Foundation Father
A rejection of open patriarchy leads to hidden tyranny. It is inevitable. When the authority of fathers is rejected, it doesn’t eliminate that authority. It flows upward toward the waiting arms of the state. And the State will rush to fill the void. This is the welfare apparatus. This is the public education system. This […]
Your discernment is not allowed to take a vacation. As a father, you cannot let down your guard. It is literally part of your job to always be paying attention. The biggest way a father can abdicate his responsibility is with the entertainment his children consume. We want shortcuts. We want well-laid-out rules so we […]
In Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, Socrates is getting a farming lesson from Ischomachus, an estate manager held in high regard. Socrates says that if you don’t know what the soil is capable of growing, how do you know what to plant or sow? Ischomachus gives a straightforward answer. …you can tell by looking at the crops and […]
Our identities depend on our relationships with other people. We are not autonomous individuals, contra the founding premise of most libertarianism. From the moment we come out of the womb, we have obligations toward our parents. We don’t choose our name. We didn’t even choose to be born. We are not autonomous. We do not […]
In Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, Sir Thomas is the patriarch of the Bertram family. He is a generous man, but he is naive and a fool. These traits come back to haunt him in the closing pages of the book as shame is brought down upon his family. And he could have prevented it […]
Keep a commonplace book of things you want to remember. You will wish you had written it down. What is “it”? Everything that makes you go “hmmm.” Anything that strikes you as important. From books you read, podcasts you listen to, conversations you have with friends. Anything. You can use cheap notebooks. You can use […]
My youngest son, 4 years old at the time, decided to hang out with me while I cut some wood in our garage. He would stand back and cover his ears each time I triggered the miter saw and made a cut. My wife came out to ask a few questions about something, then started […]
“Empathy” is a relatively new word. It came about in the early 20th century. It is nowhere found in the Bible. While there may have been good intentions behind the word, today it has been weaponized by the immature. A family that values inclusiveness will always attempt to appease its most ornery members. Criticism is […]
Judge Judy was on both TVs. For the second time in a week, the kids and I were subjected to the muted melodrama of courtroom television. We would never watch by choice. For some reason, however, this was the second restaurant to have it showing. My oldest, after finishing her food, decided she wanted to […]
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. 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 […]