“The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world,” poet William Ross Wallace wrote. As familiar as this old saying is, it contains a truth too often neglected—it’s so familiar that we rarely stop to think about it. We rarely consider the underestimated power in the hands of mothers and fathers.The Power of Parents
Imagine having the opportunity to spend 18 years educating, training, and guiding the president of the United States. Most of us would consider the president’s guardian to possess an almost undemocratic level of influence. Yet this is precisely the influence wielded by Fred and Mary Trump, Ann Dunham, and George and Barbara Bush. The state of the entire country today links back directly to what went on in those three households where the past three presidents grew up. Of course, every individual—presidents included—possesses free will and ultimately bears responsibility for their own actions, but no one would deny that our home life shapes us and our patterns of behavior and ways of thinking and acting more than virtually anything else in our lives.
I’ve chosen one of the most obvious examples to show the importance of a parent’s job. Most of us don’t raise presidents. Yet a parent’s impact on the world extends far and wide, with a ripple effect down the centuries, even if their sons or daughters aren’t future politicians. Tomorrow’s doctors, scholars, scientists, and artists live under the care of today’s parents. It’s a shame that society so often considers the C-suite executive more influential and important than a mom or a dad. Mothers and fathers are more likely to determine what kind of people will occupy the seats of power in the top boardrooms around the world in just a few short years. Truly, the home is the cradle of civilization.
The logical consequence of these considerations is this: Parents—more than almost anyone else—can reshape and renew American culture by intentionally crafting a wholesome, life-giving, culture-sustaining, and values-supporting home life. The home is the first society, a microcosm of the larger society. This little society—which will, in time, feed into and influence the macro society for better or worse—lies completely under the control of mothers and fathers. What an opportunity! Parents must create in their homes the kind of culture they want to see in the wider society.
So often, we feel powerless when confronted with the reality of evil. It’s tempting to groan and complain, to weep and shake our fists over doom-laden headlines. But instead, we ought to take responsibility. We aren’t as powerless as we imagine: The fight against evil begins at home, with the home environment we make, the evils we exorcise from that sacred space, and the good behavior we expect of our children and ourselves. If we can rebuild families, we can rebuild society.
Of course, this path to reforming society isn’t as simple as it sounds. It’s easier to criticize politicians and post indignant things online than it is to bring order into your own home. The modern parent can easily feel like an embattled monarch, besieged in a castle by an array of forces that seek to sabotage their important work and bring the castle crashing down: financial strain, spousal conflict, TV and internet content that corrodes morals, negative peer influences, and endless housework and home management. Then there are the toughest obstacles of all: one’s own emotions, flaws, and weaknesses.
Culture Begins in the Home
How do we build a positive home culture? A few suggestions, from one embattled commander to another: First, parents must treat their homes as homes. A home is more than a pit stop between work, shopping, school, or sports practice. A home is a place where one lives, a refuge.
It’s this idea of home we need to recover. Homes deserve a certain level of respect and an intentional effort to make them warm, hospitable places where the family wants to gather. You can’t build a culture without a home where people spend a significant amount of their time together.
Family dinners are an excellent way to build a family culture. This family ritual provides the opportunity for the family to enjoy not just physical nutrition but also mental, emotional, and conversational sustenance. Conversation builds and sustains relationships, expands thought, and educates. It all begins at the dinner table—preferably with phones set aside or silenced.
Beyond the sacred family dinner, parents can brainstorm other character-building family activities to engage in at home. Set aside the TV remote and interact with one another. The options are endless: books, games, music, household projects, gardens, and animals. Working together to produce something useful provides a unique chance to build family bonds and grow family culture because culture, in the true sense of the word, is always productive and always fruitful.
A small home-based business can give the family a common goal and a means of transforming the home—even if only a little bit—from a place of consumption to a place of production.
The heart of family culture consists of the practice of religion and its related moral formation. Religious families must set aside time for communal prayer every day, where the warmth of family love and culture finds its source in a higher flame.
These are just small suggestions, little pushes in the right direction. Parents’ own creativity, values, and intuition will help them know how best to craft a family culture in their own home. The essential part is to think intentionally about the question and then begin.
