The Family Economic Unit

I wrote a few weeks ago about the subject of debt and trying to avoid/get out of debt. In the meanwhile I have been thinking a lot about the economics of the home and family and how that relates to debt and financial stability. As I look at the world around me I see very little praiseworthy from an economic standpoint. The rich grow richer and more power too them I guess. The poor and the dependent class grow larger every year thanks to a mediocre economy and incentives that generationalize poverty and dependence. More and more families have two wage earners and yet those same families are barely making ends meet. I want something different than the rat race and debt/consumption model for my family. That requires a different look at how we approach economics at family level.

There are two main factors in the economy of a household, income and expenses. The expenses side is fairly self-explanatory, spend less and make do with less. Live more simply. That is easier said than done in our culture that worships the new, the better, the upgrade and the update while consumption is king and debt is always available. But we really can do with less, for example see John Mureiko's recent post More With Less: Clothing to look at just one area where we think we need more than we really do. We are a pretty frugal family in some ways, no smartphones, no cable/satellite TV, we don't go on expensive vacations (or vacations at all!) or buy lots of gadgets or clothes. We don't eat out a ton other than breakfast at the local greasy spoon for my wife and I and the occasional pizza. We don't throw a lot of food away because we feed it to our pig in return for bacon. We have a modest sized mortgage and one small car payment. So we are pretty bare-bones in a lot of ways compared to other families.

That doesn't mean we can't do more. We are looking at our livestock because that has gotten a bit out of control, we have too many horses that eat too much hay and do little in return. We are trying to be smarter about our meal planning, more basic food stuffs to make meals from rather than pre-packaged foods. We are being a bit more picky about driving our Amish neighbors around to make sure that we are get fairly compensated for time, gas and wear & tear.

The other side of the equation is income. We are an anomaly in modern America, a large family with a single bread winner. That is who we are and how we have rolled since 1995 when I graduated from college. I am not sure that is going to keep working. So we have to decide what to do in place of that model and in doing so take an inventory of our family. While we have is some extra space and we have lots of potential labor. With four able bodied adults in the home and plenty of other kids old enough to help we are looking at how we can leverage that to diversify our economic structure. That looks a little light this....

- Multiple income streams

As it stands right now, we are a single income family. We have been since the day I graduated from college and we like that. We are old fashioned perhaps but we think that the family is best served when one of the parents, usually mom, is home more or less full time to manage the household. For us that has always meant that I go to a job somewhere and my wife stays home. That has worked for almost twenty years although it has been very trying for us financially for much of that time. It was especially critical when we had a non-stop procession of babies and very small children in the home. Now our children are getting older, our youngest is almost six and soon we will have 5 of our 8 aged 13 or older. That doesn't mean they don't need attention, just not as much of stuff like feeding and diapering which in theory frees up a lot of time. So we are giving serious thought to how the income end of the equation can change without compromising our core belief structure about having mom at home.

What we would like to see are multiple income streams. We have a somewhat unusual opportunity in that we live among one of the largest populations of Amish in the country and we have very good relations with many of them. This means that we can leverage those contacts to drive them places they cannot readily reach with a buggy, get into business ventures including one we are looking at very seriously and also a bartering economy where we trade their expertise for our technology like cars.

- The home as the economic center for the family

Alongside the multiple income streams, we would like to see the home become the economic focal point of the family. Rather than our home being the place we all go forth from to jobs/schools and then come back to for the purpose of eating and sleeping, we would love to see the home be where we work and where we live. That is how humanity worked for a very long time and I don't think modern "progress" has a whole lot going for it, far more so than the model of families scattering to the winds to chase "education" and jobs leaving families splintered and professional caregivers to take care of young children and elderly parents. Our next door neighbor is a hog farmer, his dad lives on the corner of his property and helps him with the farming still, and does so alongside his grandsons.

- An eye toward the future

Far too often in America adulthood means the kids striking off on their own to make their way in the world and this also often means moving away leading to fragmented families. Little wonder that families don't care for parents when they grow older and so many families put their children in day care. Our future hopefully is one where our kids are participating in the economy of the home and stay near us so that we can help care for their children and in turn can rely on them for assistance as we get older.

Also, what will the economy look like in the future?

Like it or not the United States is headed for a single payer health insurance system. While I think that is a horrible idea it is happening whether we like it or not. Having a job that provides insurance might not be a major concern. Also with a family economy it should be less important to have a million dollars socked away in your 401k. I think these and other factors are going to make the traditional employment model obsolete

That is just a rough plan to start.

We would like to get more property as we are kind of tight on land right now. One project we are exploring pretty seriously would require a new building and that would eat up the last bit of land we have that is vacant on our current property. So if we can get established with a decent income supplemented by jobs by myself and my older kids our next task would be expanding with more property, something that is pretty expensive with high crop prices and a ton of land hungry Amish to compete with! Really our goal is becoming more clear in my eyes and that is important. I really want to get out of the office/cubicle world and spend more time working alongside my family for a whole bunch of reasons and I think we are taking a few of the right steps along that path. You are welcome to follow along as we seek a new path!

INCH: Workshop 2

Are you raising a rebel?

Kathie Morrissey

(I have noticed that there are quite a few women covering their heads at the conference, which is nice to see!)

Started off having kids sing a song, I am not sure what the point was….

- Rebellion: The rejection of authority (external and internal)

The world sees rebellion from children as normative. I.e. the “terrible twos” are normal and the continual rebellion from teens.

Learning to obey the first time is foundational to parenting. Why doesn’t this happen? We don’t require it.

We don’t train our children to obey to control them but because it is what God has commanded.

What do our kids see in our reaction to authority? Does dad complain about his boss, does mom undermine dad’s authority when he is not around? Doing so teaches our kids to rebel when the rules are not to their liking.

Passive rebellion is when kids do what they are told externally. They do what we tell them on the outside but on the inside they are still rebelling.

Rebellion is often internal. Saying no gets you in trouble, but there are subtle ways that kids can rebel. Consistent forgetfullness, violating understood but unspoken rules., etc.

Behavior modification is not the same thing as obedience. Very true and a weak spot for me. We punish the wrong external behavior but we need to deal with the rebellious heart.

The most significant thing we can do to influence kids hearts is to be a proper example. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink (but you can salt his oats!)

We must teach kids to obey the first time. Kids are trained to know when we are serious. In other words, do they obey the first time or do they wait until the parents starts counting or starts yelling.

Never give instructions more than once.

Reproof

Take your kids to God’s Word to reprove them

Fixing this takes consistency. They won’t undo poor habits right away. A weed in a garden allowed to grow gets deeper roots and is hard to undo.

Correction

The world tells us not to correct kids. The Bible tells us the rod is the way to correct children who are rebelling against their parents. Spanking out of need, not out of anger. Spanking early leads to not being spanked later.

Improper Correction

Rules without relationship breed rebellion.

Sound quote.

Inconsistency is improper correction, kids are frustrated when they don’t know what to do. We contribute to the rebellion of our kids by being lazy and inconsistent

Also, embarrassing or putting down kids. Correction should be private. “you never obey” “you’re a bad child”. All of our words are used to either bless or curse our children. That kind of stuck me where I live.

When we are angry with our children we close their hearts and lose our influence with them. It doesn’t take much character to see the flaws in our kids.

We don’t want to punish our kids, we want to change their hearts.

(She suggests a book called Good and Angry and Freedom from the spirit of anger, Solving the Crisis in Homeschooling)

Learn from someone else’s mistake instead of making them ourselves.

Failure to train in righteousness

- Make them go back and do what’s right

- Protection from wrong influence

- Danger of peer pressure

- Encourage them to use their influence in a positive way: Rebel against what is wrong in the culture. Our kids should rebel against what is wrong around them, not against us. Rebel against what society is telling them. Make their teen years count for God.

(DVD Dr. Davis What to expect from our kids/twelve year olds? The teenage years of Jesus Christ)

Key Ingredients to avoid rebellion

1 Pray for our children (Scripture prayer with children)

2. Scripture reading with kids & character training

3. Keeping their hearts

The most important habit we can instill in our kids is daily reading of God’s Word. It is about consistent, calm not done in anger. Correct and get it over with. Other punishments lead to constant anger.

Very good seminar. I am too often satisfied with forcing obedience from my kids. What I want is wrong. I shouldn’t want their obedience, I want their heart which will leads to obedience. Forcing obedience will not give us their hearts.