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

Buying kitchen virtue? Take 2 - Buying Generously

I've been chewing this over since Burglar's reply to my original post (and here on The Bourgeois Burglars) and not yet had the time to post again on this. Thanks to Burglar, we know already that the Philosopher says

“the generous person, then, will give for the sake of the beautiful, and in the right way, for it goes along with right giving that it be to whom and as much as and when one ought” and “it is most definitely characteristic of a generous person to go to excess in the giving, so that less is left for himself, for not looking out for oneself is part of being generous.”

At the same time, Burglar comments:

“whether or not you are completely virtuous is not entirely up to your will. For example, a person who is wealthier than you will be able to exercise the virtue of generosity more than you. But it seems you can still be generous, though perhaps not as often since you must also be prudent.”

So an Aristotle-inspired consumer ethics seems then to have four considerations or aspects (if we take “giving” as also applying to “paying”):

1. Buy for the sake of the beautiful - This involves having a proper esteem for the object or service prior to purchasing it. This would forbid (generally) buying something shoddy, as well as a mindless materialism aimed vaguely at buying 'the next thing' or the newest gadgets, slavishly following the latest fashions. Questions to consider here would be focused mainly on the worth and nature of the object/service: is it well-made or well-designed, what kind of life does it encourage or discourage, what kind of virtuous action does it enable, is it aesthetically beautiful, etc.
   
2. Pay whom you ought - For consumer ethics, this seems to concern issues of justice and accountability, giving your money to the proper person. Forbidden here is paying Peter for something Paul owns, obviously. It arguably involves a concern that your payment benefit those most concerned with the creation of the beautiful object/service. Questions to consider here would focus around the seller: does this seller own the object and therefore have a right to my payment (or does someone else?), what part does this seller play in the creation of the object/service, does this seller take responsibility for the quality of this object/service, can I purchase from another seller who does, etc. Even more arguably this could involve a consideration of what the seller then does with your payment, and this is where the logic of boycotting may come in. Or perhaps Aristotle would pshaw at a boycott? Burglar???
   
3. Pay when you ought - This seems to me likely to involve issues of proper payment on the buyer's part. In other words, having acquired a good/service, it is vicious to avoid or delay paying unnecessarily or arbitrarily. Writing bad checks is an obvious (and illegal) example of violating this principle, but other areas to consider might be abusing lines of credit or delaying prompt payment of bills even within legal bounds (e.g. waiting until the last minute to pay that bill for no practical reason). More thorny issues might involve the use of financing (which does usually benefit the seller, but is arguably not a virtuous economic system - see Jubilee Papers Biblical prohibition of interest, and again here, or on limited liability and debt, and on Christian investing, which is a slightly different application but I think still relevant). Questions to consider (besides those of basic legality) would then be, can I pay promptly for this object/service, do I need this object/service enough to justify credit or fincancing, am I responsible about paying my bills on time, etc.
   
4. Pay as much as you ought (with self-forgetful excess where prudence allows) - I think this is likely the trickiest one, this balance of self-forgetful generousity and prudence. Perhaps it might involve choosing to live below your means in order to enable self-forgetful generousity within prudential bounds? For example, if we spend $15 less than we could every week on food, we can self-forgetfully throw a few excessive dinner parties a month! Does that count? This may also mean paying as much as I am willing (see below for more) for an object, rather than waiting for it to go on sale for less. I wonder too if this can line up with the To Whom aspect to prompt the question, am I paying as much as I ought to the producer of an object/service? By purchasing from another seller, can I pay more generously a producer of a beautiful object/service?
   

And with that in mind, let's go back to the original questions

• By spending only 85 bucks for years of aid in chopping and slicing by a well-made machine, do I dishonor the labor, both manual and intellectual, that went into its production?

It seems not necessarily, if my esteem for the object is proper and I am operating within the contraints of justice and accountability as well as within those that prudence places upon the impulse to excess within the virtue of generousity. However, in this particular case, I would have been willing (and able) to pay more without imprudent excess - 40 bucks ain’t gonna burst the budget - so was I indeed vicious after all? Should I not send in the mail-in rebate form for that extra $20 off?

• In demanding the lowest price possible, the "steal", the bargain basement blowout, am I buying virtuously?
• If I wait to buy an item until the retailer is desperate to dump extra merchandise, am I doing something akin to blackmail?

Again, it's the fourth consideration -- excess and prudence -- that is coming into play here, and it depends on my motivation for seeking lower prices, which itself depends upon circumstances somewhat outside of my control (my own wealth) or constrained by other choices for other aims. However, both of these are still problematic if I can afford the higher price and have high esteem for the item.

• Should I insist on paying at least the cost of production when searching for my bargains?

This question is really too simplistic, because it assumes I can know the cost of production for an item and doesn’t take into account well enough how production and distribution work. It needs to be better articulated. I think this is also where the Philosopher may not be able to help as significantly, because of differences between our global economic systems and his. Now obviously trade wasn't only local for Aristotle, but the global dimension of trade has increased dramatically in the last two centuries, as well as the industrialization of production, even of agricultural products. As a result of this globalization (which I'm not assuming is evil, by the way), the networks of production and distribution are much more complex. Most problematic for me is the alienation of the buyer from the producer of the good/service, which chips at accountability on both ends: the accountability to provide beautiful or worthy goods/services and the accountability to properly pay or even reward those who provide such goods. It's harder to disclaim accountability for sweatshops in a village economy, for example. There's no going back, of course, so the tough questions really are how to keep relational accountability between buyers and producers in a global economy, when there are multiple layers of sellers between me and the farmer in Brazil who cultivated the banana I had for lunch. When many of those sellers are essentially middlemen, who add little to no value to the object, do they really remove ethical accountability to producers from the buyers, or do they transform it? Key to this is the (I think) 20th century concern with process (both in art and in philosophy, at least) - is it ok to buy a beautiful object from a legal seller when part of the process of getting the item to me involved injustice or a culpable lack of generousity?

That's all for now...! Further insights on this matter are super-welcome. In the meantime, the snowfall outside has lessened so that I no longer fear to venture forth, so away to work I go.

Fennel Tea

We had this last night for the first time at a lovely dinner party hosted by Remi, a friend from Nigeria (via Canada). It is naturally non-caffeinated, and Remi said that it aids digestion too.

• 1/2 tsp. (or to taste) fennel seeds per cup
• Pour over boiling water
• Tea is ready when most of the seeds have sunk to the bottom. Aim for a very very light green color, don't blame me if you don't strain out the seeds.

Try it out - it's a very interesting taste, a sort of savoury-sweet.

It suits nibbling on pieces of dark chocolate...