For the Family’s Sake #8

The Infrastructure of Routine, mother culture & interior riches

The main thrust of this chapter is that the home life of anyone, whether they have children or not, needs a regular pattern of life. I read the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder aloud to my children when they were little and remember that Ma did specific things on each day of the week. It went something like this:

Wash on Monday
Iron on Tuesday
Mend on Wednesday
Churn on Thursday
Clean on Friday
Bake on Saturday
Rest on Sunday

In our modern times we still need the stability of a regular life but with the modern appliances available to us, we don’t have to be so rigid in how we implement routines. When my children were all at home I did some laundry just about every day, something I couldn’t have done if I’d lived in the early 1900’s and had to heat water in a copper washer and wring clothes by hand.

I grew up in a large family and we all had to help out around the house. It was good training for when I left home but many of my friends weren’t required to help out at home at all. It made things difficult when they had families of their own later on and suddenly realised they were ill-equipped to run a household. That said, I think it’s important to understand that being at home with young children is hard work regardless of your upbringing and despite having good routines in place. All it takes is something like a bout of sickness, the breakdown of the washing machine, or a sleepless night to cause a major disruption in the life of a family.

‘One of the objectives in a home or community’s routines is to ensure that those who bear the weight don’t burn out.’

Routines and habits allow us freedom from constant decision making. Everyone knows what to expect. If dinner is generally around the same time each night, the children can have a quick bath, a story, and be in bed at a reasonable hour. My husband’s work was demanding and he was sometimes required to travel, but I knew that when he came home at night, I’d get a break. A routine (or some sort of rhythm) enabled us to do this. In the early days of mothering I spent much of any free time I had in the evening researching home education. This was refreshing & intellectually stimulating for me, helping me to offload some of my daily load because it was a completely different type of work.

‘All of us, whatever our age, stage, or circumstances, need unscheduled-by-someone-else personal time.’

This is one area where we need to step back and give our children space – unscheduled time to themselves, even if it’s just for five minutes. Today’s mothers seem to feel that if they don’t play with or entertain their child all the time they aren’t doing their job properly, but we do our children a disservice if we are always hovering over them. I used to think that playpens were a terrible idea, and they would be if you overused them, but I started using one for a short time each day to give the littlest some time ‘on their own.’ I could see them, they were safe, I didn’t use it if they were miserable and kept it short – five or ten minutes. I talked about the idea of Masterly Inactivity in my thoughts on Chapter 3 and this is one way to start getting used to the idea with little children.

Mothers need to have a personal life, too, but if we are always hovering over our children we won’t have much chance to do this. By personal life we include spirit, soul and body. In the early days of raising children this can be a struggle. Susan spoke about her experience trying to fit in a quiet time in Chapter 6 and how she managed it.

I think it’s vital to find out what refreshes you. Of course, as a Christian, time in God’s Word and prayer are first priority, but we can be creative about this. If exercise is important to you, walking and praying may be your answer. I find now that walking actually helps me to concentrate when I pray. Getting up early before the day gets busy, hearing the birdsong that rises in the morning, seeing the dew on the grass or on a spider’s web before the sun evaporates it, may be something that could work for you. It didn’t for me for quite a few years and I’ve found that the different stages of life often require a re-think and a change of routine.

In Charlotte Mason circles the term ‘Mother Culture’ refers to time a mother spends growing her own mind.

‘Mother must have time to herself. And we must not say “I cannot.” Can any of us say till we have tried, not for one week, but for one whole year, day after day, that we “cannot” get one half-hour out of the twenty-four for “Mother Culture?”–one half-hour in which we can read, think, or “remember.”

…if we would do our best for our children, grow we must; and on our power of growth surely depends, not only our future happiness, but our future usefulness.’

One of the most inspirational autobiographies I’ve ever read was Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng, a woman, who in her early fifties, who was locked up in solitary confinement for six and a half years during the Cultural Revolution. During those years she drew upon her interior riches: Poetry and Psalms she had memorised; the intellectual culture of thinking and remembering she had practised throughout her life while she was still free; not to mention the physical disciplines she made herself undergo to keep her body from total deterioration while enduring the effects of starvation in prison.

Interior riches is a phrase I remember reading in Elizabeth Goudge’s book The Rosemary Tree. I often think of it when I read books like the one I mentioned above. We never know when we may be left without external resources to sustain our souls but what we have made a part of us can’t be taken away.

• Scripture memory
• Beautiful artwork stored in the mind
• Intellectual & aesthetic culture
• The discipline of reading, thinking, & remembering
• Inspiring music
• History
• Nature appreciation

Mother Culture: filling my soul with Interior Riches for the present, and to draw upon in the future.

Mealtimes, relaxed and regular times together over food are, ‘The key to the day for communities, families and friends.’

This was something that happened very naturally in our home for about 30 years, but it’s been very difficult in the last few years to have any sort of consistency. Adult children living at home, changing working hours and university timetables, as well as numerous other changes, have upset our routines and will do so for a while yet.

Susan makes an important point about mealtimes together: they should not be used as times for lectures or for attacking others – a bad habit and poor manners that shows our lack of respect for people in our family, especially children.

These were some of my thoughts on reading this chapter. Some questions to consider:

How have you handled changes in routines over the years or how did you implement a new routine in the first place?

Are you getting a half hour out of the twenty-four hours you have each day in which you can read, think, or remember?

Is your spiritual life your first priority?

What have you been reading for your own growth lately? As the article on Mother Culture I linked to said, this doesn’t have to be a ‘stiff’ book. Think of it as storing up Interior Riches.

Currently I’m reading:

• 2084 and the AI Revolution - How Artificial Intelligence Informs Our Future by John Lennox. This is definitely a ‘‘stiff’’ book for me due to its technical nature. My husband read it warned me that some of it would be a slog for me, but it covers some important topics.

• The Return of the Native (1895) by Thomas Hardy. Hardy had a very rich vocabulary & I’m often reaching for a dictionary, but his narrative is compelling. I’d say his writing is on a par with George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda or Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.

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