Even in these harried and hurried days, a child still unfolds slowly. And so it can take years for a child to know how to become a respectful friend and confidant of fire. There’s the crux of knowing good wood when you find it. The sharp sound of it snapping. The smell of it. The […]
fire
The strain on consumer families
The strains of sustaining the central family fire in a consumer family are more often signs of these trying times than our inadequacies or inexperience as parents. Until a century ago, and in many places far more recently, the family depended for its health on continuous exchanges with extended family, neighbors and a local community. […]
Patience and the steady fire
It’s no guarded parental secret that a child’s wild fire and love of life doesn’t easily submit to tasks and chores, to the daily demands of keeping house or staying the course. The understandable temptation in the hubbub of modern life is to keep our child otherwise occupied, perhaps hooked up to another channel of […]