by Brian G. Daigle The question of nature vs. nurture, regarding nearly all existing things, has been, I believe, adequately spoken to throughout our classical and Christian (albeit, Western) heritage, if we would only take the time to deeply understand and implement that wisdom. But first, we must recover this wisdom, for it has been buried under the rubble of modernity; I am thankful, for my own interests and gifts, to have found but a few beautiful stems shooting through this rubble, clear and beautiful enough to require that I would dig down to the root and source of such vivacious breakthroughs. While the previous installment accurately, though not completely, spoke to the nature of the child, the child as fully human, with a vocation to be fully human, this present entry will turn to just one important way we nurture the child. A home, like a classroom, is a work of art. More than that, it is a work of atmosphere. When I have the opportunity to observe a school or classroom, I approach it like a dinner guest. I approach it as someone invited to dine at a table I did not make, in an atmosphere I did not create, and be nourished by a meal I did not choose. I then, first, use my five senses to simply observe. I make lots of notes, akin to setting, character, and plot sketches from a great classic novel I’m reading. What do I hear? What do I see? What do I smell? Taste? Feel? What is the energy of the room or the school? What are the variant moods or emotions passing through the language, the relationships, the speech, the attire, the content, the art, the furniture, the protocol, the technology, the interruptions, the moments of quiet, the jokes, the facial expressions, the lighting, the things the characters touch and do. In doing this for many years, I have become deeply sensitive to a teacher’s slightest move and a student’s slightest response. And there are times I ask, “If my child were in this room, would I want them to be formed by and impressed with the nutrients of this academic and social meal, of this particular society and the leader who leads it, the teacher?” This particular exercise—almost like that of an anthropologist, an objective viewer wanting to understand how the meal has been prepared and guides the people in its midst in one way and not another—can happen in the home as much as it can in the classroom. If we, as parents, were able to pull ourselves from the subjective experience of being deeply impactful characters in the story of our homes, we too could see with clarity what our homes have become, and what they have become at our leading and modeling. More than that, we could see the art and atmosphere in which our children swim, the story-lines we have created, the emotional architecture we have built with our words and humor and facial expressions. We can see the cuts we have made with our sarcasm, the doubts we have sowed with our selfishness, the lack of trust we have infused with our shortcomings in our character and failures in our competence.
A first step in doing this would be to become observant of the world around us and other families or homes in our immediate interactions. This can, and should, be done without a spirit of being judgmental, but simply to exercise our important powers of curiosity and observation. Why did they do it this way and not another? Am I like that, or not? How dissimilar? Why? Do I like that way better? Why or why not? As a second step, we then exercise humility and find within ourselves an ability to observe how we, as parents, have organized our time and space. Just start there. Just observe who you have organized your family’s time and space. What has that built? What kind of atmosphere has that built? What kind of moods, appetites, allowances, limits, and silent power has been unleashed on you and your family due to this ordering (or disordering). What habits have formed? What is the fruit of those habits? Still can’t see it? Call a family meeting, and ask the questions above. Ask a few close friends what they observe. Don’t get defensive; tap into your humility and simply listen and learn. A third step would be to then observe some of the deeper, less superficial parts. It is easy to observe and take notes on how time and space have been organized. It takes a bit more work to understand the motivations behind such engineering. What emotional triggers have everyone established among themselves, for good or ill? What are your own habits at different times of the day? What kind of air have you created that your children breathe all the time? How critical are you? Why? How much of a push-over are you? Why? What are you tired of? What do you promote? Why? When do you get anxious, peaceful, thankful, focused? Why? What are you emulating from your parents, of which you probably weren't even aware? What compromises have you made? There is a quote I have held close to my heart and mind over the past decade, and it is one I try to share every opportunity I get. The wisdom here is not just for distinctly Christian formation (or “godliness,” as the author states), it is true of any formation, toward any virtue. It is true of the home and the classroom, as regards any formation of a child. It is most especially true of the home, given the potency of the atmosphere parents build and the foundation that will be for a child’s nurturing. Hear Horace Bushnell, in all he has to teach us in such a succinct and powerful passage: "[A child's] character is forming under a principle, not of choice, but of nurture. The spirit of the house is breathed into his nature, day by day. The anger and gentleness, the fretfulness and patience - the appetites, passions, and manners - all the variant moods of feeling exhibited around him, pass into him as impressions, and become seeds of character in him; not because the parents will, but because it must be so, whether they will or not. They propagate their own evil in the child, not by design, but under a law of moral infection...The spirit of the house is in the members of the children by nurture, not by teaching, not by any attempt to communicate the same, but because it is the air the children breathe...Understand that it is the family spirit, the organic life of the house, the silent power of a domestic godliness, working as it does, unconsciously and with sovereign effect - this it is which forms your children to God." (Christian Nurture by Horace Bushnell) The law of moral infection. What a phrase! You will infect your children. The school you choose will infect your child. But with what? It will infect them with a moral infection, among many others. The children will inhale a spirit found in the home. They will be shaped by the appetites, the passions, the manners, “all the variant moods of feeling exhibited around him.” The home, like the school, will propagate its one evil (and to be sure, its own good) in the child. And it will happen smoothly by nurture, not be explicit teaching alone. Your home is a school, at all times, and will have an air the children breathe. Therefore, parents are not only everlasting teachers, they are likewise everlasting architects, everlasting chefs, everlasting atmosphere artists, whether they want to be or not. Choose this day what you will make; rather, choose this day what will make your children.
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