Thought of Yesterday

I'm putting this here to remind myself that my thoughts are frequently lame - apologies if intentional self-humiliation wasn't what you were looking for today, and don't worry, I'll probably delete this post sooner or later. Here it is, inspired by the 'slavery to convenience' comment from yesterday:

"Pragmatism breeds slaves"

Take that, World...if you dare! Tremble and quail before my manifest brilliance!

Virtuous laundering

A recent blog extolling the virtues of the Fisher & Paykel washing machine reminded me how behind American washers and dryers are in terms of energy efficiency and convenience. They are absolute behemoths compared to my wee under the kitchen sink combination washer/dryer. Moreover, they seem to value power over efficiency, as was confirmed by a chat with a knowledgeable shop assistant at Sears over Christmas. Out of curiousity, we asked him why there were so few side-loading washers, even though side-loading was generally regarded as more efficient in its use of soap and water, as well as amazingly able to spin water out of clothes so that they come out nearly dry. His answer: habit/fashion and apparent size trump operational virtue. He particularly commented on how washer specifications fool consumers by offering them higher numbers where such numbers are generally meaningless. (By the way, the same is true for food processors: the electricity draw of the motor so touted on labels has absolutely no effect on the performance of the appliance according to the good people at Cooks Illustrated.)

The delay start feature is also pretty standard here in the UK, largely because of the way electricity is billed. For those of us stuck with storage heaters (which heat up bricks or oil during the night and then turn off and allow nature and manually operated vents to take over from there), we are billed at much lower rates from 12am-7am when those heaters are drawing electricity like crazy. As a result, the best time to do the wash is...while you sleep! Which is also better for the system as a whole, since night is usually the time of the lowest demand and washers take a lot of power to spin those clothes out.

One final cross-cultural note: a friend from Britain was visiting over Christmas while we were in California and (if I remember correctly?) wondered aloud why in such a sunny climate people didn't just hang their laundry out to dry instead of using dryers. I'd never considered such a thing before on a grand scale, even though we had routinely hung a lot of ours out during the first year of marriage due to a pretty lame dryer. It strikes me as odd that, due to soaring energy costs, I've come to hang up all my clothes as a matter of fact in a wetter climate than my sunny native turf. Now, there is a small sacrifice of convenience, it's true - about a 5 minute sacrifice in my experience when your washer can spin things nearly dry. If California is serious about energy conservation, why don't more green-leaning yuppies (like myself) hang up more of their laundry in their backyards, especially during the summer months when the system gets stretched to its limits by the demands of air conditioning? That doesn't mean never use a dryer, but to suggest that it might be a good idea regard its use as optional, or even exceptional, instead of unquestionable. Or have we truly ceded so much of our God-given agency that we have become slaves to convenience?

Parenting speculations: behaviorism, sin, and grace

Many thanks to Bourgeois Wife for her thoughts and to those participating in her carnival on parenting styles and theology responding to my forward-looking curiosity. (No, I’m not pregnant, in case you thought that was a veiled hint. Sheesh!) Bribing respected, well-heeled parents to share their wisdom over dinner was a brilliant idea of Bourgeois Wife and Burglar, and I also was heartened by her equipoise, thinking both in terms of the long-term process of nurturing another person and in terms of one stage at a time.

Two notions really struck me in reading the carnival, especially pertaining to the influence of theology on parenting. The following thoughts are the fruit of a discussion with Drumstick last night about it all.

Firstly, as Kelly reminds us, the goal of parenting is not a well-behaved child, but pointing a soul to Christ. This insight launched a discussion between Drumstick and I on the difference between parenting focused on behavior management and parenting focused on creating a space in which a child is encouraged, enabled, and reasonably persuaded to give herself wholly to Christ. Much of what Kelly said really resonated with us, but we had a few comments to add.

Aiming merely at managing behavior treats a child like a beast (à la B.F. Skinner and Pavlov). Whether that is done with threats or rewards, spanking, the “naughty chair”, emotional manipulation, or cognitive therapy (!), the mindset behind it treats the child in a thoroughly materialistic fashion by focusing solely on creating outward conformity and ignoring the soul. This attitude fails to take into account that it is an image-bearing person that you are attempting to control, not an animal. When your strategies for teaching your child manners do not differ much from those you would apply to training your dog—noble as dogs may be!—there is something seriously amiss. To be content with a well-mannered child is to aim too low and consequently to risk feeding hidden monsters of rebellion and pride prowling around the heart.

In contrast, acting in order to create a space for encounter with Christ in a child’s life cannot but presume that the child is a person who images the God who reveals himself personally to human persons. Behavior is managed not only for the ease of social relations (which is indisputably a good), but primarily because doing so can help a child to understand what it means to be responsible to the loving person who has charge over her and calls her into a flourishing relationship with him.

That said, it is still the case that sometimes a parent just has to say, “Stop that right now!” (possibly adding an “OR ELSE!” for good measure) and he cannot immediately do the soul-work part of his role. What do you do when, in the moments when you both are flying by the seat of your pants, you do not have the time or resources to deal with your child as a whole person? One idea is a later breakdown of the day at bedtime (something my parents did with me) where things whether good or bad are talked over with a parent. This could take many forms. Those who are more introverted can be asked to draw a picture of their day or to tell a story about an imaginary character or one of their stuffed animals, while the parent gently prods with questions and offers a Christ-formed perspective and a chance for forgiveness (and any apologies for parental errors!). This is all non-parent speculation of course, but I suppose it could be a way to model with the child a meditative heart before God.

In your anger do not sin;
when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.

Selah

Offer right sacrifices
and trust in the LORD.

~ Psalm 4:4-5

Secondly, Kelly’s discussion of the effect of a theology of original sin on the way a parent regard’s a child’s behavior was interesting, and I would love to hear more on this line from parents. As Drumstick is fond of quipping, “What a cute little bundle of sin!” It seems to me that while parents must begin with the recognition that a child is a gift of God in the form of a person made in his image, parents must also recognize that this little person is marred, whether by concupiscence or original sin. Marred, but not disfigured out of all recognition, and there lies the tension that informs practical decisions by parents. When has the child crossed the line from expressing a proper need to selfish manipulation?

Now add to this tension the complexity of infant persons. Very young infants are taken up with learning first what it means to be in the world and second how to act in the world: what another person is (something clearly not obvious to her, as it takes her a while to realize that pulling Mommy’s hair hurts Mommy even though it doesn’t hurt her), what her own self is as distinct from other persons, how the outside world relates to her, what toes are for, how to move arms and legs and body purposefully, how to drink, what hunger is for and how to deal with it, how to see things properly, how to give something attention, and so forth. The scope for moral action for such a person so taken up with the ins and outs of simply being and acting is highly limited, and thus her capacity for sin is likewise highly limited by opportunity. I don’t think that anyone really attributes manipulation to a three-week-old wailing in hunger or loneliness: both indicate true human needs that ought to be satisfied and she is right to look to others to satisfy those needs as God has designed. For very young infants (contra St. Augustine), it seems reasonable to suppose that sinful actions are at most a rarity and extraordinarily hard to identify, especially since parents too are learning who this little person is and how she expresses her very self. At the same time, a baby’s scope for moral action is slowly but constantly expanding as the infant comes to understand more about what it means to be a person (both for herself and for other persons) and comes to be able to act more and more significantly in the world. The problem of dealing with the concupiscence of your child then, becomes in the first year of her life largely an epistemological one: how do you know that at this instant, in this action, your child is manifesting a sinful heart? (See Rebecca’s post about an incident with her young son, Caleb, as a practical example of this that is very inspiring!)

Drumstick’s summary agrees pretty much with Kelly's: bring all the wisdom you can to each situation, and then err on the side of grace.

We often talk of teaching our children obedience, justice, responsibility, and so forth, so that they can then understand by analogy God’s relationship to them as Lord and King. Surely, then, we ought also to think hard about opening up for our children avenues of grace, for how else can we prepare their hearts to be as receptive to God’s grace as they are to his rule? The role of grace in parenting – now there’s a topic!

Mom blew up my car

Did I mention that Mom blew up my car? Well, technically a faulty gas hose connected to the carburator plus a flooded engine and an attempt to start the car set the bug ablaze, but Mom was at the wheel! And ultimately unsinged, thanks be to God. Behold the modest carnage after twenty minutes of burning along quite happily:

Turns out the firewall in the engine, although over 40 years old, really does work. The inside of the car never caught on fire and even the engine doesn't look too shabby either. Gotta love German engineers:

But is it the end of an era? Will the parents finally sell off great-grandad's intrepid automobile, which my mother now avers is a death-trap? (This in spite of the fact that, daughter dear's jocular asides notwithstanding, the car never really even blew up and the inside never caught on fire at all.) Two of the fireman already left their contact details saying they wouldn't mind buying it. Will Dad finally cave in, or will the allure of restoring this fantastic machine for the second time prove to be a siren call he cannot resist?

Either way, our final trek in the bug down PCH over the New Year, windows open, sun shining, was certainly well-timed - but will it be the swan song of this valiant vehicle? Only time will tell.

Copper Teapot, work in progress

Drumstick, 2005; oil and palette knife on paper. Work in progress