Essential Questions

"The record of technology as science - relieving human beings of specific burdens and diseases - is splendid. The record of technology as a metaphor for being human is disastrous. . . The biggest cultural mistake we can indulge in is to earn for technological 'solutions' to our deepest cultural 'problems.'" (Culture Making)

It has been truly said that "the only constant is change." We live in a time where change happens very rapidly and on a very grand scale, and it is tempting to think that seismic shifts for positive change can happen very quickly. In such a situation, we would do well to listen to the words of Andy Crouch:

"[T]here is an inverse relationship betweena cultural layer's speed of change and its longevity of impact. The faster a given layer of culture changes, the less long-term effect it has on the horizons of possibility and impossibility."

This is most certainly true at the family level. Changes in family culture build strength over time, and therefore have longevity over time. The labors of one day to help a child obey mean nothing unless that day falls within years of the same persistent and loving effort.

Education is another clear and related case study. We now stand at a place in history where we measure the success of education almost exclusively in terms of graduation rates and test scores. We have arrived at this place slowly, through years of purposeful action by those who believed that these were sufficient and accurate measures.

Now the question is: How do we get from where we are in educational and family culture to a place that is more authentically human? And the answer is: Slowly. Taking responsibility for nurturing children and fostering an education system that prizes virtue above academic performance is a process that builds inertia with faithful effort. In short, it requires the virtues of courage and perseverance that it seeks to establish as the norm.

Change is both slow and constant. The direction of our current course will depend on the answer to this question: Do we as parents have the courage and perseverance to make the daily decisions in family life that lead to a more just society?

If you want to understand a cultural artifact, like a book or a web service, asking the right questions will help you get started.

What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world is?

At tumblon, we assume that parents play the most important role in society because they exert responsibility and authority in the most powerful unit of culture: the family. We believe that parents set the horizons of possibility and impossibility for their children by the books they read together, the experiences they share, and the expectations that they communicate and enforce. For example, for my daughter, it is possible to learn about places far from our home because we read together; and it is impossible to leave the dinner table without saying, "May I please be excused?". This is true precisely because my wife and I exert responsibility and authority.

We also assume that parents have the greatest influence in creating family culture during the early years of their children's lives. The routines and rules parents establish in early childhood set the tone and trajectory of family life. Furthermore, since most of a child's brain growth happens before age 5, parents' influence on their children in those early years has a profound effect on every area of their development, and their future abilities.

What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world should be?

We assume that the family should be the context in which loving, responsible, reciprocal relationships are nurtured. In these relationships character is formed, competence is developed, creativity is cultivated and collaboration flourishes. In the words of Lesslie Newbigin:

"Human beings find fulfillment not in the attempt to develop themselves, not in the effort to better their own condition, not in the untrammeled exercise of unlimited covetousness, but in the experience of mutual relatedness and responsibility in serving a shared goal."

The purpose of informing, inspiring and engaging parents is not to create a super-economy (or a race of child geniuses), but to invite families to experience the joy of mutual relatedness and responsibility in serving a shared goal. The character, competence, creativity and collaboration that parents cultivate in the context of the family enrich the experience of family life, and the family's contribution to the wider community.

Is it true?

Of course, the question that should permeate all other questions is, "Is it true?" that is, "Does it fit with reality?" Do our assumptions (or yours, or whatever is being considered) fit with the way things really are? Is this the way the world in fact is? Does this vision of the way the world should be resonate deeply with what it means to be human?

In Culture Making, Andy Crouch offers a penetrating question to understand particular cultural goods like laws, inventions, and organizations: "What does this cultural artifact make possible?" For example, what do refrigerators make possible (that was previously impossible or very difficult)? They make the preservation of perishable food possible in a way that has dramatically affected public health. Together, Crouch argues, a society's many cultural artifacts define its "horizons of possibility."

Each new cultural creation (like the refrigerator), then, changes the horizons of possibility because it creates new possibilities. And so it is quite appropriate to ask, What does tumblon make possible?

1. Tumblon makes it possible for parents to understand their children's development at each stage without formal training or extensive research.
   
2. Tumblon makes it possible for parents to provide developmentally-appropriate nurture. This was certainly possible before, but came at a high cost of research time, whether through formal training, personal study or coaching from others.
   

Those are dramatic changes in the horizons of possibility, since parent involvement plays such a critical role in brain development, character formation and educational achievement. The costs associated with early childhood education were formerly highest for those whose time, education, resources and literacy were most limited because the most important information was most accessible to those with the time to read it, the initiative to find it, and the educational abilities to understand it. Tumblon has dramatically altered the cost of acquiring simple, timely, actionable child development information for the people who most profoundly affect child development: parents.

• Simple: By writing our developmental content in clear, simple language, critical information is easily accessible to people of diverse educational levels.
• Timely: By presenting parents only with relevant, important information for their children, no longer do parents have to find the right book, and the right page, at the right time in order to understand child development.
• Actionable: By recommending excellent children's literature, activities and toys appropriate for each child's stage of development, parents can not only understand, but also provide appropriate nurture at each stage at a very low cost. They can find the books in their public library, do the activities with household materials, and choose to purchase a few versatile, durable, open-ended toys.

Since the family is culture at its smallest - and most powerful - the impact of informing and inspiring parents is hard to overestimate.

If you want to create social change, set your eyes on the family. Why? Andy Crouch captures it brilliantly:

"A basic unit of culture is the family, where we first begin making something of the world. . . It can take us decades to appreciate all the ways in which the culture of our families set our horizons of the possible and the impossible. Until we leave our families and venture into the homes of our neighbors and friends, or perhaps the family home of a future spouse, we are likely not even to realize all the ways that our family sets our horizons. . . . Family is culture at its smallest - and its most powerful." (Culture Making)

Family is culture at its most powerful because parents have such tremendous responsibility - and authority - to set the "horizons of the possible and the impossible."

What can parents make possible?

Parents can make dreaming, creating, building, inventing, listening, and helping possible. They can make achievement, encouragement, and opportunity possible. By the same power they can make laziness, disrespect, lying, littering, and destroying possible. They can make possible the degradation of human society.

What can parents make impossible?

Parents can make it impossible to say you're sorry with a sassy attitude, to do a half-way job, to treat grades as a sufficient measure of learning, or to leave the house without making your bed. They can make it impossible to get away with disrespecting your elders, or to enjoy the benefits of family without the responsibility. However, they can also make it impossible to get to school on time, to develop respect for the environment, or to cultivate creativity.

What are you making possible, and impossible, for your children? Are these possibilities and impossibilities well-chosen, or perhaps defined by the horizons of your own family of origin?