Every Home Needs a Story

Fireplace optional

We are driving hard on a natalist project that could change the world. We give it a 1-in-5 chance that you could hear about it on the news, and soon.

But meanwhile while we are furiously scribbling down some project-related ideas that just occurred to us over in a corner n the same room our father is telling our son about helping his own father move mattresses at the apartments they owned. Our son is intensely interested. There is no punchline, nor is there a narrative arc. But it is his own family he is learning about.

And meanwhile we have seen some of the steader men that we admire have been writing about Great Houses.

Building a Great House, not just a "great house"

We have cultural production and cultural transmission on our minds and have to steal a few minutes from projects to write some things down.

Domestic Cultural Production

Let’s start by saying this.

There is no family identity without family cultural production. Luckily the aim to have a discrete family identity or even to have a Great House is a form of cultural production by itself. But it is not enough.

Even more luckily, domestic cultural production is easy.

You take your children. You cut out distractions. You say

“When I was your age, my favorite toy was….”

“The worst trouble I ever got in with Grandpa or Grandma was….”

“Do you know how many scars I have and how I got each one?”

“Did I ever tell you about the time I first met your mother?”

Your children are rapt. They are being ensorcelled by golden chains.

No Shakespeare nor Uncle Remus can compete. These stories are purely yours.

Fireplace optional.

My daughter likes to play the piano sometimes. She’s good enough. There’s something spiritual about hearing her play live in her home. A recording can do it better but it’s not the same.

Play, sing, dance, tell stories, make jokes. It is better that it be done by you than that it be done well.

No home, no institution, can be or needs to be culturally autarchic. But at least some of the culture it consumes it must produce itself or it is at best an appendage.

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Along those lines, please consider supporting us by purchasing a couple of copies of the First Natalist Kids’ Book. It’s designed to be customized so that each version ends up unique to the family that owns it.