This article by Cameron Cole retells a familiar narrative and makes me wonder if family is now being changed so it is not so much the place where a child’s character is formed, but the place where a child is domiciled while being transported to and fro from lots and lots of character forming activities.
Parents spend more and more time taking children from one location to another, all the time lamenting that they don’t spend time together.
And not so oddly enough, the social pressures that dictate the numerous activities their children must have in order to develop does not include week by week attendance at worship as a family.
Parents have to struggle to maintain that as a priority, and carry the cost of looking neglectful because they won’t commit to competing activities that conflict with that time of worship.
From the article (one of a series):
Parents agonize over going weeks without one meal around the dinner table with all family members. They regret missing consecutive weeks of church while traveling to soccer tournaments. They languish as they want their child in a Bible study, but they cannot tell the football coach that small group comes before the pre-game meal or film study. Parents feel robbed of the vision they had of an intimate family that eats nightly meals around the table and went on walks to catch up on life. Instead, they’re trapped in a circus of carpool.
The vocabulary of fear and obligation dominates expressions I hear from parents when they lament over their child’s busyness. “Well, we have to do an ACT prep class, or else . . . we have to take a full load of AP classes or else . . . we have to play a sport to round out that college resume . . . Johnny has to be an Eagle Scout . . . we have to attend every event at the church.” This attitude suggests they face certain condemnation if they deviate from the cultural norms. Fear looms over the possibility a child may not maximize every minute of every day in the name of resume optimization and ultimate human development.
Furthermore, parents reveal a fear of inadequacy as they guide their children.
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