A Virtues Diary

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Becoming a woman of fine character is an essential aspect of Fascinating Womanhood as written by Mrs. Helen Andelin. Virtues are also addressed in her book All About Raising Children, in terms of instilling virtues in our children but also, very importantly, in terms of being virtuous ourselves so that our children have a wonderful example.

It can be daunting to think about attaining all the good virtues. Even if great personal progress has been made, it can be hard to maintain a fine character through the normal daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly cycles of living.

One exercise that might help keep one's mind on living out virtues is to keep a virtues diary. One can begin by purchasing or finding a notebook, journal, or diary and a pen or pencil that is comfortable for writing. A diary could also be kept on a computer if the privacy level is appropriate. Then one could write a list of virtues to ponder in the front or back cover of the book, or somewhere one will see it upon starting to journal.

One list of virtues compiled from both Fascinating Womanhood and All About Raising Children is:

• A Faith in God
• Self Mastery
• Honesty
• Chastity
• Dependability
• Diligence
• Love of Fellow Men / Benevolence
• Moral Courage
• Patience
• Humility
• Self Dignity
• Unselfishness / Gentle, Tender Quality

Each week, one could choose a different virtue to ponder and write about. For inspiration, one could read the pertinent sections in Fascinating Womanhood or All About Raising Children, search other resources in print or online for those virtues, or look them up in a Bible concordance.

If desired, one could set goals having to do with that virtue at the beginning of the week, and rate oneself on one's progress at the end of the week.

Husband and Wife Council Meetings: Proverbs 31 Challenge for Life

The most recent post in the Proverbs 31 Challenge for Life mentioned that weekly husband-and-wife meetings could be helpful to a wife seeking to support her husband, doing him "good and not evil all the days of her life."

What would a husband-and-wife meeting look like? There is an example given in All About Raising Children, written by Mrs. Helen Andelin.

In All About Raising Children, Mrs. Andelin suggested parents hold weekly meetings between husband and wife, with no children present. Following are some of the details she mentioned about such meetings.

When to Do It:

The meeting takes place at a regularly scheduled time and day of the week. Sunday evening is mentioned as an example, and seems to work well for many families for whom Sunday is a traditional time to prepare for the coming school and work week.

What to Do During It:

During the meeting, both husband and wife can discuss plans and challenges for the family. They can also air any complaints or differences they have between them. Honest speaking and careful, objective listening allow husband and wife to come to unity while they are in private. Then they can present a united front to the children.

Why Do It?

Coming to unity should be done in private so that children don't have the unsettling feeling that no one is in charge of the family. Children should not have to worry about the topics of their parents' fights, and they should never be asked to take sides in a parents' conflict. Even if they are not asked to take sides, they will feel extremely conflicted when they are exposed to these disagreements.

These are details and suggestions given in All About Raising Children. Fascinating Womanhood, by Mrs. Helen Andelin, recommends strategies for creating a peaceful, happy home environment and setting the stage for a husband to come home to this tranquility. After the workday, she is to listen to him rather than offer advice and is not to lay her problems on him until he has had a chance to unwind and talk, if he wishes. After this has been accomplished, however, he will be more receptive to hearing about his wife's and family's needs and challenges.

Scheduling a weekly meeting allows him to get into the right frame of mind to deal with needs, challenges, plans, and communication with his spouse.

A tip for wives of men who don't like to plan a particular time for this:

Wives of men who have not set up a time for this kind of meeting can try making a nicer-than-usual dessert on the day they wish to have a council, then serving it at a time and place when they want to broach certain topics with their husbands.

It would not be a good idea to bribe him to the table with dessert and then proceed to air complaints and grievances. It might be a good time, however, to ask if he is available to talk about the issues the wife is thinking of. The topics can be prefaced with more amusing news and family plans so that the dessert is a fun event. If he is not immediately available to talk about more serious subjects, she can ask when would be a good time for him.

The first issue the wife can bring up, when he is available, is the idea that they hold a weekly council meeting. She can see what comes of that discussion while following his lead as much as possible. It is not amiss to give honest reasons why the wife thinks it would be helpful.

A wife will know her husband best and will have an idea of whether this approach would work.

I Want to Be a Homemaker

 Has anyone seen or read the children's book I Want to Be a Homemaker, by Carla Greene? It was published in 1961 by Childrens Press, and the picture above is one of its illustrations.

In the book, Jane gets a new playhouse and begins to keep house with her three dolls and her dog. With her mother's help, she learns that a good homemaker is a cook, cleaner, nurse, teacher, and artist.

This is a precious book with neat, lovely illustrations (by Frances Eckart) that can influence a young girl's heart and mind. Unfortunately, there seem to be only somewhat-pricey editions available at places like Amazon.com, Ebay, and possibly others. None of them are in great condition, either. If you ever see this book, take a look! Anyone who values Mrs. Andelin's books Fascinating Womanhood, The Fascinating Girl, or All About Raising Children will enjoy it.

When I had just learned to write, my mother and I borrowed this book from the library. I liked it so much I copied it out word for word before we had to return it.

Fun tidbits about the book:

•  Part of the text opposite the illustration above is: "'You have made this little house very pretty. Your children will think it is the best place in the world,' said Mother. 'You are an artist!'" This reminds me of the "Space and Privacy" section in Chapter 1 of Mrs. Helen Andelin's book All About Raising Children.
• My copy has a sticker on the front free end paper that says, "Please remember to wash your hands before you read this book."

Month 2 (Verse 12): Proverbs 31 Challenge for Life

It is time to make a Month 2 goal, for anyone who is participating in the Proverbs 31 Challenge for Life. Please see this post for the details of this challenge.

Proverbs 31, verse 12, in the King James Bible says: "She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life."

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary has some interesting thoughts about this chapter in modern words. Regarding this particular verse, it says, "She makes it her constant business to do him good."

It seems that there are two points made here. One is that she will work proactively to do him good and ensure that she does him no evil. The second point is that she will do this consistently, without stopping, for her whole life. In fact, when translated into English, it seems that she is to do this for the remainder of her life, whether or not he is still living. I may be taking this point too far. However, any children they had together would certainly still fall under her loving care, as would the care for his memory.


Working proactively to do my husband good is different from trying in a vaguer sense to "be a good wife." Trying to be a good wife is a wonderful goal. Setting myself a specific task that will benefit my husband is more likely to achieve results.

A caution I have to give myself in this area is to make sure it is something my husband would agree does him good. It should not be something that in my imagination does him good, but in real life may be something distracting, irritating, or irrelevant to him. Any step I take this month will be done in consultation with my husband.

Fascinating Womanhood is a fantastic book for showing women what things benefit their husbands - that they may not realize - and what things harm them - that again, they may not even realize.

This is clearly an ongoing challenge. It seems a bit overwhelming to constantly do a husband good (and no harm). It might be that a weekly or monthly meeting between husband and wife could help a wife tread that path. Mrs. Andelin, in her book All About Raising Children, encourages a weekly meeting like this.

Please feel free to comment with your own goals for the month, or simply to say that you have a goal for this month. As always, anyone is welcome to join in at any time. Of course anyone is free to join without publicly commenting, too.

Note: I apologize for the lateness of this post. It had been scheduled to post on a specific day, but never did.

All About Raising Children Review

 

The title of the book All About Raising Children, by Mrs. Helen Andelin, promises a lot. How could one book encompass everything about raising children?

There is, of course, a vast databank of information that a parent acquires while learning, day by day (sometimes hour by hour), how to care for their children. Assuming that parents have this huge bank of detailed and specific knowledge they have learned from raising their children, this book delivers on the promise of the title.

All About Raising Children covers educational philosophy and curriculum, care and breastfeeding of infants, behavior training from toddlers on up, instilling values, and an elegant framework that allows parents to gradually give more and more responsibility to their children as the children grow and learn. There is even a chapter on married adult children.

The Table of Contents is clear and helpful. Instead of an index, at the back of the book is a more detailed reference outline of the chapters. Although I wanted an index a couple of times while reading the book, I found the reference outline worked well to point me in the right direction.

Mrs. Andelin’s wisdom is staggering. She found and promoted a rewarding path for married women to follow in her book Fascinating Womanhood; this book about raising children includes just as much depth and even more breadth and practical tips.

Even the behavior training concepts, which are generally the more controversial and challenging parts of parenting publications, are well-thought-out and fitting for the applicable age groups.

It will take more than a few reads or skim-throughs to take in everything this book has to offer. Every time I open it, I find another topic of immediate relevance.

These are some of the highlights: the section on “House Appreciation,” especially useful for those who have jumpy little boys; “How to Deal with Negative Emotions,” which is a way to allow children to feel how they feel but not to bother the whole family with their outbursts; “Methods of Training,” which explains when retraining is necessary and how to do it; “Promoting Good-behavior: Ages Two to Five;” “Problems in Behavior: Ages Two to Five;” “Developing the Intellect,” a whole system for reforming education as well as teaching at home; “Help Your Child Think Confidence;” and “Our Married Children.”

It was beyond the scope of this book to fully elaborate all the details of every stage of life. Parents may want supplementary books or resources on baby care, illness, and teaching the arts. There are sections called “Musical Instruments,” “Singing,” “Art,” “How to Develop Artistic Taste and Talent,” and more, but materials that provided greater depth on these subjects would be interesting and valuable for parents.

Parents who have a strong belief in other parenting methods may not agree with every practice mentioned, but in general, the sum of this book’s reason, practicality, and inspirational parenting goals will be helpful along with the other methods.

As a mother, I find All About Raising Children to be a friendly, inspirational, easy-to-read manual for one of the very most important areas of my life.

As a person who studied school counseling, I notice a few things in particular from the book that promote healthy overall development in children. The emphasis on guidance and consistent limits is one that helps all children to learn, feel secure, and have good personal habits. What sets All About Raising Children apart from some other parenting methods is its emphasis on training, retraining, and gentle yet firm guidance that allows parents to teach their children what is expected before imposing consequences.

The book strongly supports the idea that a living example is one of the most powerful teaching tools. Parents must work on the qualities they want to see in their children. This idea is backed up by educational and health research. An author named James Baldwin had it right when he said: “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

Another way that All About Raising Children upholds psychological and educational research is in its ideas about expressing emotions. It is important that children be allowed to feel the emotions they feel without suppressing them; on the other hand, it is not okay nor psychologically healthy for them to use those emotions to bother or manipulate other people. An outburst of a negative emotion like sadness, anger, frustration, or annoyance is not punished in All About Raising Children. It is, however, directed and guided so that a manipulative outburst or major disturbance to the household is removed to the person’s room. The child is allowed to feel badly, but may need to express it in the safety and privacy of a separate area. This also effectively deals with tantrums because there is no audience to give the tantrum its value.

A last note on acquiring and owning the book: The only place I know of that has All About Raising Children at a reasonable price is the official Fascinating Womanhood website which was started by the author, Mrs. Andelin, and her family. Please see the tab at the top of the page, "Where to Find the Books," for more information. These copies are thick little books but light for their size. I found that the pages needed to be handled with some care. Shipping costs are reasonable through the Fascinating Womanhood website as well, and my copy came very quickly.