Timothy P. McKinney

A SOCIETY WITHOUT ROUTINE

Modern society is cash-based, which means that folks buy finished products in exchange for cash. We desire a car, so we take out a loan and get a complete car...today. We desire a meal and we stop at the pizza parlor...now. We think of an outfit we'd like and we buy it...immediately. When a problem arises, we expect that there is a solution available somewhere that, for a certain amount of cash, we can immediately obtain. For many problems, this is true. However, compare this to simpler times before the industrial era.

Many communities were self-sufficient. Clothing didn't come from a store and wasn't obtained at a checkout counter. A family had to feed a lamb, provide it with fencing and shelter, protect it from danger for months and months before shearing its wool. Then the wool needed to be combed and spun so that fabric could be woven. Then, at last, the articles of clothing could be made. The tunic may be put on for the first time in August, but its creation started in March.

For food, families did not pick up a loaf of bleached white bread and a gallon of milk at the convenience store. Bread started with tilling in the fall and sowing wheat before winter. It required an exhausting harvest in the Summer, and the threshing and storing of the grain. It required grinding to produce flour and kneading and baking to finally make bread. Thus, a good meal was the result of months and months of work.

People in those times understood routine. Because things took more time, one could only have a few things--and they needed to be priorities that were prepared for and carefully provided for. To get all of the essentials taken care of, families needed to follow a seasonal routine that came to be done unconsciously after generations.

Today, most families know no such routine. The seasons change and all that really is affected is what clothing needs to be taken down from the attic or stored away and what holidays are celebrated. There are few events that form some sort of routine but not many. Very few families in modern society pray together, work together, study together, eat together, etc.. There is very little routine.

One of the greatest problems children in modern society face is the lack of good habits. Look around at parenting books and magazines and you'll find a recurring list of common parenting problems.

Kids have bad study habits, short attention span, et