Raising Children in Virtue
Even in a culture of vice
A week ago I asked for suggestions for things to write about, and my friend Jenna Klaassen suggested I address the challenge of cultivating virtues in our children. It is difficult to raise children to be virtuous, particularly in a culture that celebrates vice. Aristotle knew this and addressed the problem in his Nicomachean Ethics, right at the end: “It is difficult, however, for someone to be trained correctly for virtue from his youth if he has not been brought up under correct laws.” And so we need good government to set up strict laws to cultivate virtues in our children! Simple. Except that anyone who has witnessed public attempts at instilling even civic virtues like obeying the law, voting, and basic communal spirit can attest that the State is a very, very poor moral tutor. Yes, the State can teach us what we are free to do by granting us liberties, but it is not very good at teaching us what we were made for through propaganda. The exception, Aristotle notes, was an extreme form of violent oligarchy: Sparta. If we want to grant any kind of liberty, then we can’t rely on the State to cultivate virtue in our children. So what’s the alternative? Aristotle’s answer is that “it seems fitting for each individual to promote the virtue of his children.” Thanks, Aristotle. But how do we do this work of “promotion”? If children need a holistic understanding of the virtuous life that the State should but fundamentally cannot provide without restricting liberty, how can parents provide that? I believe parents can cultivate virtues in their children by inviting them into a virtuous life, by modeling virtues, by using the language of the virtues, and by surrounding their children with a community of virtuous people.
