Introduction

This blogpost adds to my post “Parenting: The Goal of Right Living“, in which a brief theory related to parenting was offered. Both posts may be viewed as part of a larger theory or model building effort.

Teaching Daily Habits & Rituals

Humans aren’t born eating three meals a day, getting out of bed around a certain time, putting on clean clothes every day and brushing their teeth in the morning and evening. If they do so, it is at least in large part because they have been taught to do so. A key part of raising children, at least as it is often practiced, involves teaching them daily or quasi-daily habits and rituals. This happens, at least mostly, through a partially subtle and unreflective process of instructing, (dis)approving, rewarding and punishing behavior.

Such parental teaching, if successful, structures the living of the children in a certain way. Although children can admitteldy be taught many different habits and rituals, the ones parents teach their children are not randomly taught. They are always in some way connected to the parents themselves.

Often daily habits and rituals are taught in part because of daily habits and rituals of the parents. An example of this would be parents teaching their children to go to bed at eight, in part because they themselves go to bed at ten and want to spend some time together (in peace) before they go to bed. Also, the daily habits and rituals parents teach their children are often quite similar to their own. Parents who teach their children to eat three meals a day, for example, generally themselves eat three meals a day, often at the same time and around the same table as their children. Parents may not say very often to their children: ‘Do as we do’. But they do generally, even if somewhat unreflectively, raise their children to live like they live. And in raising their children to live like them, parents also, at least normally, raise their children to live like others as well (e.g. grandparents, neighbors and compatriots).

How does all this relate to the parental goal of rightly living children? Well, not all daily habits and rituals are good and in accordance with right living in all situations. Arguably, for example, a daily habit of eating unhealthy snacks, is mostly bad and contrary to right living in the actual world (right living, of course, looks different under different conditions). If parents themselves have such a daily habit, they are arguably obligated to not teach it to their children and rather to strive to prevent their children from acquiring it (which may require attempting to break the habit), at least if it would be (completely) contrary to right living on the part of their children.