Facing an Anti-Family Economy
Economic demands often work against your being a man or woman in your household. There is a plan for manhood and womanhood that you can discover and execute, starting at home.
Responding to the Dominant Culture
Strong cultural pressures both pull you away from home and invade your life there. You can take responsibility and thrive.
Overcoming the Feeling of Powerlessness
Confused and isolated, sometimes you don’t know where to turn. You can become the man or woman you know you can be.
What can I do?
STEP 1: Start by reading Reclaiming the Household.
Then dive deep into the gifts of household life by taking Man of the Household (see below for more details) or Woman of the Household.
Free Online Course:
Man of the Household
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Why take this course:
As natural as it is, being man of the household does not come naturally, especially today. We need to be intentional and take specific steps to become the man we want to be. The course goal is this: to be the man of my household, a true husband and father, taking first responsibility for crafting the good life in my home, and so fulfilling what my nature calls me to, my heart longs for, and my loved ones need and deserve.
To whatever extent we become that man, it is its own reward. Yet also our wife, our children, our friends, and all our loved ones will be grateful and reap the fruits of our efforts. For generations to come.
If you are interested, I would love for you to join me in this course.
This course has four modules:
- Man as Crafter of a Household
- Man as Husband
- Man as Father
- Man’s Work, Leisure, and Daily Life in the Home
Each module has:
- a pre-recorded lecture (viewable at one’s own schedule)
- a worksheet for formulating resolutions and a concrete personal plan
Each student can:
- participate in online discussion forums with me and other LifeCraft members
- email me questions to which I will respond directly by email
This course is designed for:
- husbands and fathers, young and not so young
- men preparing for marriage
- other men who seek to understand better their vocation to fatherhood, through considering fatherhood in its most obvious instance
- men’s groups, Bible Studies, Exodus 90, marriage prep groups, etc.
STEP 3: Take concrete steps to enrich the lives of those in your household, starting at the dinner table. Watch the Dinner at Home mini-series for ideas on setting manners and having good, meaningful conversations.
STEP 4: If you can, make a hearth in your home. If you can’t, how about a bonfire? Read about the importance of hearths and fires: Making the Times that Matter, We Need More Fires, A Fire in the Hearth, and Make a Fire Today.
STEP 5: See below for featured Wednesday Quotes that address the theme of household.
Featured Posts:
The Manliness Behind the Martial
“Yi was a skillful archer, and Ao was a powerful naval commander, and yet neither of them met a natural death. Yu and Hou Ji, on other hand, did nothing but personally tend to the land, and yet they both ended up with possession of the world.” Confucius, Analects As...
A Man’s Fear about Being a Man
If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage. Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well There is often fear in marriage, and it can be of several kinds. I think Shakespeare’s object here is perhaps the primary fear attending...
Cherishing Your Spouse in Your Children
“Goodbye Aeneas. Cherish our love in the son it gave us.” Virgil, The Aeneid This stunningly powerful goodbye between spouses says so much. A son, it says, was ‘given’ to a couple by the love they bore one another. Love between spouses is already itself a gift. That...
Recent Posts:
Reading Aloud and Renewing Life in the Home
"The household is the association established by nature for the supply of man's everyday wants." Aristotle, Politics Experience shows that changes that happen slowly can go almost unnoticed, even when they have significant negative consequences. Perhaps the most...
For Sex to Be What It Should
“Fasting is the guardian of chastity.” Thomas Aquinas We have a problem with the marital act. Please allow me to speak frankly. Many engage in it who should not. Even for many who are married, intimacy is not what it can and should be. And these two facts only begin...
Manners: One Major Reason Why
“These people will also discover the seemingly insignificant conventions their predecessors have destroyed. Things like this: When it is proper for the young to be silent in front of their elders, when they should make way for them or stand up in their presence....”...
Dinner at Home: The Key Ingredient
“When you coming home, dad?” “I don't know when” But we'll get together then You know we’ll have a good time then. Cat’s in the Cradle, song by Harry Chapin I wonder how many children—and let’s talk about households with the father in it —have the kind of time and...
Authority and the Gift of Fatherhood
There is perhaps no greater intimacy possible between men than when a son looks to a father from whom he has learned to be a father himself. This Father’s Day, in addition to remembering my own father, I am reflecting on the astounding gift, and challenge, of being a...
What a Woman Can Do, and a Man Should See
Giving birth is the natural complement and continuation of the marital act. Cultural practices informed by human selfishness have deeply marred the sexual act, often stripping it of its natural meaning, intimacy, and efficacy. Cultural practices can have a parallel...
Carrying My Spouse with Me
“Likewise, you should know that you will be so close to your husband that wherever he goes he will carry the memory, recollection, and reminder of you. You notice it in all married couples, for as soon as we see the husband, we ask him, ‘How is your wife?’ and as soon...
The Manliness Behind the Martial
“Yi was a skillful archer, and Ao was a powerful naval commander, and yet neither of them met a natural death. Yu and Hou Ji, on other hand, did nothing but personally tend to the land, and yet they both ended up with possession of the world.” Confucius, Analects As...
The Last Defense of Our Homes
“A time may come soon when...there will be need of valor without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defense of our homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.” J.R. Tolkien’s Aragorn, The Lord of the Rings...
A Man Who Fasts
“To any ladies who wish to get married, I suggest: Marry a man who can fast.” a Benedictine This is an interesting requirement in looking for a spouse. Immediately we might reflect that surely anyone can fast. But then again, there is fasting, and there is fasting....
A Man’s Fear about Being a Man
If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage. Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well There is often fear in marriage, and it can be of several kinds. I think Shakespeare’s object here is perhaps the primary fear attending...
When in Doubt the Go-To Principle
I shall reproach him because he attaches little importance to the most important things and greater importance to inferior things. Socrates, Plato’s Apology Trying to live a good life, you spend your days deliberating about hard questions. There is no way around this....