Successful Families are Process Knowledge
The Apprenticeship Model of Running a Family
Book learning
creates a yearning.
But to make it real
you must see and feel.
The Steader project looks to the broad flourishing of human systems small and large.
Because the family and the household are the most parlous of those systems while also the most important the Steader project has mostly focused on principles of how to run a successful multi-generation continuing family.
Our principle author has the advantage of being in the fifth generation of a successful conscious generational family project that is now on its 7th generation—he has process knowledge—but also man-brained enough to break down and explain what he knows from having lived it from the inside.
Process knowledge: tacit knowledge of how to actually do things; technical and industrial expertise;
Successful families are process knowledge.
What are the implications?
A. Read, discuss, and engage with the Steader project and similar. Immersion and interaction is a partial shortcut to process knowledge. Apply and iterate.
B. Draw on your own family history for positives. Most family chains of transmission are broken in the US, but not completely broken or you wouldn’t be here. If you want to do better than your parents, the correct approach is to build on what your parents did, not to reject it entirely and start from scratch.
C. Find real-life models. Talk to oldsters about their memories of being raised. Try to find a multi-generational family and make friends. There is nothing low or shameful in this. Instead, it is beautiful. They will appreciate your interest.
D. Re-orient your own self-knowledge about what your goal is. It is not Raise My Kids to Become Adults. It is not even Raise My Kids to Raise Kids, although this is closer. It is Apprentice My Kids to Become Parents. How will you treat your kids differently when you realize they are your apprentices in the honorable and arcane craft of passing on your multi-generational family, embedded in the history and lineage and traditions and ways that only your family has.
My kid is my apprentice