No Precepts in Sight

Modern Parenting And Its Deconstruction

The Guardian recently carried a piece by Alison Gopnik, author of The Gardener and the Carpenter.  It consisted of Gopnik's thoughts about child-rearing.  Her reflections present the paradox of parenting which grips so many in our post-modern, relativist world.  Her book's promo reads as follows:

Caring deeply about our children is part of what makes us human. Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own scientific research into how children learn, the author shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way.

In Gopnik's post-modern world, shaping a child is a thoroughgoing no-no.   Why?  Because each individual human being must be recognized as autonomous.  Child rearing is a process by which a parent prepares the child for adult life, in which, according to Gopnik, the new adult will live autonomously.  "Should I steal, mummy?"  The truly self-aware, modern parent would reply as follows:
"Well, dear daughter (or son, or transgendered one), I don't steal, but you will have to make up your own mind about that as you get older."  Or, the parent may reply, "There's nothing wrong with the odd bit of stealing, or a good deal of it.  But you will have to develop your own value system as you grow up."  Or the parent may say both, and that's fine too.

She argues that raising a child is deeply paradoxical:

Caring for children is deeply paradoxical. There’s a profound tension between dependence and independence. Parents and other caregivers must take complete responsibility for that most utterly dependent of creatures, the human baby. But they must also transform that utterly dependent creature into a completely independent and autonomous adult. [Emphasis, ours]

It's this kind of philosophy that explains why transgenderism has made such giant inroads, so quickly in our pagan culture.  Being an independent and autonomous adult means, in the case of gender, you can be whatever you want to be, biology and genes be damned.  Society's duty is to support you in your "selfist" choices, lest we breach one of the great moral commandments of our day--viz, that everyone must be recognised as an independent and autonomous being.

As we enter this storm tossed sea, Christian parenting will increasingly be seen not just as radical, but likely judged as radically wrong.  It will be panned as exceedingly damaging and harmful to children.  Christians raising children will be damned as child-abusers (as Richard Dawkins has done).  This is because Christian child rearing is the polar opposite of what Gopnik and her cohort are espousing, and (let's not forget) their world view currently rules the culture and increasingly controls the institutions of  power and the regime.

Christians self-consciously condition their children for complete submission to the Living God.  The law and commands of God are laid upon our children line upon line, precept upon precept.   We believe God has made a covenant with us, and our children.  [Genesis 17: 7]  A core, enduring aspect of that covenant is to teach and train our children to imitate our faith and obedience.

“Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that . . . you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. [Deuteronomy 6: 1-2]

and

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  [Deuteronomy 6: 4-8]

Needless to say, this wonderful reality to which we are bound makes child rearing the most important societal duty of all, and the most blessed, for both parents and children.  Our greatest joy comes when our children walk after our example and instruction, and keep His commandments in faith and deepest respect.

This is the reality which gives the Gospel and the Church and the Christian family their cultural power.  It explains why the present secular madness will fail.  It has no centre.  It cannot stand. A culture cannot be built upon notions of radical autonomy and individualism.  Such notions can only tear down.  Regimes which try to build upon such foundations will ultimately fracture and disintegrate.