A long time ago my sister told me a story about some conflict she had with dad. Dad said, “there’s no manual for how to raise kids.” My sister was tempted to give him a Bible – and while there is some good stuff in the Bible about raising kids, it really doesn’t fit the need. It’s not an adequate training manual for parents.

There was a book, years ago, titled “All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek.” There’s some truth to that. Star Trek has always been a morality tale, and there are some solid messages (and some galactic-level stupidity) in Star Trek.

One day those two ideas collided in my mind and I wondered if it would even be possible that Spock wouldn’t know how to raise a kid (if he had one). Surely the Vulcans would have a manual on precisely how to do everything, when to do it, etc.

Recently I’ve been reflecting on all the things my parents didn’t have to teach me. There were so many things we simply absorbed from TV, music, swim team, scouts, school, band, and even my friends in the neighborhood. It wasn’t all perfect, of course, but there was something like an “ambient decency” that suffused the culture.

That’s all gone now.

That saying “it takes a village to raise a child” is true in at least two respects. First, the parents can’t do it all. They don’t have the knowledge or the skills. Second, even if they did, they can’t raise a kid with a set of values that the culture is constantly undermining. If it’s only mom and dad saying, “no sex before marriage,” and the culture is shouting “go for it!” – it’s pretty obvious which way a hormone-crazed teenager is going to go.

It’s not only sex, of course. Hard work. Prudence. Diligence. Dressing decently. Being respectful. If mom and dad’s lessons aren’t supported and affirmed by at least some of the rest of society, the kids will think they were raised by weirdoes and will go their own way.

The catastrophe of the 80s

One of my biggest regrets is not having the wisdom to understand how consequential this societal change was.

I was bright enough to realize there was no shared culture any longer. Large scale changes were wreaking havoc on the American mind: feminism, the sexual revolution, economic changes, cable TV, the decline of religious and civic organizations, a generalized feeling of guilt about western culture, the rise of therapeutic culture, and much more.

I was not bright enough to compensate adequately. I still expected my kids to absorb certain things, the way I did. It just seemed like the natural process of growing up. I mean, it’s pretty doggone obvious how to change a tire on a car, or to know that the highway half a mile from the house goes north and south.

No, it’s not, of course, and that’s the problem. One of the hard things about life is that you don’t know what you don’t know, and what’s obvious to you isn’t obvious to other people.

For example, I grew up shooting. By the time I was eight I knew more about gun safety than Alec Baldwin knew when he was 63. I’ve taken friends to the gun range and recoiled in horror at the way they treat a shotgun.

It’s very hard to remember what it’s like not to know something, which is why we have safety officers who make sure we follow the rules. It can be annoying when the guy at the jet ski place gives you the five-minute lecture, but he has to assume you don’t know what you’re doing.

My parents could reasonably rely on the “ambient decency” of the culture to fill in some gaps. They didn’t have to lecture me on everything all the time. They knew that their values would be generally upheld and reinforced by my teachers, coaches, scout leaders, other parents in the neighborhood, and so on.

Now the kids are exposed to “ambient indecency.” The culture is at war with your values. It’s actively trying to tear them down.

It’s not just values

I was at mom’s house fixing a door for her one day, and she asked if dad taught me how to do it. I thought, “Of course not. This is obvious. Nobody had to teach me how to do this.”

While I can’t remember dad ever teaching me how to work on a door, I’m not sure I had that quite right. Dad did teach me a way of looking at things, and a confidence to try. One summer day when I was 16, dad called me from work and told me to get the model number off the dryer, go to the Sears parts store, get a replacement belt, and change the dryer belt (which had broken the night before). He didn’t give me that many details. He just gave me the basics and expected me to figure it out.

At that time (1979), that was a reasonable assumption. Kids had shop class in school. They watched when somebody else worked on a car, sharpened a knife, whittled a stick, or tied a knot. They listened while Pop Pop smoked a pipe and told tales of the stupid things people do. They absorbed a certain mechanical proficiency from the air all around them.

This led me to the false belief that I didn’t need to teach these things. The kids would just get it on their own — the way I did. I mean … it’s obvious stuff, right?

No, it’s not. They didn’t have a supportive culture that generally pointed kids in the right direction. They had a poisoned culture that pointed them to lies, an entertainment culture that made video games more important than learning how to change a tire, and absolutely no emphasis on basic competence.

That was 30 years ago. It’s only getting worse.

The camping checklist

After you’ve been on a few trips – camping, business, fishing, whatever – you get tired of forgetting things. Some people have the mental discipline to keep those lessons in mind. I make checklists.

Before each trip I review the checklist to see if I’ve forgotten anything. It reduces anxiety and assures I won’t end up at the campsite with no tent pegs. (Provided I remember to consult the checklist!)

Which raises the question, what would that Vulcan training manual look like?

Thinking about that got me wondering what it’s like to be a psychologist, counselor, or therapist. It’s an interesting challenge. Some stranger walks into your office and you have to assess how this person is doing in life. Is he prospering or drowning?

There have to be some markers. Some tells. Some metrics. There has to be some analogy to the camping checklist.

So, here you have it. Here’s my first draft of a checklist of life skills.

If you’re a parent, you should review this. Are your children learning these things? How do you know? If they’re not, what do you need to do to make sure they do learn them?

Life Skills Checklist

1. Identity and Personal Responsibility

• Do they understand that they are not a victim of their circumstances?
• Do they take responsibility for their choices, actions, and consequences?
• Do they know their strengths and limitations without false pride or self-loathing?
• Are they learning to delay gratification?

2. Moral and Spiritual Compass

• Do they understand the difference between right and wrong, and that there are some things you just don’t do?
• Do they have a working understanding of your family’s core moral/spiritual framework (e.g., the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, Natural Law)?
• Are they aware that a good conscience must be formed and doesn’t develop naturally?
• Do they have a sense of meaning and purpose beyond themselves and their own desires?

3. Relationships and Social Skills

• Do they have friends?
• Can they make and keep friends for a significant period of time?
• Do they treat others with respect, and expect respect in return?
• Can they manage conflict without exploding or collapsing?
• Do they take everything personally?
• Do they understand how romantic relationships work—including asking someone out, dating with respect, establishing sexual boundaries, embracing commitment, etc.?
• Do they understand what marriage is for, and why it matters?

4. Work Ethic and Competence

• Do they know how to work hard—even when it’s boring or difficult?
• Do they understand the value of money, time, and effort?
• Are they learning to finish what they start?
• Do they have any practical or marketable skills? (Do they realize that nobody’s going to pay them because of their wonderful uniqueness?)
• Can they function in a workplace (e.g., show up on time, follow instructions, manage a boss)?

5. Habits of Self-Maintenance

• Are they learning to care for their body with proper nutrition, exercise, sleep, and basic hygiene?
• Are they learning self-control with digital devices, entertainment, and dopamine triggers?
• Do they recognize unhealthy coping mechanisms (e.g., porn, drugs, compulsive scrolling)?
• Are they forming any healthy routines?

6. Vision for the Future

• Do they have goals or a sense of purpose?
• Do they understand what adulthood requires—education, work, family, civic duties?
• Do they have a mental model of what “a good life” looks like (e.g., married, stable, contributing, grounded)?
• Do they know how to navigate failure and keep moving forward?

7. Civic and Cultural Awareness

• Do they understand how society works—government, money, media, etc.?
• Are they learning to question cultural narratives and spot manipulation or propaganda?
• Do they feel a sense of responsibility to their community or nation?

8. Resilience and Mental Strength

• Can they handle rejection, failure, or discomfort without melting down?
• Are they being challenged regularly—physically, intellectually, and socially?
• Do they know how to ask for help when necessary?

You shouldn’t have to do this

If we lived in a decent society, most of these things would be in the air we all breathed. It would be common knowledge.

Kids used to pick up half these things from Leave It to Beaver, teachers, scoutmasters, coaches, and ministers, without anybody spelling it out.
Needless to say, that’s not the case today. If parents don’t explicitly pass these things on, there’s a good chance no one will.

This just occurred to me recently. I might have to add it to my book.

A challenge with understanding Dr. Peterson’s view of God is that he uses words and language in his own way. He says he’ll stake his life on the idea that God exists, but the God he believes in is not what you think of as God.

One simple way to bridge this gap is to reflect on the idea of God as the voice of conscience. I don’t mean that God reveals himself through the conscience. I don’t mean that conscience is somehow a reflection of the will of God.

What I mean is that God is conscience. That nagging thing in your head that reproves you and demands your obedience is God. All our concepts of God are built on top of that. They’re all extrapolations from that basic psychological reality.

From that perspective, God is not an entity who calls to Moses. God is the voice in Moses’ head.

Dr. Peterson has a bias to try to explain everything in psychological terms. God included.

Consequently, God is not an external being. He’s a psychological phenomenon.

Please note that this is a shortcut. It doesn’t do justice to the depth and breadth of Dr. Peterson’s thoughts on the matter. But if you think about it for a while, it will get your brain in the right groove to understand JBP’s point of view. If you come to his book (or lectures) thinking of God in traditional terms, you’re not going to get it.

For more, see Wrestling with Jordan Peterson’s God: A Systematic Guide to Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Religious Thoughts

Over the years I’ve listened to a lot of Dr. Jordan Peterson’s talks on (or related to) religion, and I’ve witnessed his very public, very slow and agonizing conversion. After reading his new book, “We Who Wrestle With God,” I’ve written a response, which attempts to organize and systematize his argument into something like a logical format.

Here’s the short version.

Man is an evolved creature. Our ancestors did not have a language in the sense we would understand it. As they evolved cognitively, some instinctual functions became conscious, but those instincts continue to have an impact on our perceptions and behavior.

Man is a biological creature with limited cognitive ability faced with an infinite array of possibilities. Our bodies and our minds evolved to filter the cacophony of experience into patterns that are useful to our goals. This goal-orientedness lies beneath all our perception of the world.

We enacted things – often in ritual, often imaginatively – before we understood them. We slowly developed semantic representations for the patterns of our lives.

We developed these semantic representations of how to get along in the world through stories that were refined and condensed over time into myths, legends, symbols, and images. We understand the world through the lens of these stories.

Many of the stories represent how to respond to the threat of the various monsters we encountered along the way – whether those threats were from animals or from our fellow man. These stories helped us prevent the Hell life could easily descend into.

Stories exist within a moral hierarchy. Whatever is placed at the top of that hierarchy is “god” – by definition. It is the concept or system of values around which all goals, all perception, all moral reasoning is organized.

We can understand this god by looking at the values that over time have been useful in helping human societies to flourish. These values are expressed in all human culture, but most particularly in the fundamental texts and stories of culture.

The story that unites all these values is a story of sacrifice, which is best illuminated in the Gospels.

Wrestling with Jordan Peterson’s God: A Systematic Guide to Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Religious Thoughts

Here’s my latest, in which I try to organize Dr. Peterson’s thoughts into a coherent argument. It’s systematic, but not comprehensive. The goal is not to cover everything, but to put JBP’s religious thoughts into an understandable framework.

Is it my imagination, or is there renewed interest in myth, ancient belief systems, and what some might call an “enchanted” worldview? Why do people pay to hear Jordan Peterson talk for hours on Genesis and not get past chapter 1 verse 1?

I don’t want to exaggerate the claim. Most people are only interested in what’s on their phone at the moment, but there is at least some reaction against what might be called the modern myth, which promotes a sterile, lifeless, meaningless (but allegedly “scientific”) worldview. People are bored. They feel adrift, and life doesn’t have any meaning beyond pleasure or worldly success.

Rod Dreher wrote an interesting substack about this called North Toward Valhalla. It’s well worth your time.

Dreher claims that films like “The Northman” tap into this fascination, depicting a world where ritual, ancestry, and the supernatural merge into a life of profound significance. (Here’s a great review of the film by The Critical Drinker.)

As Dreher reflects on tradition and modern faith he speaks to this longing for enchantment as something missing in the stripped-down, rationalized aspects of modern life. For young men, especially, who seek meaning and connection, this resurgence in mythic storytelling highlights a need for an identity rooted in purpose, honor, and spiritual wonder. It may help to explain why so many young men are addicted to games. They provide something like a sense of meaning or purpose.

The Modern Longing for Enchantment

Modern secular, technological society is a fantastic thing. It’s given us antibiotics and labor-saving technologies that are simply amazing. But there’s no dispute that it’s come at a cost. Secular society reduces life to the material, emphasizing logic, technology, and efficiency over mystery and meaning. While these advancements offer many benefits, Dreher argues that they leave a void, creating a sense of disconnection from life’s deeper meaning.

In stark contrast, the symbolic, hero-driven narrative of The Northman shows characters motivated by a sense of duty and destiny that transcends self-interest. It’s an appeal to something timeless and heroic. But beyond that, there’s a constant sense of immanent spiritual reality. The gods are as real in The Northman as the sky and the land.

Dreher’s analysis suggests that this type of worldview, which modernity often overlooks, fulfills a deep-rooted human desire to connect with the divine, the sacred, and the transcendent.

The movie is very interesting, and — if you can handle the gore — worth a watch. But I’d like to take a diversion and discuss the lessons it should present to the modern church.

Can the church re-enchant the world?

About a year ago (I think) Jordan Peterson issued a challenge to Christian churches. One element of that challenge was to put a big sign in front of the church that said “Young Men are Welcome Here.”

I have my doubts that young men will see that sign and say, “Gee, maybe I should give it a try.” But such a public display sets a mood and an expectation. The liturgy committee now has to address how their latest effemimate nonsense will affect young men. A public sign and commitment isn’t going to have an immediate effect, but it might work its leaven into the dough over time.

The Church has historically offered an enchanted view of the world, seeing life itself as part of a divine narrative. By recovering these elements, the Church can address the growing need for something beyond the immediate, something enchanted and mysterious.

Recovering Enchantment through the Sacramental Life

For the Catholic Church, a return to enchantment begins with a reemphasis on the sacraments as tangible encounters with the divine. As Dreher emphasizes, religious traditions that are rich in symbolism, ritual, and beauty resonate more deeply than those that have adopted a utilitarian approach. The Mass, confession, and even the act of lighting a candle are not mere symbols; they’re a way to participate in divine reality. They’re actions that remind believers of the divine presence permeating their lives.

Reclaiming the depth and beauty of the sacraments means encouraging believers to experience them as genuine encounters with God, where heaven and earth meet. This type of engagement fosters an understanding that every action has spiritual weight, just as in “The Northman” every oath and ritual has cosmic significance.

Art, architecture, and music have historically been a cornerstone of Catholic spirituality. Beautiful spaces and traditions serve as reminders of the divine, stirring a sense of reverence that words alone cannot convey. Dreher notes that traditional beauty in worship is not just about aesthetics but about reaching the soul.

Building Brotherhood and Purpose

Dreher frequently advocates for community as a vital aspect of spiritual life, especially in a fragmented modern world where people don’t even know their neighbors. Young men often desire to be part of something bigger than themselves, and they seek a sense of belonging and brotherhood. To foster this, the Church might focus on creating spaces where men can explore faith in a supportive, purposeful environment.

Just as “The Northman” appeals to the timeless call of honor and bravery, the Church can focus on stories of saints, martyrs, and biblical figures who faced trials with courage and conviction. There is a heroic tradition in Christianity, and it can inspire young men to see themselves as part of a grand, meaningful narrative.

Rekindling Mystery and the Transcendent

Dreher points out that the search for mystery is not about answers but about opening oneself to questions that resist easy explanation. Accepting mystery can be powerful, encouraging believers to see their faith as a journey of discovery rather than a set of conclusions (blech!). The Church’s emphasis on prayer, meditation, and the mysteries of the faith invite believers to embrace the unknown with reverence, engaging with God in a dynamic, personal way.

By reawakening a sense of enchantment and mystery, the Catholic Church can speak directly to the modern heart’s deep yearnings. A return to an “enchanted” vision of life — one that celebrates meaning, beauty, community, and purpose — may well be the antidote to the secular malaise that leaves so many young men adrift. Through the sacraments, sacred art, and stories of valor and sacrifice, the Church can inspire a generation longing for meaning, offering them a path into a life where the sacred and the heroic are not relics of the past but living realities.