Book Review: Habits of the Household
When my husband and I became parents last May, we started having conversations about our expanding family. With our new addition, things like family culture and values seemed more important than ever, but thinking about how to raise our son in a gospel-centered way—and all that goes into it—seemed overwhelming. And we’re not alone. After scrolling on Instagram one evening for probably too long, I stumbled across the profile of Justin Whitmel Earley. He is a lawyer, author, father, and Christian. He wrote the book Habits of the Household after having similar conversations with his wife and feeling like a failure in the arena of fatherhood and family discipleship.
In my role as a therapist I am often asked for book recommendations, and this happens most often when I work with children. Parents are eager to read books to help them navigate parenthood. Since reading Habits of the Household, it has become one of my top books to recommend. It is organized in a very practical way, and includes lots of examples of habits, charts to fill out, and vignettes of life in the Earley household.
“The Heart Follows the Habit.”
“Habits of the household are not just actions that form our families’ routines, they are liturgies that form our families’ hearts” (Earley 11).
The premise of Habits of the Household is that we all have habits or routines that organize our lives and it is these habits and routines that reveal the state of our hearts. Earley admits that writing this book came out of the realization that he was in the habit of snapping at his boys during bedtime, yelling and using threats in an attempt to get them to do what he wanted. For Earley, this revealed a heart bent on control and manipulation rather than a heart of grace and love for his family.
Earley takes us through an entire day and focuses on habits and postures of the heart that we, as parents, can develop and utilize to help disciple our kids. Starting with morning wakings and ending with bedtime, Earley touches on important topics such as discipline, play, mealtimes, conversations, work, and family devotions. Each chapter highlights one topic and talks both theologically and practically about how parents can become more intentional and gospel-centered in their approach.
Helpful Tidbits
As mentioned, this book is very accessible and helps parents begin implementing habits right away. Here are a few of my favorites as I read this book and thought about my own household.
Try a short kneeling prayer at your bedside upon waking.
Pray and talk to yourself before disciplining your child.
Invite children into the work of the household.
What I love most about these habits are that they are manageable and made up of little moments. Earley’s position is one of “as you go,” meaning that throughout the day there will be moments where we can pause and be intentional in how we parent.
It Starts with Us
The book begins and ends with the idea that, as we are parenting our children, God desires to parent us. This is an important reminder for Christian parents.
“Parenting your children is not just about what you are doing in their lives. It is first about the work God is doing in your life…. We can’t make disciples without being disciples. We can’t teach the grace of God outside of experiencing the grace of God” (Earley 22).
More than creating helpful habits to maximise productivity or produce well-behaved children, Earley points us back, again and again, to the gospel and the truth that it is our habits that reveal the condition of our hearts. That by grace we are saved, not by works. This is good news for parents and for children, and our habits can either reflect that reality or not. This book emphasizes that the starting point for parents has to be our personal relationship with Christ. We cannot teach something we do not know, so if we want our kids to grow up to find and follow Jesus we need to live that out in the habits we develop for ourselves.
This book is for parents who desire to place the gospel at the center of their household but have felt overwhelmed in how to start. It is a helpful and practical guide for families of all shapes and sizes and gives digestible and easy-to-implement habits to develop a heart of love. I hope you give it a read.