Simone has been involved in an interesting blog discussion about the place of daycare in parenting for people who want to follow Jesus. It's obviously an area where it is difficult to make judgements without making someone feel guilty or threatened. However my interest was sparked by a comment that Simone made to the effect that obviously it would be innappropriate for a Christian to put their child in daycare for 7 days a week.
My first thought (which I expressed to Simone), was that this was such an obvious statement that it was hardly worth saying, it was a kind of straw man, OF COURSE 7 days a week daycare was wrong... But a little later it struck me with some force that I personally, from the age of 9 to the age of 16 was in 7 days and nights a week childcare - I was sent to boarding school.
You'll be glad to know that the reason I was sent to boarding school was not uncaring or unchristian parents, in fact quite the opposite, my parents were missionaries in Bangladesh and, along with many other missionary families there, felt that the best way to give us a good education was to send us to a boarding school in India.
I wouldn't say that I found boarding school easy, but neither do I look back with too many regrets. I certainly was never in any doubts about my parents love and care for me. And they remain the most significant influence on me as a person.
Now let me say that I that the 'I turned out ok, so it must have been a good idea' kind of argument is false. Fortunately for all parents, God is gracious and could use unwise decisions for good.
However the whole boarding school experience raises the question of whether our concerns about things like daycare is at times more cultural than Biblical. It seems to me that sometimes our arguments against daycare follow this logic. Daycare is a product of feminism. Feminism is a bad thing. Therefore daycare is a bad thing.
But community care of children has been around for much longer than feminism, and has been an important part of committed Christian parenting. The boarding school I attended was set up by Christians committed enough to serve God in Asia before the second world war to care for their children while they were engaged in mission work. My history is fairly weak beyond that, but I get the impression that going further back full time nannies for example weren't seen as necessarily unbiblical for those who could afford them. And this gets us to the heart of the matter. What does the Bible actually insist on in our parenting and what is a matter of freedom?
I've got some ideas, but they're going to have to wait for another post. In the mean time I'm happy to take any comments (and I won't be offended if you can tell me where the Bible says that Boarding School is of the devil).
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I've been avoiding entering this discussion because I am both male and childless. But it seems safer here.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a vastly cultural thing - particularly if you look at Islander cultures where the children are vicariously parented by whole tribes.
I'd also say feminism isn't completely a bad thing.
Nathan, Yes I thought a slightly less intense forum for discussion of the subject might be useful.
ReplyDeleteAs for the rights and wrongs of feminism - that's a whole other topic. I think I'm attracted to the argument that feminism sprang from some genuine problems in the way women were treated, but got the diagnosis wrong - men's roles rather than men's sins.
This explains why some of the outcomes of feminism have been good (practically it has highlighted real problems), but many outcomes have been bad - the diagnosis is wrong.
Simplistic I guess, but at least a start...
I think that feminism has created as much good as bad - like any polemic lobbying it wasn't particularly balanced, but from a PR point of view women's rights groups needed to argue with extremes just to move society slightly to a more acceptable place.
ReplyDeleteThe problem, as it often is, is with extremists.
That Kirsten Birkett "The Essence of Feminism" book got up my nose a bit.
ReplyDeleteThere were whole swathes of the early feminist movement that were not touched on - things like the fact that the early feminists - the suffragettes - defended the role of mothers and were anti-abortion. Some of the reasons for this stand were that abortion is often a used as a weapon against women, a way to control women and a way for men to get out of their responsibilities as fathers.
Then there was the whole premise that supposedly before what I'll call "60s feminism", women were able to be at home with the children and their husbands wages were expected to be able to pay for a 3 bedroom home, the upkeep of children...[she lists a load of things that the Aust. gov. of the time had to set the minimum wage]...and house help for the woman. I was left going, "And who do you think provided that house help, hmm? Oh, that's right, it was other women - women like my grandmother - working women who didn't have the luxury of house help."
And now we're criticising parents when they use childcare?! I mean, hello?
I agree - it is a cultural thing. Our culture no longer fits the traditional model of small communities helping raise everyone's children to become good citizens of that community. We're more spaced out, often live in different cities from the rest of our families and the 'communities' in which we were raised and "home help" is not a regularly available service for many. Of my 3 sisters and myself, only one of use lives in our home town and none of us live in the same town as each other.
I think it's a case that childcare providers have seen a niche and chased it. Childcare is possibly the modern equivalent of the "home help" - it's not your home but it can be a regular face that the children get to know and trust.
But to actually answer the question - "Teach a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" perhaps?
ReplyDeleteYour point about the history of childcare (particularly the bit about the full-time nannies) reminded me about the quote I've read from John Calvin in his commentary on Gen 21:7:
ReplyDelete"...they who deem it a hardship to nourish their own offspring, break, as far as they are able, the sacred bond of nature. If disease, or anything of that kind, is the hindrance, they have a just excuse; but for mothers voluntarily, and for their own pleasure, to avoid the trouble of nursing, and thus to make themselves only half-mothers, is a shameful corruption."
It's usually quoted to show his support for breastfeeding, but I think it's more about his opinion that there are some roles that are supposed to be fulfilled by the mother rather than some other person (eg paid nanny/nurse). Just throwing that into the mix because it reminded me that while the idea of childcare isn't new, neither is the debate about who should be using it!
Thanks for the comments everyone. On the subject of feminism, especially it's history, I agree that it is easy to be overly simplistic, and my slightly hazy memory of the 'Essense of Feminism' was that it fell into this trap.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time I think it is possible to draw broad conclusions about the ideas that energise a particular movement and decide wether or not those are consistent with the Bible. And as I said I think at least some of the ideas energising feminism are not.
Lucy - very interesting quote. Typical Calvin thoughtfulness and wisdom on the practical side of things. I do wonder though whether I would be comfortable giving Genesis 21:7 too much wieght in a discussion about parenting techniques. It's main focus is the joy of the birth of Isaac.
Hurrah, I am so with you on this post, Andrew! Lucy, Charles Wesley also wrote a short hymn criticising 18th century mothers who used wetnurses for their children. You are right that it's an old debate!
ReplyDeleteI think one of the (many) problems with demonising feminism is that we lose some terrific allies. Some of the most thoughtful and sympathetic writers on the history of evangelicalism are writing from a feminist perspective. Another problem is that it encourages the evangelical tendency to focus on ideas rather than social/economic forces. There is an odd tendency for evangelicals to blame feminism for the pressure on women to work while saying nothing about capitalism, which is of course far more significant in this trend. Feminism has generally only achieved its goals in the west where they are compatible with capitalism.
Jo - very interesting comment (idea?) about ideas vs social/economic forces. I'm wondering if you could elaborate on the difference ie. why is feminism an idea whereas capitalism is a social force.
ReplyDeleteI guess what I mean is that evangelicals think ideas are important - so they look at feminism first and foremost as a set of ideas (ie. propositions) and judge it on that basis - are those ideas biblical? Then they look at society and argue about how those ideas have affected society. So, on the plus side (unless you accept Kirsten B's argument), equal access to education for women, legislation against domestic violence, entry of women into the professions etc. On the negative side, high levels of divorce, high rates of abortion, raunch culture etc. etc. Fair enough, but very, very rarely in these conversations does anyone discuss the role of broader economic forces in this process, and yet they explain so much of the apparently contradictory ways in which feminist ideas have been accepted or rejected in our society. A thriving capitalist workforce requires both men and women to work, with women preferably delaying childbirth and having a small number of children (if we can call that 'a meaningful career', and convince people that it's for their own benefit, all the better!) but it also requires people to be essentially consumerist - which is why the anti-consumerist values of second-wave feminism have been almost entirely rejected, and the emphasis on personal choice has been retained. I think capitalism has subverted feminism almost as effectively as it has subverted Christianity... but that's another story! This is why committed, self-identified feminists (a tiny group) repeatedly lament that feminism has failed in the West - at the same time that anti-feminists see them as having almost singlehandedly masterminded the fall of western civilisation!
ReplyDeleteMy distinction between ideas and forces is dodgy, but I'm trying to put my finger on a problem that I see - of evangelicals always focusing on ideas, because they are so theologically conscious, but being really blind to the way broader trends can make ideas almost meaningless or powerless. I recently read a Reformed historian arguing that one great (main) reason for Reformed evangelicals to study history was to be able to spot heretics. To me that is a terribly depressing and unmotivating argument for studying history, but more than that I think it misleadingly focuses on ideas as the key problem/issue in the church/society. I have no problem with studying ideas, I just think you need to be conscious of how they relate to everything else that's going on!
Yeah - definitely understand what you're saying. And I guess there's a problem with the lack of critique/enthusiastic support of capitalism that is often found in evangelical circles.
ReplyDeleteHave you read any David Wells? I think he at least tries to capture something of the 'zeitgeist' of the age - the way that modern consumer society makes God seem distant and irrelevant, quite apart from the philosophical ideas that people hold.
But I guess it does leave a question - how do you critique something that isn't an idea.