tell them to step back and try again and get it right this time. If you know they are acting out because they are hungry, show some mercy and get them something to eat. Or if you know they are tired, just send them to bed.

Though not all of the time. They also need to know it’s not okay to act like a brat, even if they don’t feel good. Exercise wisdom and do not provoke them to wrath.

Spanking is Humane and Efficient

The revolt against spanking is another symptom of our sentimentality and false righteousness. A single spanking can save hours of lectures and guilt trips. Ask a kid what he would rather have: a single spanking or being grounded for a week from something he loves.

The same principle can be seen in our criminal justice system, writ large and cranked up to eleven. In the name of being humane, we are inhumane. Ask any inmate whether they would rather get ten lashes or ten more years in prison and see which he would prefer.

Only Spank in the Context of Love

Whenever you exercise discipline, you are writing a check. Don’t find yourself writing checks with no money in the bank. You put money in the bank with time, attention, and affection.

If the only time your kids get any attention from you is when you are disciplining them, they will get a perverse view of fatherhood and discipline. They will either see you as a tyrant and eventually rebel or think of themselves as unworthy of affection. Or both.

Your children should understand delegated authority. If you homeschool, you might have to be more intentional about teaching them this concept.

As the norm, they should obey their teachers. But you should help them understand why they need to obey their teachers, and in this case, “because I said so” is actually a legitimate reason.

In fact, it is the reason.

As the father, you are responsible for your children’s education. As you attempt to manage this responsibility, you may decide to delegate part of it to others. Teachers would fall under this umbrella. And yes, this also means public school teachers.

A teacher’s authority derives from your authority. Despite what the teacher’s union or local school board may insinuate, teaching your children is your business, and teachers are not free agents. They are agents of the father. When they think they are agents of the state, which they predominantly do, since that is where their paychecks come from, priorities get scrambled. You get bizarre inversions where teachers, who think their authority derives from their “expertise” or some such nonsense, claim that education is no business of the parents.

And because teachers are agents of the father, your children should obey their teachers and listen to them. You have ordained their teachers with some of your authority, and so they should listen to their teachers as if they were listening to the words of their father.

There are exceptions, of course. Delegated authority is never perfect. The stream gets thin in one place, it rushes with rapids in another, and somewhere a family of beavers has built a dam. Fathers and teachers are human. Flawed.

Delegated authority is also limited. A teacher tasked with teaching a child English grammar should not take it upon herself to teach her students how to shoot a gun. Nor is it her business to teach them about sexual morality and polycules.

But the default assumption should be one of deference and obedience.

After all, your own authority as a father is delegated as well. It is not innate but flows from the Father. Delegated authority is built into the foundation of the world. Therefore, to navigate the world properly, your children should understand the concept. They should practice it.

This means that to be a responsible father, you and their mother cannot be their only teachers. Some options, if you homeschool:

• Music lessons (piano, guitar, etc.)

• Bible class at church

• Martial arts

• Organized sports

• Art classes

• Co-ops where other parents teach certain subjects

If there is a problem, your children should feel comfortable appealing to a higher authority. You, for starters. But if you have delegated authority, you should be prepared to give that authority the benefit of the doubt and always listen to the other side of the story.

The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

Proverbs 18:17

Your job is to discern the truth, not make excuses for your children.

“Well, Sarah is very special…”

“My little Johny would never do that…”

Children learn quickly how to play their parents off of each other if there is not a united front, and the same is true for teachers and parents. Don’t be naive.

And because you should give your children’s teachers the benefit of the doubt, you should be very careful when putting them under the authority of those teachers. Do your due diligence. Don’t choose the default just because it’s easy.

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.

Proverbs 13:22

It is not enough to think about the future of your children. If you are not at least thinking about what you will leave your grandchildren, you are not thinking long-term enough.

Why the focus on grandchildren?

Because traditions must be passed on. The perpetuation of a culture doesn’t just happen by accident.

Creating a good life for your children isn’t enough. If the good life ends at that generation, you have failed. Great fathers create great fathers, and you must forge your sons in a way that they will, in turn, forge strong sons.

You don’t control every outcome, of course, but you can set up habits and systems and expectations that make it more likely your children, and their children after them, will have a good inheritance. Focusing on grandchildren now, even before you have them, helps clarify this purpose.

Once the kids are out of the house and have started creating lives of their own, you don’t get to sit back and wash your hands of the situation. There is still work to do. That is, if you consider yourself a patriarch.

Sure, you can start enjoying some of the fruits of your labor, but you still need to reinvest in your family.

Now that you are old and wiser (hopefully), you are better equipped to mentor younger kids. You have additional gravitas. Your grandchildren will benefit greatly from your involvement.

Your own legacy depends upon it.

It is a poor legacy indeed that only lasts a single generation. Families are trees, with each branch being supported by the limb that came before it. Would you be the weak limb that can’t support more than a single branch?

Aim to leave an inheritance for your grandchildren and you’ll cover the needs of your children just fine. This means you want them to be wise enough to use your inheritance. So plan to invest in them before they even exist.

How do you do this?

• Stay married.

• Stay out of credit card debt.

• Don’t blow most of your money on vacations and luxuries. Build generational wealth. Don’t force your descendants to start from zero.

• Try your best to live close to your progeny. That means you need to have a good relationship with them.

• Plan to offer help, but without being pushy. Let them know days and times you’re available to help out with the grandchildren.

• Don’t wait until you are dead to distribute money and resources. Take advantage of tax-advantaged accounts and the gift exclusion as much as possible. If you wait until you are dead, your children will get far, far less.

Think long-term, and you get more clarity on the short-term.

There should be a reward for whining, and it should be consistently distributed every time one of your kids begins with the martyr routine. What is that reward?

More of what they are whining about.

Are they whining about a chore they have to do? They get another chore they have to do immediately after.

Are they whining about schoolwork? They just earned another 15 minutes of Math worksheets.

Are they whining about having to stop playing video games? They don’t get to play video games at all tomorrow. Do they whine about that? Make it a week. Casually up the ante, remaining calm and business-like until they get the message.

Whining should never be accommodated. Ever. You don’t negotiate with terrorists. Remember, you get more of what you subsidize. Always.

Just imagine your child at 25 years old, whining about the same things, making the same complaints in that self-pitying voice. It’s ugly, isn’t it? So don’t let them get away with it now. Do them the favor of excising that habit from their lives early. Better they are disciplined by someone who loves them now than awkwardly ignored, ridiculed, and avoided when they are older because their squeaky wheel won’t stop.

But you should also check how you are contributing to their whining. They are probably just mimicking you. You are probably a little more sophisticated at it, with a more even tone, less stomping of the feet, bigger words that conceal instead of reveal, but it is whining nonetheless.

Do you complain about your boss at the dinner table?

Do you complain about the weather after you mowed the lawn?

Do you complain about the elders at your church?

When something is slightly wrong at a restaurant, do you complain and “talk to the manager” until you get your way?

Most adults are serial whiners, so it’s not a surprise that their children learn the same habits of discontentment.

So stop whining yourself. Don’t reward it in yourself. Don’t indulge in it.

And then never reward it when your children do it.

A friend took his 14-year-old daughter to a school event, during which he made a joke he thought was hilarious, as fathers often do. Later, he thought he might have embarrassed her, so he apologized.

“I thought it was funny, but I didn’t mean to embarrass you in front of your friends. Sorry about that.”

Her response: “Dad, I don’t care what my friends think about you. I care what you think about my friends.”

A lot of stuff is wrapped up in that one statement, like trust, love, and loyalty, but it proves he’s done something right. It also proves that having rebellious teenagers is not an inevitability. It’s not something that just “happens” like the rising of the sun.

However, the investment you made in your children becomes the most obvious in their teenage years. Will your investment yield a return? You will reap a harvest. Will it be one of wheat and fruit or one of tares and weeds? Will you be able to say to your children, “Do what you want,” and expect they will make the right choices?

How do you avoid the rebellious teenage years?

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The word economics spreads a wide umbrella over many concepts. Scarcity and choice, production and distribution of resources, and more.

The origin of the word, however, betrays how much we have lost.

It comes from two Greek words.

• Eco – home

• Nomos – accounts

It had to do with household management and keeping accounts of all the productive work that happened within a household. The word we use to refer to all the productive work of a society originally referred to the management of all of the productive work of a household.

How far our households have fallen.

The word “economics” now needs the qualifier of “home” to have any semblance of its original source, despite having the meaning of “home” in the word itself!

Modern households have become places of personal fulfillment and entertainment, centers where people stare at the TV together and rest from the “real,” actual work that needs to get done. But even that is generous. The average person spends almost 4 hours per day watching TV, but not even all of that time is necessarily spent together. Our devices have fractured us further.

But households used to be the core productive unit of society.

If you wish to build a lasting legacy for your family, you must commit to giving your household a mission.

It must be productive.

Your entire family must contribute in some way to this productivity.

It must make “Home Economics” redundant. The wife’s role becomes more critical in this paradigm.

The modern makeup of our industrialized society makes it difficult to focus our households on productivity. But since when has difficulty been a disqualifier for doing the right thing?

It won’t look like households from the ancient world. It certainly won’t look like the strange limbo of the 1950s. We won’t be able to unplug completely. A push and pull exists between new technological and social realities and more traditional desires. You must live in reality, not your imagined utopia.

Many who now live more traditional lives in the modern world can only do so because of remote work. The internet makes it possible. Still admirable, but do not let the social media mirage dazzle your eyes. Very few people are raising large families with nothing but a small, self-sustaining farm or homestead.

But you can do more. You can form the types of familial bonds that can only be formed in the grind of working toward a common purpose. Expand your imagination beyond what is traditionally seen as “trad.” Opportunities abound. To do anything less is irresponsible.

I’ll end with another quick study of words.

Go back far enough, and dominion and domestic have the same root word. The idea of domain, house, and the right to rule. The work done inside the home feeds into the overall mission of a man. Women filling their homes with beauty, taming some of the residual chaos, is just as important as men conquering that space to begin with.

Envy is a powerful emotion.

And it is a form of relational acid. If not kept in check, it will destroy relationships.

A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.

Proverbs 14:30

It can also twist a person’s affections beyond recognition, making them chase things they don’t even care about.

Here’s a story from my own kids.

We have a dog. My kids are responsible for picking up all of the dog poop from the backyard. This is the main way they contribute to taking care of the family pet.

It’s not their favorite job.

They would rather not do it.

But sometimes they still fight over who gets to use the scooper and who has to hold the bag.

One time, the two youngest had gotten outside quickly and had started the chore. My daughter went out and came back in, visibly upset.

“They won’t let me use the scooper, and they won’t let me use the bag!”

5 minutes ago, she didn’t want to do it. Now, she was upset that someone else was doing it.

“Well,” I said. “Are you desperate to pick up the poop? Is it something you really, really want to do?”

“….no.”

“So stop complaining and instead tell them ‘thank you’ for doing the job.”

Envy makes us desire something just because someone else is doing it or someone else possesses it. It doesn’t matter whether you actually desired it or not. Envy will twist your desires.

And to fulfill your twisted desires, you’ll damage relationships and then feel hollow at the end of it. You’ll wonder why you even started chasing it in the first place.

Killing envy is related to forging sibling bonds. I’ll quote the “kill envy” description as it still applies.

When something good happens to one of them, it should be treated as if it is good for the whole family. “Rejoice when others rejoice” should be one of your anthems and guiding principles.

When a member of the team wins, the whole team wins.

This can be a problem with boys, in particular. Brotherly strife has been a problem since Cain and Abel, so be sure and sniff out any envy and kill it.

Model this for them. Celebrate accomplishments at the dinner table. If there is a consequent reward, like ice cream, let the other siblings partake and enjoy as well.

Do not make comparisons. Do not say that one should be like the other. “Why don’t you eat all of your vegetables, like Bobby?”

This will drive them to differentiate themselves more in the opposite direction, in possibly destructive ways, just so they maintain their own identity. And it gives them permission to resent their sibling.

Instead, praise what is good. The others will catch on.

Expanding on that, here are three more things to focus on:

1. Recognize it in yourself and kill it – if you don’t kill it in yourself first, you will be hesitant to discipline it in others.

2. Recognize it at work in your kids and guide them through it – help them recognize it and how dangerous it is. Guide them toward healthier outlets.

3. Do not tolerate ingratitude – it is the soil where envy grows. Do not let complaining go unchecked.

Keep envy in check, and your family will help give life to your flesh.

Many fathers have a learned helplessness when it comes to the behavior of their children. They have resigned themselves to a losing battle and fight from a constant rearguard position, always in retreat, always fearful of a negative reaction. The child knows the song and dance and knows that, in the end, he will get his way. Every time.

The father might think that nothing works anyway, so why fight? Why make a scene?

Many people become gentle parents at this point, because it’s easier to pretend their abdication is intentional rather than from despair and exhaustion. They can keep their pride intact. But the child, though he gets what he wants (on the surface), feels abandoned and unloved.

“There are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

Oscar Wilde

The quote rings true because most people want the wrong things, and so the wanting is better than the having. And so it is with the child. Externally, he often wants the wrong things. But in reality, he is begging for boundaries and positive attention, and not getting those is a true tragedy.

Here are some of the biggest mistakes fathers make early in a child’s life. Each one compounds and conspires to create brats and seemingly helpless parents.

Discipline Doesn’t Start Early Enough

Discipline should start early in a child’s life, from the moment they can move around on their own power. They need boundaries, and they need loving parents to enforce those boundaries. Sometimes, literal boundaries.

Crawling introduces all sorts of opportunities to practice, while associating enforcement with the word “no.” If a child reaches for an outlet, for example, smack the hand and say “no” in a deep voice. Then redirect. You can always follow up with snuggles and tickles.

Discipline Is Only Done In Anger

The father spanks only when furious, when his patience has been worn thin, and not when it's warranted. The child learns that dad's anger is the real authority, not the rule itself. Discipline becomes unpredictable, and unpredictable discipline is cruel.

You know the scene. You’ve seen it or played your part in it several times.

“Stop throwing the ball in the house.”

Throws ball.

“I said stop throwing the ball in the house!”

Throws ball some more.

“What did I tell you? Stop throwing the ball!”

Throws ball, this time knocking over a lamp and breaking it.

“WHAT DID I SAY!” The father, now enraged, spanks the child in anger, at risk of actually harming him. What lesson is learned? Don’t make Dad angry. Tiptoe around him. Be careful. Disobey, but hide it.

But if the father had disciplined after the first infraction, the child would have learned the proper lesson, which leads into the next one.

They Give Commands They Aren’t Prepared To Enforce

Every unenforced command teaches your child that your words are optional. Give fewer direct commands. Mean every single word. If you give a command, be prepared to enforce it if they don’t obey. Immediately.

Demanding this of yourself means you should measure your words carefully. Don’t toss them around. They should have power. Don’t unload a long list of commands all at once and expect perfect obedience. The child might not remember them all, and you might not either. Even if the child wants to obey, you have set them up for failure.

Let’s go with a classic one every parent has probably struggled with. “Put your shoes on, it’s time to go.”

Ten minutes later, the shoes still aren’t on. Maybe you have stated the command at least 3 other times. The child learns that you only mean something if you say it at least three times.

Say it once. If after 30 seconds, the shoes are not on, or they are not in the act of putting them on, discipline. That could mean a spanking, or it could mean grounding them from whatever they were playing with at the time.

There’s another tragic flip side to this. If your children know that you don’t actually mean your commands, they will treat all of your other words with the same weight. Your promises will mean nothing. Your declarations of love are as light as feathers. They know you don’t mean what you say, because you have proved it to them over and over.

They Wait Too Long Between the Offense and the Consequence

A toddler cannot connect a punishment five minutes later to what he did five minutes ago. You have seconds. Anything more creates confusion. Early on, you must be prepared to enforce every single command and to enforce it immediately. Do not leave any room for confusion.

Don’t toss a command behind your shoulder while you’re driving, unless you are prepared to pull over, stop the car, and get out. If you wait until you arrive at your destination 10 minutes later, the moment is lost.

As children get older, connecting offense and consequence becomes much easier because you can reason with them. But by that point, they have been trained. It’s not an everyday occurrence, and your lecture is more of a reinforcement of something already known deep in their bones rather than a necessity.

The Only Attention They Give is Negative Attention

A child demands attention, and if disobedience is the only time a father pays attention to him, a child will learn ways to get that attention. Hugs, kisses, laughter, playtime, conversations both shallow and deep. Saturate your child with love and attention. He will let you know if he needs more of it. Fill up the bank.

Every moment of discipline should come from this context of love, where they know, deep down, that you want them close. Discipline is a temporary interruption for their own good, and not a permanent state of disfellowship.

Want an easy place to start? Reading out loud to them every night is a great way to give regular, focused attention.

I’ve also written several books that are great for this purpose.

It’s Not Too Late

The good news is that children respond very quickly to new patterns of discipline. It’s not too late. You are not helpless. Stand firm a few times, consistently, and your children will start learning the new reality. And though more difficult, even neglected teenagers can respond to a father taking more responsibility.

The battle is worth it. No less than the souls of your children are at stake.

If you want to be treated like a man, you have to act like a man. Above all, acting like a man means taking on responsibility without grumbling or complaining. And it means direct speech without any waffle words or detached irony.

You aren’t owed respect. You have to earn it. Respect you didn’t earn isn’t worth much anyway, and you’ll always have doubts clawing at your mind, making you feel like an imposter, because you are.

Reframe the problem. The question is not "why don't they respect me?" The question is "what have I done that's worthy of respect?"

I had to earn it from my father-in-law. I can pinpoint the exact conversation where our relationship started to change.

He didn’t like the church we were going to at the time. He thought it was a bit loose with the Bible and that we could do better.

While we were at his house, he brought it up with me while we were alone in the living room. He was concerned.

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While there are many attributes that a “good friend” will have, there is one that is critical.

A lack of envy.

A willingness to rejoice when others rejoice.

When you have good news, you know exactly who you want to tell, because they let you be excited and they don’t try to one-up you. “Oh, you got a promotion, that’s great I just bought a new car.”

A friend who does not envy is rare. It has always been rare.

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Aeschylus, the ancient Greek playwright, has Agamemnon say the following:

In few men is it part of nature to respect a friend’s prosperity without begrudging him, as envy’s wicked poison settling to the heart piles up the pain in one sick with unhappiness, who, staggered under sufferings that are all his own, winces again to the vision of a neighbor’s bliss.

Notice that last line.

“…winces again to the vision of a neighbor’s bliss.”

Of all the companions Agamemnon could remember, only Odysseus maintained his sincerity. All others were a “shadow’s ghost” of companionship. They were around him because he was powerful, either out of fear or because he could do something for them. Their envy, however, proved that they would tear him apart for scraps if the opportunity arose.

It is getting harder to find people who do not envy the accomplishments of others because our culture rewards immaturity and whining. The politics of envy assumes that if someone has something good, then they have denied someone else that good thing. That everything is zero-sum.

If you find a friend who does not envy, you have found a treasure.

And if you are that friend who does not envy, you can be a blessing to everyone you come in contact with. A drink of cool water in a desert.

So use this test.

If they can rejoice when you rejoice, they are a good friend. You can tell if it’s sincere. Envious manipulators might try to pretend, but you know. And if not immediately, then soon after, when they start demanding things from you or using your newfound success as an excuse to tear you down in other ways.

For your part, kill envy in yourself. Envy is a poison that steals your joy. Envy is a cancer that corrupts your friendships.

A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.

Proverbs 14:30

Learn to truly rejoice when others rejoice, and more people will want to rejoice with you. You will accrue joy and good cheer to yourself, which becomes a gravitas all its own.

If you truly love someone, you will want good things to happen to them, full stop, regardless of your own situation.

Having a way for your children to earn money is a good way to start teaching them how to handle money. But you need to be careful. You don’t want to raise pure mercenaries.

You don’t want them holding out their hand for a tip after brushing their teeth. You also don’t want them fishing for compliments and rewards just because they put their plate in the dishwasher. Some behavior should be expected. Children should not be trained to beg for treats like a dog.

To help prevent this, making certain distinctions can be helpful.

There are different categories of money, each of which is important.

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Death is an inevitable part of life. Today, most shy away from it and avoid talking to their children about it. The old trope about Rover going to “live on a farm” betrays a fear and timidity, perhaps some embarrassment akin to talking about the “birds and the bees” when they come of age.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.

Ecclesiastes 7:2

As is typical, avoiding the topic of death is the opposite of what the wise thing to do. Now, more than ever, parents should take their children to funerals and visitations. Children should see people weeping. They should see the bodies of the dead. Not as an everyday occurrence, but as a natural rhythm of life, just like they see the trees paint their leaves with fire and bronze every Fall, and then sprout them anew each Spring.

And in the process, they should be taught to take it to heart. They will not live forever. Their parents will not live forever. If they are blessed, they will live long enough to help bury their parents and many of their friends. A long life brings its own sort of pain.

Children used to be around death more often. Life on a farm, for example, presented all sorts of opportunities that are foreign to our current sterilized existence.

Chickens would die for the sake of the oven. Animals would be stolen by coyotes. The cycle of life was laid bare for all to see, and parents could teach, and children could learn. Likewise, families used to be larger. Most would have lost a sibling or two and remember it.

Where modern life fails, fathers must fill in the gaps. Take them to as many funerals as you are able. Let them see you comfort those who mourn. Let them see the laughter of loved ones as they remember the life of the one who passed on.

Is it inconvenient? Yes. It’s meant to be.

Death intrudes. It does not care about anyone’s schedule. It comes like a thief in the night, and the living must deal with the consequences. We are forced to respect it because it will eventually come for us all.

Even for the Christian, death intrudes, though it has been softened to a deep sleep.

Do not fail to provide your children with this important education.

And when you are gone, do not deny them another lesson. There is a trend to avoid funerals altogether, with people telling their relatives they don’t want anything done for them. No service. No burial. Just burn and forget. Another symptom of our queasiness about death.

Denying yourself a proper funeral is cruelty to the living. A funeral provides closure. It gives people permission to move on. Yes, funerals can be painful. They’re supposed to be painful, like purifying a wound. Without a ceremony of some kind, people can walk around with a tumor for the rest of their lives.

Remember, deep down, the funeral isn’t about you. It isn’t for the dead. It’s for the living, so that they take it to heart.

It is good to go to the house of mourning.

Why would you deny something good for your loved ones?

“Children aren’t part of our life plan. Not for us.”

People who say this, or some permutation of it, are, in one way, correct. Children are not part of the plan. As C.R. Wiley notes in Man of the House, children are the plan. On the surface, they are a couple’s retirement plan, but beyond that, they are also the plan for life and civilization itself. Children are what make it possible, and desirable, in the first place.

Either you will depend on your own children in your old age, or you will depend on the children of others. No other options. There is no such thing as “not being a burden” when you grow old. You will be a burden to someone.

Some couples cannot have children, which is a tragedy, but to make it a deliberate choice is shortsighted and selfish. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, you are deliberately enslaving yourself to the vagaries of people who don't really care about you. Every relationship you’ll have, after a certain point, will be mercenary in nature.

All of those nurses who will take care of you? Someone else’s children.

The people who prepare your meals and clean your room? Someone else’s children.

The entertainment you watch as you slowly drift away? Created by someone else’s children.

The funding of your pension and social benefits? Provided by someone else’s children.

The entire infrastructure that supports your existence? Maintained by someone else’s children.

But even before you retire, while you still have life in your bones and time has not yet ravaged your strength or faculties, you still depend on other people’s children. The business you own? It requires workers and customers, the ranks of which will be filled by other people’s children. That cubicle email job with the nice salary? Made possible only through the demand generated by other people’s children. You can’t escape this fundamental reality.

If the population suddenly shrank, what do you think that would do to consumer demand? The economy in general? Without children, the economy stagnates or shrinks. It might cause hyperinflation as the money supply is distributed among fewer people. Your continued prosperity depends on other people’s children. The DINKs’ (dual income no kids) ability to waste their lives on endless traveling and Saturday brunches, their ability to blithely ignore the future, and their illusion of independence, all depend on the labor of other people’s children.

This relationship used to be more obvious when more people had farms, and they literally depended on their children for extra labor. They knew children were an investment. Eventually, they expected a return.

However, I’m not making a primarily economic argument, though that can’t be ignored and is the most obvious. I’m going to make an even bolder claim.

The only reason DINKs don’t feel existential dread or ennui every day of their lives is because of other people’s children. They can only ignore the creeping shadows because they assume most other people won’t be as selfish.

If people stopped having children, even art itself would cease to be valued.

There’s a scene in the film Children of Men where a cousin of the protagonist restores art damaged in the chaos caused by mass-scale human infertility. No new child has been born in 18 years. In the movie, he is working to restore Michelangelo’s David. The protagonist asks him what the point of it is. In 100 years, no one will be around to see it. Mankind has a known expiration date.

Even the lonely, childless autuer toiling away at his artistic vision toils in the hope that other people will look upon his work. Ideally, long after he is dead. No artist truly works only for himself. He intends for people to experience it. Otherwise, the novelist would keep his manuscript on his computer, and the painter would keep all of his canvases stored safely in his basement.

Very few artists achieve lasting fame. Very few works are added to the canon that will be studied in the decades and centuries after he is gone. But he hopes, and that hope is part of what drives him. Without children, there is no hope. If not his own children, then the children of other people. Someone must be having children for art to have any lasting significance. Hope drives the actions of most people, and without children, hope eventually withers on the vine.

In the movie, the cousin’s answer to the protagonist’s question as to why he wastes his time doing something no one will be around to see: “I just don’t think about it.”

That is the same mantra of married couples deciding not to have children. “I don’t want to think about it, so I won’t think about it.” Willful blindness is the only option. They either cannot or will not look beyond their own noses.

Of course, not everyone can have children. Not everyone should have children. There have always been classes of people who have abstained, such as priests, missionaries, sages, hermits, and other disciplines or orders.

The difference, and the unspoken expectation, was that these people would dedicate themselves to some other higher calling, to serve their fellow man, to serve the children of others, in some other noble way that might not be possible if they had children of their own. The expectations for them were greater, not lesser. Their goal was not to live a life of endless leisure and dissipation, unencumbered by responsibility, sleeping in, binging entertainment, drifting through life with a purpose consisting only of maximum pleasure, languishing in immaturity.

What’s more, these childless people would not expect the world to revolve around them. To complain about how a society caters to families with children would be an obscenity, a branch complaining about how the roots of the tree get to taste the water of the soil first.

When someone says, “We just don’t want children,” what they’re really saying is that they want all of the luxuries of modern civilization without any of the responsibility that comes with it. Because they will depend on everyone else’s children.

And without children, civilization ceases to be. Most of what is good and beautiful would eventually fade. “Be fruitful and multiply” wasn’t only a command, but a foundational pillar of reality, one we ignore at our peril.

In Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, Ischomachus relays a conversation he has had with his new, young wife. He has been training her to run the household, and at one point, he says to her:

But the most pleasant experience of all is to prove yourself better than I am, to make me your servant.

What does Ischomachus mean by this?

He was in charge of the entire household. He was the patriarch. His word was essentially the law to the house.

But he cannot do everything. He could not be everywhere at once. And so he is explaining to his wife the importance of her role in managing these other areas of the household, areas that were just as important as the work he himself did, such as the organization of resources and the management of servants.

The goal was to have a wife so capable that he could put his entire trust in her. If she became industrious and diligent, and she said something in relation to her domain, he would not hesitate to obey that word.

The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.

Proverbs 31:11

It is not abdication to listen to your wife regarding her domain and responsibilities. In fact, you have delegated those tasks, and it would be foolish to ignore her.

In Ischomachus’s case, if his young wife worked to organize the tools of the household, it would make sense to ask her where certain tools should go, and therefore become her servant in the matter. Follow the logistics plan of your quartermaster.

If your wife tells you to take off your shoes before you enter the house, you are not giving up your manhood by obeying her command in this matter. If you have given her the responsibility of beautifying the home, you want her to excel at it, and if she excels at it, you should be glad to become her servant in this instance.

If you have entrusted your wife with managing the finances and creating a household budget, and she tells you that a particular purchase needs to wait until next month, the wise husband listens. She has the spreadsheet open. She knows (or should know) what bills are coming. To override her because you want a new tool or gadget is to undermine the very authority you gave her.

If your wife homeschools and she tells you that your son needs more time on his current math lessons before moving to the next level, trust her judgment. She is with that child for hours a day. She might see what you do not. Now, there might be cause to dig deeper, especially if you think your son isn’t meeting his expectations. Ask questions, don’t jump to overruling. Maybe he needs to dedicate more time per day to math, or maybe not, but that’s a conversation to have, not a browbeating to administer.

Paterfamilias

The Roman paterfamilias had absolute legal authority over his household. He could, in theory, even sell his children into slavery. But the Romans themselves recognized that a man who actually exercised every power available to him was not strong but monstrous.

Cato the Elder, who was as hard a man as Rome ever produced, praised his wife's management of the home and said that a man who struck his wife laid hands on what was most sacred. Authority exercised without restraint is not authority at all, but tyranny. If the pagans understood this, how much more so should the Christian?

Don’t Hate Yourself

To disobey her would be to hate yourself. To disobey her would be making a mockery of your own authority. If she opens her mouth with wisdom, why would you not listen? If you have helped train her in what you expect and she has shown herself competent in meeting those expectations, why would you undercut her efforts?

It is an insecure husband who doesn’t want his wife to excel at anything. It is an effeminate man who thinks he is in competition with his wife. It is false masculinity to keep your wife under your thumb so that you can override her wishes whenever you wish, to prove somehow that the ultimate authority lies with you. It is a poor leader who demands respect by shouting, “Respect me!”

Let your wife do what she was created to do. Guide her, husband her, and if you are blessed, you will be happy to become her servant.

Be a leader, not a micromanager or a blustering tyrant.

If you are serious about finding a wife, you need to get serious about vetting the women you date. Don’t string women along with indecision. It wastes your time, and it wastes her time.

This information is worth thousands of dollars and can save you from years of heartache. Men used to get this information from their fathers and grandfathers. No more. And so our broken culture gets worse and worse.

Your great-grandparents could have told you everything in this article. They learned it from their parents, and on and on. 16-year-olds in 1920 had a more complete education in marriage than most 30-year-olds today, because wisdom was handed down, and we weren’t trying to reinvent the relationship wheel every 30 minutes.

Vetting is not just about choosing the best woman; it is about knowing what you are getting yourself into. Are you ok with the tradeoffs? Because once you marry a woman, you have made your choice, and you are responsible. You are now fully invested.

Every woman comes with costs. Every woman comes with rewards. Know both and weigh them appropriately before you commit.

This guide is critical for young men and for fathers as their sons enter the dating pool.

Below are practical questions and tips for how to tease out the truth, organized in four stages, along with the answer to the all-important question: how long should you wait before you propose? How long is “enough” before you can know she’s marriage material?

Read more

There is no greater improv practice than playing with kids. They have abounding joy and imagination, and they expect you to be swept up in their schemes as much as a martinet expects to be obeyed.

If you don’t want to slow down their pace and temper their mood, you have to roll with the punches and think fast. The good news is that children are far more forgiving than a typical improv audience.

The title of this post might seem absurd. Who needs to be taught how to play and have fun? But some people really are terrible at play, especially with children. They are afraid to look foolish or think they have better things to do with their time.

Or worse. They think they always have to be teaching the children something, bestowing “wisdom,” to make the time worthwhile. Any game or toy needs to have a STEM sticker slapped on it. Any fun is looked at with suspicion. One example is the father in Mary Poppins, who needs to learn something as simple as flying a kite.

But literature is also full of positive examples, and one delightful book gives us a character worthy of emulation.

Read more

Ever since the Enlightenment, the West has fetishized education. It has been touted as the solution to all problems, from poverty to crime to war. Is someone poor? They lack the proper information. Is someone committing crime? They lack the proper information. Remember the laughable “just teach men not to rape” campaign? If only every man had some more finger-wagging about proper consent, then the rape problem would be solved!

All problems stem from a lack of education, even deep moral problems. At the same time, people pretend, with a straight face, that education is “neutral” and has no moral component. Schizophrenic, at best.

However, for education to be effective, it has to be received properly, and in order to be received properly, the student must be virtuous.

The fool exists. Scoffers will scoff. The wicked will learn just enough to be more effective in their wickedness.

…teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.

Proverbs 9:9

In order to teach someone, they must be righteous. This does not mean perfection. It does not mean maturity. It means the heart of the student must be pointed in the right direction. Righteousness is a core prerequisite for any worthy education.

So education must concern itself with righteousness. It must be able to reward it, to cater to it, and to discipline its opposite. It must be able to know that a heart is pointing in the right direction and, to some extent, measure that alignment.

By necessity, virtue must be part of a whole education.

Which begs the question: What is virtue? What is righteousness? By what standard?

This is why education is religious. Always.

There can be no neutrality. There is no “secular” education that refuses to impose a standard of right and wrong on its students. To qualify as “education”, some standard of righteousness will always be promoted.

Always a god, always an altar

Religious concerns are unavoidable. Why is something wrong? What should you do one thing and not the other?

Whatever that standard is, an education is indoctrination into that religious standard. There is always some god above the altar that is owed homage. Even if that god is the anemic god of the utilitarian or the “almighty” Demos of democracy. Or even the personal preferences of the teacher herself. Many a classroom has been ruled by petty, tyrannical, wanna-be demigods.

Wherever you send your children to school, they will be sitting in catechism classes that will impress upon them a notion of right and wrong. This cannot be avoided.

There is no school or teacher on planet Earth that disseminates only neutral facts. The very act of choosing which facts to teach and which facts to ignore conveys a message, whether you realize it or not. A teacher can talk about how George Washington owned slaves, and then ignore his bravery and particular virtues. No editorializing, but a judgment has been pronounced regardless.

Will they be taught that there is inherent order to the world? Or will they be taught that everything is the result of blind randomness, including themselves? Either of these has important implications.

Will they be taught that masculinity has its unique strengths? Or will they be taught that it is toxic?

Will they be taught that transitioning from one gender to the next is to be celebrated? That opposing it is evil?

Will they be taught that consent is the ultimate arbiter of what is acceptable, just as long as they practice safe sex? Or will they be taught that sex between a man and a woman is sacred? That it should be practiced within the protections of the marriage covenant?

If you send your kids to be educated by pagans, don’t be surprised when they eventually become a pagan. If you send your kids to be educated by Romans, don’t be surprised when they pledge their allegiance to Caesar.

As a father, you cannot take this lightly. Your children’s education is your responsibility.

Again, there is no neutrality. A war is going on for the souls of your children. Education is a primary battleground. The children of the dark are more shrewd than the children of light. They understand what is at stake. They are more than happy to mold your children in their image.

A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.

Luke 6:40

Who is teaching your children?

Time to get your head out of the sand.

There is a way to pursue masculinity that is the opposite of masculinity.

Sometimes, men want to start working toward projecting a masculine frame to communicate better that they are a man. This is a good thing. Whether it is getting stronger and fitter, learning a martial art, or going hunting, we should celebrate it.

But there is a way to take on these masculine markers that is actually a retreat from masculinity. Sometimes, a man wants to project masculinity while running from responsibility.

This is machismo. It is an aping of masculinity. If “toxic masculinity” could ever apply to anything, it would be this type of bravado.

A man starts going to the gym every day to get stronger. But really, he is avoiding his nagging wife.

Read more

It is your responsibility to educate your children. You may delegate some of the tasks of their education. You may hire tutors and teachers, or send them to a private school. You may even send them to government schools (though I wouldn’t recommend it).

But you may not abdicate your responsibility to educate them.

When all is said and done, and things have not been done to your satisfaction, you have exactly one person to blame: yourself.

It feels nice when you can blame someone else. Cast your guilt onto the teachers, point fingers at the school environment, shake your head in disappointment at the chosen curriculum, and throw medication at a boy who is misbehaving.

All of that excuse-making is easy.

All of it is an effort to absolve yourself of your own failings.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Ephesians 6:4

If your child is falling behind, do something about it.

If something is not up to your standards, do something about it.

If you want them to learn something specific, do something about it.

This doesn’t mean you have to personally teach them everything (though you should be formally teaching them something). It just means you are the captain of the ship, and you will answer for where that ship goes and how it was maintained. There are a lot of jobs that you don’t personally do, but it is your job to see that they all get done adequately.

Do not neglect this responsibility. Do not abdicate.

During the COVID lockdowns, how many people complained about schools not meeting? Or about how math is taught? Or about progressive agendas in new textbooks?

Stop complaining.

Do something about it.

You are their father. You are not an impotent worm, subject to the whims of the universe. Your children don’t have to be subject to a subpar education.

Take responsibility.

Another meal, which meant another time my youngest son complained about gas, whining and squirming and not eating much. It only seemed to be a problem at the dinner table.

Everyone was sick of it. I assumed he was overreacting. It had been almost a week of scrunched-up faces and whimpers. Annoying, to say the least. I told him to suck it up, and to eat his food. No more whining. No more complaining.

He obeyed, but looked sad doing it.

I thought he was exaggerating for attention, so I made sure to spend some more intentional time with him, and even helped him keep a food journal to track what might be causing the issue. Which, again, I didn’t think really existed or was a big deal.

It finally resolved itself, and I forgot about the whole episode. Then, one week later, I flew home from a trip and had a deep, lingering pain in my stomach. It lingered for almost 3 days, getting worse. I didn’t eat. I could barely sleep. No medication touched it. Lying on one side brought some slight relief, taking the edge off. My abdomen felt like there was a mix of gravel and razor blades shifting around. I knew it wasn’t my appendix, but at some point, I thought it might be a severe bladder infection.

So I went to the ER right after a snowstorm. I had to call a friend with his truck to brave the white-mounded roads.

What was the problem? You’ve probably guessed it.

Gas. Trapped near the top of my intestines. Debilitating pain. And the next day, it was gone.

After that, I had additional respect for what my son might have been going through, and I told him. I had learned some sympathy and patience, and I had learned them good and hard. It was the good kind of suffering, the type that brings clarity and gratitude in its aftermath, with no long-term negative consequences. Like God reached down his hand and said, “Let me teach you an important lesson.”

Don’t be so quick to shrug off the concerns of your children. Even if you don’t think they are legitimate concerns, in their mind, with their smaller world, they are real concerns. Handle with care. Many experiences are new, especially pain; deal with it appropriately. A soft touch goes a long way, and doesn’t preclude a strong will or high standards.

It could be that my son needed to man up and stop complaining about the same thing over and over, but it was also true that I dealt with him too harshly. We both learned valuable lessons.

Think back to when you were a child. Remember when you had what you thought was a serious problem, something that seemed as big as the world and insurmountable. What do you wish your parents had done? How do you wish they had handled it? Did you wish they had taken it more seriously?

Don’t drudge it up to be bitter about it, but rather to inform your own attitude. Fatherhood is hard work that requires nuance, clear thinking, and patience. Maybe you can teach yourself the lesson without personally going through pain. That shortcut is the definition of wisdom.