The Bible’s Very Few Instructions on How to Raise Children

Broomall RPC had five babies born in 2024, a small baby boom. I checked Amazon for books on child-rearing and found 2,625 titles. Who buys these books? Mostly anxious mothers. By contrast, the New Testament has two verses about child-rearing. “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4, NKJV).” “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged (Colossians 3:21, NKJV).” The five thoughts in these verses are: 1) God addresses fathers; 2) He tells them what not to do; 3) Adds a reason not to do it; 4) He tells them what to do; and 5) He adds that all should be done “in the Lord."

“Fathers.” That seems strange. Isn’t raising children mainly the mother’s job? No. The Greek word translated “fathers” does not mean “mothers,” and it never has the general meaning of “parents,” as some recent translations have it.

I. Fathers? Isn’t Raising the Children the Mother’s Job? A Brief Look at the Industrial Revolution (1750 - Present) to Explain How Raising Children Became Mainly Women’s Work

Before 1750, it was primarily fathers who raised children after they were about five years old, especially boys. This happened on family farms and in urban workshops attached to houses. With the Industrial Revolution, men left home to work, often all day and six days a week. (The forty-hour work week is a 20th Century invention.) As men left home to work, much of the formerly women’s work left too: spinning yarn, weaving cloth, making candles and soap, and preserving food, for example. Out of the house, how could fathers raise their children? And what were women to do without much of their former work? Two Feminisms offered an answer.

Feminism One aimed to make women the same as men, with the same legal and property rights. “Human” replaced “man and woman:” women are just people with wombs. “Parents” replaced “father” and “mother.” Heirs of Feminism One demanded the vote, “equal pay for equal work,” and finally the same freedom for sexual adventurism men too often sinfully claim.

Feminism Two went a different direction. Women are morally superior to men and therefore should raise the children. Housewives became “homemakers,” charged with making home a warm and safe place. Men became “breadwinners.” Heirs of Feminism Two campaigned to end the “liquor traffic” to stop men coming home from work drunk. During the 1930s New Deal, they campaigned for men to earn a “family wage,” so that all mothers could afford to stay home with the children.

The main problem with Feminism One is that God created Man, male and female. No one has ever seen a straight-up human: we see boys and girls, men and women. There are more differences between men and women than just some reproductive bits. Feminism One hit a public dead end when a female candidate for the Supreme Court said she could not answer the question, “What is a woman?”

A problem with Feminism Two is that many men cannot earn enough dough to be “bread winners” for an entire family. Many wives must earn a paycheck to keep their families financially afloat. They also need work to do. The often ridiculous “Tradwives” of Tik Tok fame pine for Feminism Two, but its retreat continues. In the end, neither Feminism One (men and women differ only in bodily reproductive function) or Feminism Two (men go out to work and women stay home and raise the children) is satisfactory. And what about God telling fathers how to raise their children?

What is to be done by fathers and mothers so that fathers raise the children? Absent earthshaking social and economic changes, small farms and artisan shops will not return. Each family must adjust as well as possible to the world as it is to allow fathers to do their God-assigned calling to raise their children.

What about families with no fathers? In too many families, the whole weight of child-rearing and bread winning falls on the mother. She may get help from extended family, church, friends, and the government, but the responsibility to raise the children is hers. Neither society nor children benefit from often well-meant claims that all families are equally satisfactory. They are not. Children in families with no father know deep inside that a missing father is not right. Studies regularly confirm what people have always known: children fare best growing up with father and mother, preferably married. God has special concern for the fatherless, the widow, and the orphan. So should we. But God’s family norm is father and mother with children, fathers raising the children with mother helping. What should a father do as he raises his children?

II. Negative: What Not to Do “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath (KJV).” (“Anger” in the ESV and NASB.) Two translations not in the King James tradition are of interest. Do not “goad your children to resentment (New English Bible).” “Parents, never goad your children to resentment (Jerusalem Bible).” What things provoke children to resentment? Experience and wisdom point to at least seven ways fathers wrongly provoke children to wrath.

1. An absent father. In our present society, even men who don’t desert their families, or get divorced, can be mostly absent from their children. That is changing for the laptop class, especially since work from home became widespread with the Covid shutdowns. Will it last? It is hard to know the future. But even so, most men leave home for work. Easy fix: don’t go to the bar with buddies after work. What to do? Easy fix: never work on the Lord’s Day and stay around the house on Saturday. Less easy fix: turn down some opportunities to work overtime or to go on the road. Of course, the family may badly need the money, or the job may require it. Harder fix: choose a field of work that will not be a “body and soul job.” JP Morgan Chase bank and Bank of America recently announced that they will stop requiring new workers to labor more than 80 hours a week (WSJ, 9/11/24)! Will a father working for either bank raise his children? Hardly. Children need quantity time. Hard fix: change jobs. A man working 60 hours a week in sales, making good money, can choose a different route when he marries to have more time to raise the children he hopes will soon come. Children don’t like it when their fathers are absent, and their absence provokes them to anger.

2. A father who breaks his word provokes resentment, either failing to keep a promise, or failing to follow through on a threat. A famous psychological experiment was the marshmallow test. In the 1960s, University of Stanford experimenters put children ages four and five alone in a room, with a marshmallow on a table. “You can eat the marshmallow whenever you want. If you don’t eat it while I am gone, you will get two marshmallows when I get back.” Then they left. Some children ate the marshmallow immediately; some resisted briefly and then ate; and some waited to get two marshmallows. (The children were secretly filmed.) The experimenters followed the children for the next four decades: those who waited to get two marshmallows did better in life than the quick eaters. The ability to wait for what one wants (delayed gratification) allows people to finish school, get a job, wait for sex and children until marriage, and even save money when young, all things which make for long-term success in life.

Researchers recently returned to the marshmallow experiment. They looked at the families of immediate marshmallow eaters and the ones who waited for two. Guess what! Children who waited for their two marshmallows came from families where father and mother kept their word. The immediate eaters came from chaotic homes where children could never predict what might happen next. Experience had taught them, “Eat the marshmallow when you can; you never know what is going to happen.”

Fathers, keep your word and you won’t exasperate your children. You will also help them to be ready to live on their own.

3. Fathers provoke children to anger when they have a favorite child. A famous example of this mistake is Jacob, who loved Joseph best. Ten resentful brothers got revenge by selling Joseph into slavery.

I grew up in a home where, after my father died, my maternal grandparents lived with us. My younger brother was my grandmother’s obvious favorite. One day I set a trap for my mother. “Is it okay for grandparents to have favorites?” She answered, “It is not okay for parents to play favorites, but it’s okay for grandparents.” Decades later I quoted her answer back to her and asked, “Did you really believe that?” She laughed. “No, of course not. But what else was I going to say?”

4. Deliberately provoking a child to anger by poking his weak spots. Sometimes fathers (and mothers) just have fun by “pushing the buttons” of a child where they know he is vulnerable and then watch him predictably fly into a rage. God gives us children not to be our playthings, even though fathers should enjoy playing with them.

5. Being angry or openly disappointed with a child who fails to live up to parental expectations. A student I once had in class told me that her mother saw her report card with all A’s and one B, and said sadly, “I hope someday I can be proud of you.” Fathers trying to teach a child how to tie her shoelaces or hit a baseball can get openly frustrated and disappointed. Worst of all, perhaps, are fathers or mothers who get angry at a child for being unable to answer the question, “Now why did you do that?!” Even grown-ups often don’t understand their own motives.

6. Open dissatisfaction with work a boy did with a good will. How do you show dissatisfaction? You can tell him, of course. But all that needs to be done is silently to redo the work. Why bother, the child will think resentfully.

7. Dislike having your child around. Open disdain, avoidance, or sending a child away, reveal that a father does not like his child. Here is an extreme case. In October a boy entered my Algebra II class. His mother had sent him to live with his father. In February he came to class with candy for everyone as he said good-bye. He explained, “My mother doesn’t want me, and now my father doesn’t want me either. I am being sent to a boarding school.” Heartbreaking! It has been often said that every child needs at least one adult in her life who is irrationally crazy about her. As a teacher, I found that the kids weakest in mathematics would try to learn only if they first knew I liked them. Fatherly love and delight in a child make her ready to learn. Fatherly disdain makes a child not want to learn.

In Colossians Paul adds the warning: “lest they become disheartened.” Why try if whatever I do is never good enough? Where will I ever belong if even my father does not want me? How can I ever trust anyone if I my father won’t keep his word? Fathers: do not provoke your children to anger lest they become disheartened. A father — and certainly mother also — should not provoke a child to wrath or resentment. What should a father do?

III. Bring Them Up in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord (KJV) “Nurture” translates paideia, the Greek word for child (think “pediatrician,” child doctor). The NKJV and NIV translate it as “training,” which is not quite right. The ESV and NASB translate “discipline,” which is even less satisfactory.

What is included in paideia? Three things: habits, knowledge, and skills. The necessary habits, knowledge, and skills for children to learn vary hugely from place to place and century to century. That variance is a reason why the Bible does not provide a manual for child-rearing. Here are some things to teach appropriate to American society in the Twenty-First Century of Our Lord’s Reign.

Habits, both for politeness and cleanliness. Say “please.” Say “thank you.” Brush your teeth after dinner. Cover your mouth when you sneeze. Don’t pick your nose in public. Speak politely to adults. Be kind to other children. Say, “May I be excused,” before you leave the table. Inculcated habits change over time, of course. Here are two habits taught to me that don’t apply now: 1) When you call someone, let the phone ring ten times before you hang up (every house had only one phone and there were no answering machines; cell phones change the rule, since most folk set them to go to message after five rings, and some younger folk count it rude if you just call without texting first to arrange a time to call); 2) Men, open a door for a woman who is also going through the door and let her go through first, a polite habit denounced by Feminism Two in its 1970s version and no longer expected now.

Knowledge: Fathers with their wives should teach their children what things are wise and unwise; literacy and numeracy; and so on. Much of that knowledge is taught in schools, but all children begin life “homeschooled.” One thing above all that the Bible insists that parents teach their children is to know God and his Word. Daily family worship – sing a Psalm, read a chapter of the Bible, and kneel for prayer with father praying – along with weekly worship at church are the basics. Knowledge about country, customs, and how to make a living vary by country and era. No wonder the Bible contains no school curriculum.

Skills: In ancient Israel sons had to learn how to plow, know when and how to plant crops, when and how to harvest, how to save seeds for the next year, how to prune grape vines, and so on. Fathers need to pay attention to what skills their children will need in our time and place and then teach them as well as they can.

As every father and mother knows, children often resist learning the knowledge, skills, and habits that they need to learn. Therefore, Paul pairs paideia with nouthesia “admonition (NKJV).” “Admonish” has many other words in English – correct, remind, nag, explain and re-explain, and stronger correctives like spanking, time-outs, and privileges taken away.

Should a father spank his child? “Experts” today insist that spanking does more harm than good. But then what are we to make of this: “Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he will not die (Proverbs 23:13).” “He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly (Proverbs 13:24).” Of course, a literal reading of these proverbs would require fathers to use thick wooden rods to beat their children, a punishment that will leave bruises and maybe more. The “rod,” however, is a figure of speech for all sorts of correction, including the physical correction of spanking. Where to spank? An ancient Egyptian proverb gives the age-old answer: “Boys are born with their ears on their backsides.” A father can speak to a child’s soul (mind, conscience, heart) through his body with spanks as well as with hugs and kisses.

Our contemporary “experts” are not entirely wrong about spanking being harmful. Unpredictable smacks across the face teach a child that life is random and unpredictable. They do more harm than good. But when a child knowingly breaks a family rule, a spanking (best done in private) lets him know through his body that he has done wrong. It reinforces his conscience that usually has told him already that he did wrong. Punishment should be swift. “Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil (Ecclesiastes 8:11).” A quickly administered light punishment has more effect than a harsher one that comes long after.

Mothers, of course, also teach habits, skills, and knowledge to children, and they also correct their children. But the father as head of the wife has the final responsibility. Therefore, an elder must be one who rules his household well with his children well behaved (I Timothy 3:4). Father and mother must back each other up. “What did your mother just say to you?” were such happy words for my wife to hear. And wise wives and mothers do not undercut father’s authority, either openly or slyly.

IV. In the Lord The final word in Ephesians 6:4 on raising children is this: it must be done “in the Lord.” That means four things. 1) We raise our children to be the Lord’s. 2) We raise our children in line with God’s Word. Household rules should not contradict God’s Word. 3) Fathers must live by what they teach. No father or mother should ever say to a son or daughter, “Do as I say, not as I do.” 4) We raise our children in the presence of God, remembering that he is present everywhere. One simple way to remember God’s presence is to pray before every meal and have daily family worship. “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up (Deuteronomy 6:6-7 NKJV).”

Fathers and mothers, pray nightly for your children. You can teach and correct, but only God can convert them to Christ (see I Corinthians 3:6-8). There is no infallible way to raise children so that they never stray, and even the most conscientious fathers and mothers make mistakes. Every child is born with Original Sin, and Satan wants our children. No matter how carefully you teach and watch your offspring, they are like you, able to come up with bad things entirely on their own. They will keep secrets from you, and when you find them out, they can be flippant about it. A son broke an heirloom on our living room mantelpiece. He carefully put it back together and said nothing. Two years later when his mother discovered the break, he said to her, “You don’t clean there very often, do you.” Parents should love their children madly and be deeply suspicious of them.

So have at it, fathers. Raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and do not goad them to resentment. No matter what else is happening in the world and in your life, is there a job of greater importance to you than raising your sons and daughters in the Lord? There is an old saying about raising our children: “The days are long, but the years are short.” Then, when the short years have passed, if God wills it, you will get to see your children’s children, a crown in your old age (Proverbs 17:6).

– Bill Edgar, father of 5, grandfather of 19