Against the Headwinds: Navigating childcare in an anti-family society

By Joshua Hayes

When I was a child I used to think that the 1964 film Mary Poppins was a movie about how fun it would be to have a magic nanny. Having watched it again as a father of five, I now understand that it’s really about the magic of spending time with your kids.

In the film, Mr. and Mrs. Banks are both busy chasing money and politics respectively. Although they kiss their children before bed, the parents outsource most of the parenting to nannies. Not surprisingly, the children exhibit behavioral problems and resentment. Enter the magical nanny, Mary Poppins.

By the end of the movie, the wind literally begins to blow in a different direction as the parents’ false idols are smashed (Mr. Banks even loses his job), and the parents have a change of heart, realizing that being father and mother to their own children is a greater joy than work and politics. The magical nanny, now unneeded, leaves without the children even saying goodbye. Her talking umbrella observes, “They think more of their father than they do of you,” to which she retorts, “That’s as it should be.”

‘A heritage from the Lord’

Although Mary Poppins is a secular film, it touches on a scriptural truth. In Psalm 127 the Holy Spirit teaches us to view children as a heritage, reward and blessing. It is vain to worry about having enough, to work from dawn til dusk from a spirit of anxiety. Instead, we are encouraged to trust in the Lord, without whom those who build the house do so in vain. How easy it is for us to forget that the greater blessing is not the labor, but the children; not the house itself and the stuff inside, but the Lord and those whom He gives to live in it.

Mary Poppins was released in 1964. Now in 2023, how many American families even eat dinner together regularly? How did it become controversial to say that children need significant time with their father and mother as much as they need food and shelter?

It is not the aim of Psalm 127, this article, or even Mary Poppins to suggest that all childcare, care by extended family, or after school activities are wrong. Rare are the parents who never so much as use a babysitter. Schools are another form of childcare. As Luther notes in the Large Catechism (Fourth Commandment, 141): “Where a father is unable by himself to bring up his child, he calls upon a schoolmaster to teach him; if he is too weak, he enlists the help of his friends and neighbors; if he passes away, he confers and delegates his authority and responsibility to others appointed for the purpose.”

When something is not a matter of sin, God calls us to make wise decisions. St. Paul urges us “not to pass judgment” on one another and counsels that “each one should be fully convinced in his own mind” (Rom. 14:4–5). Parents do not all make the same choices because we do not all have identical lives, and (excluding sin) that is OK. The better part of wisdom is to imagine yourself in the future and look back. I have yet to meet a Christian parent who said, “I wish I spent less time with my kids.”

Testing the winds of public policy

Scripture also warns us not to be “swept along by winds” (Jude 12). Another part of wisdom is to gauge the direction of the worldly winds so as to set an accurate vector. Public policy is a large cultural headwind. Politicians in both parties call for more state-sponsored childcare, claiming that such subsidies are necessary for a thriving economy. The permanent expansion of childcare and school-sponsored extracurriculars goes largely unchallenged.

If our priority as a society is the households and families, then a “thriving economy” should encourage and support robust and healthy households that don’t require or only minimally require childcare. But that is not the way the wind is blowing. Can an economy rightly be called “thriving” if it requires two incomes to run a household? When the government subsidizes childcare, it robs money from households who make the sacrifice to have mom stay home, making such a household less and less viable.

Course correction by loving the right things

The Ten Commandments not only show us our sins, but teach us what works are pleasing to God. They teach us to love the right things in the right order that we may not be blown with the wind. When we hear God’s command to “honor your father and your mother,” we see that God views being father and mother as such a high and noble work that He wants it honored.

As Christians we need to confess this truth both to ourselves and to the world. While having compassion for tough circumstances, we also need to argue for general principles that hold up the Psalm 127 beauty of strong families. Without condemning one another, we need to ask ourselves and our culture diagnostic questions: Should adults put their needs and wants before children, or put children’s best interests before theirs? Which is the bigger blessing: our work and play, or our children? How will I have quality time with my children if I cannot find enough quantity of time to be there for those quality moments when they spontaneously arise? As individuals and as a culture, we ought to ask ourselves: What in our lives could be rearranged, even given up, for the sake of our children and their being nurtured in Christian faith and love?

Parents agonize over the care of their children. I don’t know a single parent without regrets. All of us want to do better. Recognizing the headwinds we face is important. Even more important, we should remember who we are as the children of God and what our heavenly Father has invested and sacrificed for us. After all, Christmas is just around the corner. Soon we will celebrate the birth of our Savior and rejoice that the Gospel came from heaven by means of a family. To prepare His way, God sent not a magical nanny but a faithful prophet. John the Baptist prepared the way by turning the hearts of the fathers to their children (Mal. 4:6). Joseph’s and Mary’s hearts were turned toward receiving Christ. They rearranged their lives for His sake that He might one day give His life for theirs.

That’s as it should be.

Cover image: “Holy Family” by Simon Vouet, 1633. Courtesy Cleveland Museum of Art.