The Kids Ask If We Are Okay

Your daughter asked you on Thursday if everything was alright.

She is nine. She did not ask because anybody told her anything. She asked because she has been reading your face for about a year and has got extremely good at it.

And you said, yes, everything is fine, which was the right answer and also not true, and she knew it was not true, because she is the one who noticed in the first place.

You are teaching them something every week, and a father's face at the table has never once been a private thing.

I want to say the reassuring part before the hard part, because the hard part is coming and you should get the other one first.

You have not damaged them. Children in houses where money is uneven are not harmed by the unevenness. There is quite a lot known about this and the unevenness itself is not the thing.

What matters is what the adults do with it, and specifically whether the children are given a story or left to make one up.

And a child who is not given a story will always, always make one that is worse, and will usually put themselves in it as the cause.

Thou shalt teach them diligently

There is an instruction in Deuteronomy about passing things to children, and the setting it names is the thing I want.

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deuteronomy 6:7, King James Version)

When thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way.

That is not a teaching setting. That is the table, the car, the hallway, bedtime. The most ordinary hours in a house.

You are inside a command whose classroom is the kitchen table, and an ordinary Thursday evening has never once been outside the place where children learn what a family is. Deuteronomy 6:7 says when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put the teaching into the ordinary hours rather than into a set time.

And the word diligently is doing something. It means on purpose. Deliberately. With intention.

Which means the alternative is not silence. The alternative is accidental teaching, which happens anyway, all the time, in exactly the same hours.

You have been teaching either way, and a house where nothing is said has never once been a house where nothing is learned. The Holy Spirit is the one who turns accidental teaching into deliberate teaching, and it is written in Deuteronomy 6:7 across the whole ordinary day.

What she is currently learning

Let me be plain about what your daughter has learned in the last year, because it is worth knowing.

She has learned that money makes Dad go quiet. She has learned that Thursdays are worse than Mondays. She has learned that when she asks, the answer is that everything is fine, which does not match what she can see, so she has also learned that this is a subject where the words and the face do not agree.

That last one is the expensive one, and it is not about money at all.

You are teaching her something about honesty that neither of you intended, and a gap between a face and a sentence has never once gone unnoticed by a child who lives in the house. The written word puts the teaching into the sitting and the walking, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes an ordinary hour into a deliberate one.

And here is what I am not going to tell you to do, so that you can relax about it.

I am not going to tell you to explain the finances to a nine year old. That is a weight and she cannot carry it and she should not be asked to.

There is a middle thing, and it is much smaller than either the silence or the explanation.

You have something available between hiding it and handing it to her, and a short honest sentence has never once been the same as a burden. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a father the middle sentence, and Deuteronomy 6:7 puts the talking into the walking rather than into a meeting.

Say it out loud at the table

So the assignment, and for you it is deliberately done in front of them.

Name out loud what came in this week, however small, and thank God for it by name.

At the table. Out loud. With the children there.

Say the actual pieces. This job came in, that half day came in, this thing on Wednesday came in. And then thank God for each one, by name, out loud, in front of them.

You are able to do this in front of your own children, and a father naming what came in has never once taught a child that a house is in trouble. The Spirit of God is the one who is present at an ordinary dinner table, and the written word puts the teaching exactly there.

And that is the middle sentence, and it does four things at once without any of them being explained.

It tells them money is a thing that is talked about rather than hidden. It tells them things come in. It tells them their father thanks God out loud. And it closes the gap between your face and your words, which is the part she has been struggling with.

You are able to close that gap in ninety seconds a week, and a list said out loud at a table has never once been a heavier thing for a child than a silence she cannot read. The Holy Spirit is the one who is present in something that ordinary, and it is written in Deuteronomy 6:7 that the teaching happens when a family sits down and when it walks about.