The Real Philosophy of Being a “Crunchy” Family

I’m always happy when the musings of Mary Walker grace the home page of The Catholic Wife. Here this thoughtful woman recognizes the real definition of an “organic” or “natural” family.

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I see all kinds of blogs claiming to be prescriptions on “natural parenting.” They usually involve thoughts on breastfeeding, organic baby food, baby wearing, and cloth diapering. Since, obviously, there’s more to parenting than what your baby eats, where your baby goes to the bathroom and how your baby gets around, I’ve been thinking about how the word “natural” fits into the life of a parent.

Whenever people brag about striving for a “natural life,” my husband likes to remind them that petroleum is natural. Natural gas comes from the earth and, therefore, you could be a hippie, driving a massive SUV and burning copious amounts of gas and still claim to lead a “natural” life. In fact, the only person I’ve heard him refrain from mocking for using that phrase was this past winter when his grandmother (may she rest in peace) commented that I was “the most natural mother she’d ever seen.” To this day, it’s probably one of the best compliments I’ve ever received. As I reflected on what behavior she witnessed from me that would compel her to make such a generous comment, I realized that she mostly just saw me playing on the floor with our baby, making funny faces and saying silly things. I was doing what came naturally to me as a mother.

The origin of the term nature began in classical Greece, especially with Plato and Aristotle. According to philosopher Robert R. Reilly:

“Aristotle taught that the essence, or Nature, of a thing is what makes it what it is and not something else. This is not a tautology. As an acorn develops into an oak tree, there is no point along its trajectory of growth where it will turn into a giraffe or something other than an oak. That is because it has the Nature of an oak tree and not of anything else. Hence by Nature or natural law, we mean the principle of development that makes any living thing what it is and, given the proper conditions what it will become when it fulfills itself or reaches its end…This end state is its telos, the reason for which it is- what it is meant to be… Every living thing has a telos, an inner aim, toward which it purposefully moves. In plants or animals, this involves no self-conscious volition. In man, it does.”

God made us to be mothers! He ingrained that in our very beings. We should be confident in that! To be a “natural mother,” means someone who, day by day, grows with her child. Our end is to reach heaven. We want our children to have relationships with God and we want to grow in holiness in the process.

Aristotle also believed that man is, by Nature, a political animal for whom the basic societal unit is the family. Reilly continues:

If Aristotle is correct- that the family is the primary and irreducible element of society- then chastity becomes the indispensable political principle because it is the virtue that regulates and makes possible the family. Without the practice of this virtue, the family becomes inconceivable. Without it, the family disintegrates. A healthy family is posited upon the proper and exclusive sexual relationship between a husband and wife. Violations of chastity undermine not only the family, but society as a whole

In the 21st century, natural parenting focuses on being good for the earth, writ large, in addition to the child. To most people this means less diapers in landfills, less plastic bottles, and less pesticides used on plants. For me, making the world a better place for our child means loving my husband and showing our baby Peter how the family makes a real, substantial difference in our culture. We pray it gives him security and stability, so he might be able to see how the family is a little microcosm of how the world should work. We love, we argue, we forgive, we share, and we try to place the good of another before the good for ourselves. This family structure is indispensable for the future of our nation, and should matter more than the size of our landfills.

Aristotle says in his Ethics, that “[h]appiness is an activity of soul in accord with virtue.” Raising our children to be virtuous and good should make us feel calm and laid back. If we listen to God and His everlasting laws, we can be assured we are educating our children naturally; whereas if we listen to the blogosphere and discord of the current “mommy culture,” we’ll be so caught up and stressed out trying to enforce routines and schedules that we’ll forget what our end is. It should make us feel calm and happy to teach our children what is absolute Truth. It should make us feel confident to instruct our children in right reason and law, because the law of God never changes. It’ll be with our children after we’re long gone and can’t tell them what to do anymore. Thomas Aquinas wrote that natural law is, “nothing else than the rational creature’s participation in the eternal law”. Let’s find assurance in instilling in our children how their good natures can overcome the evil in this world. Surely, when our children grow up, they’ll care much more about that sort of nature and not at all about the material with which their diapers were made.

 

Homepage image from Cheeky Kitchen
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