The Missing Role of Matriarch
Quote of the Week
“It turns out that the happiest of all wives in America are religious conservatives. Fully 73% of wives who hold conservative gender values & attend religious services regularly with their husbands have high-quality marriages.”
-Brad Wilcox in New York Times article
FAMILY INSIGHT
What happened to the Role of Matriarch?
For any mothers reading this, how excited are you to enter the matriarch stage of life?
Most women in the West see aging, especially as it relates to their role inside the home, as an identity of decreasing meaning.
This is very strange historically.
In a multigenerational household, the role of the woman as she transitions from maiden to mother to matriarch is a journey of increasing importance.
But most women have never seen up close a matriarch in a multigenerational household.
Here’s one description of the role from the book “Family Fortunes”.
“The matriarch is not like the “housewives” you see on reality TV shows. She’s not a gossip…not a trophy wife…not a big “consumer of products. She focuses on her children, making sure that they are emotionally provided for, and that they are well-educated, capable individuals. She instills in them a sense of duty, to themselves and to the family.
The matriarch must be able to:
Share in the family culture and be capable of passing it along. Indeed, she must play the leading role in creating it.
Be capable of providing a stable home environment.
Understand and support the wealth-building strategy.
Supporting socially the family objectives.
Master complex tasks and trust issues
Be emotionally mature and confident and have the depth to avoid getting distracted.”
In the first of many motherhood-focused podcasts, I talk with mothers about the transition to matriarch.
A clip from our conversation - Transitioning From Maiden to Mother to Matriarch (How A Woman Matures)
Clip - YouTube
Full Podcast - Apple Podcast
Full Podcast - Spotify
ONE IMPROVEMENT
This may be the first time in history parents are afraid to raise their children to have children because it might interfere with their individuality.
This trend is understandable in a culture that has raised individual self-expression as the highest value but there’s no reason for those who seek to follow Scripture to be confused on this point.
When God created the first humans he instructed them to be fruitful and multiply. Multiplying only happens when your children have children.
While fertility rates plummet in every culture infected with hyper-individualism, we need to be moving in the opposite direction in our conviction of the value of children by teaching our children to embrace their God-given gender as the pathway into the gift of fatherhood or motherhood.
CONTENT CORNER
With recent examples of high-profile atheists publicly converting to religious faith, or aligning with ‘cultural Christianity’, it seems the tide might be turning against secularism in Britain and America. But do stars of the rationalist movement finding faith mark a greater social shift?
Join Jeremy and his daughters Elisa and Sydney as they react to timely videos about culture and family. This week they dive into how to witness to people in the LGBTQ community, family culture (via Barnes & Noble), and why Star Trek: The Next Generation is actually a great study for building a family team.
Jeremy is joined by Isaac Steckbeck, who's spent 20+ years making disciples for Jesus in Israel, to discuss the importance of disciple-making movements, and compare notes on what has worked and what hasn't over the decades.
PERSONAL REFLECTION
Jeremy
Jeremey - I believe in your content. Where would say are some of the best places to go to find women in their 30s who can appreciate this material and are ready to get married?