Habits of the Household
Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Family Rhythms
By: Justin Whitmel Earley
“To steward the habits of your family is to steward the hearts of your family.”
“The idea of cultivating habits of the household is nothing more than cultivating rhythms of looking at the God who is always looking back at us.”
It’s a Christmas miracle! We finished this book! I made a declaration on February 9th of 2024: 'Mike and I should read this book out loud together.’ What a precious, little idea.
Folks, it took us OVER A YEAR to finish. It is like 11 chapters long. Even if we only read one chapter a month, we should have finished it MONTHS ago. We are a disgrace.
That being said. It’s a fantastic book. You should definitely read it. And I do think reading it as a couple is the best option, but don’t be like us and spread it out over your entire lifetime.
Habits of the Household is a book meant to help parents think about the habits of their family in ten areas: waking, mealtimes, discipline, screentime, family devotions, marriage, work, play, conversation, and bedtime.
Earley likens habits to liturgies.
“Habits are kinds of liturgies. They are little routines of worship, and worship changes what we love. Habits of the household are not just actions that form our families’ routines, they are liturgies that form our families’ hearts. This is why we should choose them so carefully.”
I know liturgy feels like such a formal word. But if we can get past our first-impression mind pictures of how to have more liturgical families, what he says makes so much sense.
He says it’s an “effort to unite education and formation.”
“We are tasked not only with learning the right thing, which takes concentration and thinking, but also with practicing the right things, which takes formation and repetition.”
We’ve already put many things into practice from this book and I can already tell the impact it has had on the way our kids think about things. Kids love routine and habits. It is the perfect time to put the right ones into their lives.
The first couple pre-chapters of the book really explain the heart of why and how to read the book, and he does a great job showing the spiritual importance of our family’s habits.
“One of the central themes of this book is that we become our habits, and our kids become us. Which means who our children are becoming is tightly connected to who we are becoming— personally and communally.”
Thus, there are some chapters more about forming parents, some about forming children, and some about forming a family.
I really like the emphasis he puts on how so much of our parenting comes from what God is doing in our own personal lives. We have to start with our own spiritual growth before we can expect to be the parents we want to be.
“Our best parenting comes when we think less about being parents of children and more about being children of God… Someone who is stronger than you and who loves you is in charge. And that’s good news for parents and children.”
I also love that he reminds us that creating good habits is not connected to our salvation and we are free from being measured by our failures: “Our habits won’t change God’s love for us, but God’s love for us can and should change our habits.”
Justin Whitmel Earley writes this book to parents in the trenches, AS a parent in the trenches. He and his wife parent four young boys and he shares anecdotes that prove his house can be wild; he humbly admits they don’t always have it all together as parents.
“At best, I am a tired, confused, impatient, guilt-ridden, and regret-prone father whose only hope is that Jesus actually did live, die, and rise again. My only hope is that grace means that that divine reality will somehow break into my reality. Because my reality is that I don’t feel like I’m good at my job as a parent.”
As a mom to four kids 8 and under with a cluttered house, a full calendar, and just so much loudness in my life, I am in good company here.
This book is not meant to be taken as gospel in the sense that you have to do ALL the things he suggests. He says, “it’s full of things to try.”
Families are different. Schedules are different. Personalities are different. Priorities are different. Try a thing; make adjustments; try a different thing.
After each chapter we read, we tried to pick just one thing to implement in our lives that felt sustainable. I suppose taking 10,000 days to read this book helped us implement various things gradually over time instead of firehosing our house with 10 new habits immediately.
For example, here are some of the takeaways we chose to do with our family (to the best of our ability) in each of the areas Earley explores:
Waking- Kneeling every morning as we get out of bed to say a one or two sentence prayer; not checking our phones right away (this may be the hardest one for us to be consistent with); we also wrote a liturgy that we say as a family every day before going off to school/work that highlights the things we want them to be thinking about throughout their day (I was surprised how quickly they memorized it and they often remind me about it if I forget!)
Mealtimes- Lighting a candle because ‘Christ is light’ and passing an object around the table to allow each kid to share the best part, worst part, and a funny part of their day
Screentime- we have one day of screen Sabbath that we now title TV-less Tuesdays where we don’t do screens
Family Devotions- reading the actual Bible at least once a week (in between using this Bible, this Bible, and this book for Bible reading time), and doing more Scripture memorization (I have a note in my phone to keep track of verses they’ve memorized and others ones we want them to eventually memorize)
Marriage- making date nights a priority a few times a month
Work- talking about work in a positive way that dignifies the work and shows that we are like God when we are working; inviting them into work more by assisting us or doing their own chores
Conversation- being intentional to have one-on-one time with each of our kids on a monthly or bi-monthly basis where we have a list of questions to ask; writing letters to their future selves periodically
Bedtime- we came up with a two-sentence liturgy we say with them before bed; we want to do a better job praying with them at this time too
There were so many great ideas and examples in the book. He shared stories of when he would try things and it wouldn’t work or how he would adjust things. Or even just how some things feel awkward to start and your kids might be confused, but to just push through and maintain the habit and it gets better. Be willing to stick with something for a bit before calling it off.
Again, his post-chapter (I guess you could call it an epilogue) explains again how and why we do this. If nothing else, this book is encouraging and helps us as parents see the importance of what we’re doing without weighing us down with the outcome. There is so much grace for us!
“In the final analysis, it is neither us nor our habits that form our children, it’s Jesus’ grace… And yet, Jesus uses us. And he uses our habits too. He uses who we are to form who our children will be. And that’s not a burden, that’s a blessing, because it means our actions matter. We don’t have to bear the weight of being finally responsible for who our children are. But we can carry the joy that what we do has meaning. It is not lost, and God will make use of it.”
“The final role of a parent is just to be someone who keeps looking to Jesus… By doing that, we become like Jesus, and our kids become like us, and in this connection of holy imitations, we all follow him together.”
Recommendation
In the time it would take to watch Lord of the Rings 1600 times, I have read and contemplated this book, and the answer is a resounding: Yes! I would recommend this book!
Come one, come all!
Even if you just think— man, we’re just struggling with how to do family devotions, or how do we approach screentime, or bedtime is so hard— then skip around the book and just read the chapters that you need the most help with. There are no rules.
I would say it’s probably more so geared toward kids with younger kids as opposed to teenagers, but I think you can still easily take the principles found here and adapt them for older kids. Unless your sixteen year old would love a tickle blessing, then go for it!
But it’s never too late to cultivate rhythms in the home that point to Jesus and what he wants for us.
Sidenote: the foreword was written by Troy and Ruth Chou Simons. I really enjoyed Ruth’s book When Strivings Cease and they have a parenting book called Foundations that is currently on my to-read shelf that also looks good. They have had over 20 years of parenting six boys. Fun fact: Foundations released on my birthday/the day I got Covid so it has to be good.
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