I have to admit I’m struggling here. I loved this interview, and my husband and I had these goals in mind for our family, and when we first got married we lived much like this family. And then we had kids, and we moved away from family and community in order to be able to afford to live out our values more fully, and let me be a stay at home mom and homeschool. And then we had a child with autism and mental disorders. And I tried to homeschool twice and it was a disaster. And we live in a rural, high poverty area where finding kindred spirits and community is extremely hard. I am an artist and my business is entirely based online (and it’s very successful but would NOT be successful at all if I tried to have a brick and mortar store in the area we live in). Over the difficult course of 12 years our family looks nothing like what my husband and I originally aspired to and what my husband and I still aspire to. My son hates being outside, he’s obsessed with technology. My children (both “double digits”) do not seem to value what we value and what we have tried and STILL try to instill in them. I love this newsletter but honestly, I feel so discouraged hearing how somehow families have managed to continue to live out their non-tech values without (seemingly?) a constant battle. I don’t know. Being “unplugged,” working in our large garden, listening to beautiful music, reading poetry, good literature, and surrounding ourselves with and pursuing the Good, True, and Beautiful in the myriad way that entails is still our goal…but oh my goodness it’s a battle. Do other people battle for this with their kids? My bubble has been popped in thinking this osmosis will just “happen” because we live this way, our children will live this way too! And I’m grieved in realizing that as hard as we have tried for some reason we just don’t seem to have the seamless time that this author has with creating a beautiful family culture that our kids are rooted next to us in. Anyway, I’m hanging on, praying and trying like crazy, but I would really love to hear a perspective from someone who struggles mightily for this vision, and largely alone since we don’t have extended family to draw on, and community in general is very sparse (and no, we can’t move somewhere else or change the culture here. We’ve tried). Thank you for any insights.
We've started using our digital camera again, and it's so much easier to download pictures into our computer. Literally take the memory chip out, and drag the file over. Done! Way more "convenient" than those apps, and more fun when snapping surprise pics of my wife in the garden:
I love your posts. I am a technophile, but also recognize you can have too much of a good thing. They are GREAT reminders to put down the tech and enjoy the world.
It's worth noting that I homeschooled my kids, and they all (a) had VERY limited exposure to technology, and (b) turned out to be extremely capable technologically and in life. One of them got a degree in computer science from Stanford and another in Game Art and Animation from University of Advancing Technology. How could that happen with kids limited to one computer hour (including games) a day? Well, they had to use that time wisely. Plus, I assured they all could build websites and had basic computer knowledge as elementary students, which only grew with them. It doesn't take much to make someone saavy, and assuring they read lots of paper books and hands-on ability doesn't hurt either!
I really appreciate in this interview the idea of moving not from a place of fear but from a place of being able to discern what makes a life good and joyful and worth living. By not allowing technology to control our lives we aren't living less, but more.
Wonderful interview. Tessa spoke often about the intentionality she has for her children, especially around play, work, education, and bringing community members into the family home. I can't stop thinking about how these are all key factors in successfully passing on faith from parents to children. It is really encouraging to read about someone living family life with great intentionality!
What a wonderful interview. I especially appreciate Tessa's comments throughout about tools, what they are, how they shape us, etc. There's a lot to mull over here!!
Also, as an aside, a framed print of Monet's "Poppy Field" hangs above my mantelpiece!
Feb 7·edited Feb 7Liked by Tessa Carman, Ruth Gaskovski
Thank you for this inspiring interview. I would like to add a couple of books to the reading list: "In the Shadow of the Machine" and "Struggle for a Human Future," both by Jeremy Naydler.
From Talbott: "All this can be summarized by saying, “Technology is our hope if we can accept it as our enemy, but as our friend, it will destroy us.” Of course its friendly approach threatens us, and of course it calls for a certain resistance on our part, since it expresses our dominant tendencies, our prevailing lameness or one-sidedness. The only way we can become entire, whole, and healthy is to struggle against whatever reinforces our existing imbalance. Our primary task is to discover the potentials within ourselves that are not merely mechanical, not merely automatic, not reducible to computation. And the machine is a gift to us precisely because the peril in its siding with our one-sidedness forces us to strengthen the opposite side—at least it does if we recognize the peril and accept its challenge."
So true. We have to recover key words that have somehow become taboo. One word that I would want to reestablish is “evil.” I’m tired of the worn out takes trying to sympathize and “understand” that which is clearly evil. If we can’t even label it properly, how are we to combat it? One funny meme I saw that also featured CS Lewis showed GGR Martin of Game of Thrones fame saying, “Erm I love muh morally grey characters. Then it followed it up with CA Lewis smoking on his pipe declaring, “Kill evil. Behead evil. Roundhouse kick evil into the concrete. Stir fry evil in a Hobbit pan"
Thoughtful and lovely interview. And I particularly loved the quote she shared by Iris Murdoch: “Man is a creature who makes pictures of himself, and then comes to resemble the picture.” Wow.
Beautiful interview and I took so many notes. Also so excited to see Tessa reference Alex Langland's 'Craeft,' I read it several years ago and recommend it to anyone who will let me wax poetic about handmade coppiced pitchforks and thatching roofs, ha!
Wonderful to see Tessa collaborating with you Ruth for this! And what an amazing reading list that was! One book I would add which I have found really helpful is 'Habits of the High Tech Heart' - an old book (early 2000s I think) but so jam packed full of wisdom.
I had plenty on the reading list here, but +100 for The Machine Stops. I can't even remember how I originally made my way to it, but it was during a time when I was as passively immersed in the Machine as a fish is in water. It may have been the first stirrings of awakening, because I remember two thoughts at the end: the first, how prescient it was, despite the year in which it was written; the second, a foreboding that I was going to live to see it.
What an encouraging discussion. Thank you both so much.
I think anyone reading here would find this article pertinent: "The High Price of Convenience." It's about lessons learned when the author was helping his son with a school assignment, and they tried to make use of ChatGPT.
I have to admit I’m struggling here. I loved this interview, and my husband and I had these goals in mind for our family, and when we first got married we lived much like this family. And then we had kids, and we moved away from family and community in order to be able to afford to live out our values more fully, and let me be a stay at home mom and homeschool. And then we had a child with autism and mental disorders. And I tried to homeschool twice and it was a disaster. And we live in a rural, high poverty area where finding kindred spirits and community is extremely hard. I am an artist and my business is entirely based online (and it’s very successful but would NOT be successful at all if I tried to have a brick and mortar store in the area we live in). Over the difficult course of 12 years our family looks nothing like what my husband and I originally aspired to and what my husband and I still aspire to. My son hates being outside, he’s obsessed with technology. My children (both “double digits”) do not seem to value what we value and what we have tried and STILL try to instill in them. I love this newsletter but honestly, I feel so discouraged hearing how somehow families have managed to continue to live out their non-tech values without (seemingly?) a constant battle. I don’t know. Being “unplugged,” working in our large garden, listening to beautiful music, reading poetry, good literature, and surrounding ourselves with and pursuing the Good, True, and Beautiful in the myriad way that entails is still our goal…but oh my goodness it’s a battle. Do other people battle for this with their kids? My bubble has been popped in thinking this osmosis will just “happen” because we live this way, our children will live this way too! And I’m grieved in realizing that as hard as we have tried for some reason we just don’t seem to have the seamless time that this author has with creating a beautiful family culture that our kids are rooted next to us in. Anyway, I’m hanging on, praying and trying like crazy, but I would really love to hear a perspective from someone who struggles mightily for this vision, and largely alone since we don’t have extended family to draw on, and community in general is very sparse (and no, we can’t move somewhere else or change the culture here. We’ve tried). Thank you for any insights.
We've started using our digital camera again, and it's so much easier to download pictures into our computer. Literally take the memory chip out, and drag the file over. Done! Way more "convenient" than those apps, and more fun when snapping surprise pics of my wife in the garden:
https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/ancestors
I love your posts. I am a technophile, but also recognize you can have too much of a good thing. They are GREAT reminders to put down the tech and enjoy the world.
It's worth noting that I homeschooled my kids, and they all (a) had VERY limited exposure to technology, and (b) turned out to be extremely capable technologically and in life. One of them got a degree in computer science from Stanford and another in Game Art and Animation from University of Advancing Technology. How could that happen with kids limited to one computer hour (including games) a day? Well, they had to use that time wisely. Plus, I assured they all could build websites and had basic computer knowledge as elementary students, which only grew with them. It doesn't take much to make someone saavy, and assuring they read lots of paper books and hands-on ability doesn't hurt either!
I loved this so much, thank you for sharing it.
I recently wrote a piece for Front Porch Republic called Narnia Against the Machine, very much pulling from some of these same threads of thought. https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2023/12/narnia-against-the-machine-deep-magic-for-the-modern-age/
I really appreciate in this interview the idea of moving not from a place of fear but from a place of being able to discern what makes a life good and joyful and worth living. By not allowing technology to control our lives we aren't living less, but more.
Wonderful interview. Tessa spoke often about the intentionality she has for her children, especially around play, work, education, and bringing community members into the family home. I can't stop thinking about how these are all key factors in successfully passing on faith from parents to children. It is really encouraging to read about someone living family life with great intentionality!
What a wonderful interview. I especially appreciate Tessa's comments throughout about tools, what they are, how they shape us, etc. There's a lot to mull over here!!
Also, as an aside, a framed print of Monet's "Poppy Field" hangs above my mantelpiece!
Thank you for this inspiring interview. I would like to add a couple of books to the reading list: "In the Shadow of the Machine" and "Struggle for a Human Future," both by Jeremy Naydler.
Also "The Deceiving Virtues of Technology" by Stephen Talbott (https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/devices-of-the/9780596526801/ch01.html).
From Talbott: "All this can be summarized by saying, “Technology is our hope if we can accept it as our enemy, but as our friend, it will destroy us.” Of course its friendly approach threatens us, and of course it calls for a certain resistance on our part, since it expresses our dominant tendencies, our prevailing lameness or one-sidedness. The only way we can become entire, whole, and healthy is to struggle against whatever reinforces our existing imbalance. Our primary task is to discover the potentials within ourselves that are not merely mechanical, not merely automatic, not reducible to computation. And the machine is a gift to us precisely because the peril in its siding with our one-sidedness forces us to strengthen the opposite side—at least it does if we recognize the peril and accept its challenge."
Fabulous article, thank you for sharing. Grateful for some more reading suggestions too!
So true. We have to recover key words that have somehow become taboo. One word that I would want to reestablish is “evil.” I’m tired of the worn out takes trying to sympathize and “understand” that which is clearly evil. If we can’t even label it properly, how are we to combat it? One funny meme I saw that also featured CS Lewis showed GGR Martin of Game of Thrones fame saying, “Erm I love muh morally grey characters. Then it followed it up with CA Lewis smoking on his pipe declaring, “Kill evil. Behead evil. Roundhouse kick evil into the concrete. Stir fry evil in a Hobbit pan"
Thoughtful and lovely interview. And I particularly loved the quote she shared by Iris Murdoch: “Man is a creature who makes pictures of himself, and then comes to resemble the picture.” Wow.
Beautiful interview and I took so many notes. Also so excited to see Tessa reference Alex Langland's 'Craeft,' I read it several years ago and recommend it to anyone who will let me wax poetic about handmade coppiced pitchforks and thatching roofs, ha!
So much food for thought. Thank you for this.
Thanks for this wonderful thoughtful essay on our current life.
Wonderful to see Tessa collaborating with you Ruth for this! And what an amazing reading list that was! One book I would add which I have found really helpful is 'Habits of the High Tech Heart' - an old book (early 2000s I think) but so jam packed full of wisdom.
I had plenty on the reading list here, but +100 for The Machine Stops. I can't even remember how I originally made my way to it, but it was during a time when I was as passively immersed in the Machine as a fish is in water. It may have been the first stirrings of awakening, because I remember two thoughts at the end: the first, how prescient it was, despite the year in which it was written; the second, a foreboding that I was going to live to see it.
What an encouraging discussion. Thank you both so much.
I think anyone reading here would find this article pertinent: "The High Price of Convenience." It's about lessons learned when the author was helping his son with a school assignment, and they tried to make use of ChatGPT.
https://salvomag.com/post/the-high-price-of-convenience
"We are being nudged, ever more forcefully, toward passivity. Alas, passivity is to human agency what anesthesia is to consciousness."