Teach Your Kids to Work (Before It's Too Late) with Joel and Mary Beeke

Jonny Ardavanis (0:00)

This episode of Dial In is brought to you by Crossway, publisher of the Crossway Short Classic Series. This series introduces a new generation of readers to classic works of the faith, such as Heaven is a World of Love by Jonathan Edwards, and The Freedom of a Christian by Martin Luther. These books speak powerfully and truthfully about the Christian life. You can pick up a copy from the Crossway Short Classic Series wherever books are sold, or visit crossway.org to get 30% off with a free Crossway Plus account. Why do children need to learn how to work?

Mary Beeke (0:30)

If you wait till your child is an adult to teach them to work, they're going to be lazy.

Jonny Ardavanis (0:35)

Yeah, good luck. Yeah.

Mary Beeke (0:35)

Yeah. We can expect more of our kids than our culture says that we can expect.

Jonny Ardavanis (0:42)

But how would you respond to that misconception regarding they have their whole life ahead of them to work? Because I think a lot of parents feel that pressure, like, I don't want my kids to do anything. I want to have everything dialed for them and they never have to lift a finger. I got kids that are 4, 5, and 6 What are some just little things that you would start to ingrain in your children?

Well, welcome to Dial In. My name is Jonny Ardavanis. I'm sitting here with Dr. Beeke and Mrs. Mary Beeke. And so grateful for you guys, your example to me and your friendship over a number of years now, since I had you come speak at the Masters University. But I want to talk about the subject of work. And you've written a book, Teach Them to Work, about your children and children in general. How do parents train up the future generation to see work from a biblical perspective? And what does that look like practically? Maybe. And I obviously know that you were both involved in the process of raising your children. But why did you write the book and maybe the heart behind it? And why you see it as something so critical for parents to understand?

Mary Beeke (1:48)

Yes. Well, for years, I thought about children working or not working. And my favorite subject to study is people.

So I would have all these thoughts. And it kind of goes back to my own childhood. I was not a willing worker as a child. And then being a nurse, a teacher, a mom, a grandmom, I saw all different kinds of kids. Some were good workers, some were not. And I also saw the culture, which was moving much more towards not making your kids work. Like, oh, how can I be so cruel to my child? I don't want to do child labor. And they have their whole adult life to work so they can play as a child, which results, doesn't have good results, of course. So, and just getting in the mind of a child. And I had all these thoughts. And we were going through COVID and everything was shut down. And I was talking about one more thought about kids working. And my husband stopped me in the sidewalk and he said, now is the time to write this book.

So he's a, he's a-

Jonny Ardavanis (2:50)

15 days to slow the spread and write a book. Yeah.

Mary Beeke (2:52)

Yeah. So he was a great motivator for me to get this book written. And I think it's something that I wish I had read as when we were raising our kids. And I think a lot of parents can use a nudge and encouragement to teach your kids to work.

Joel Beeke (3:10)

So every night, she'd come over during COVID, and she'd sit on the table next to me, and I'd be working on a book, she'd be working on this book. We wouldn't talk to each other the whole night.

Perfect. She'd pump that book out, I don't know, less than a year, which is really good for her.

Mary Beeke (3:27)

I'd be working at home in the day and at night by him.

Jonny Ardavanis (3:30)

Well, I'm grateful that you've written it. And I just read it, the majority of it again this morning. And I called my wife and I just like, hey, we've got three girls, baby coming, another baby coming any, maybe any minute here. But these are just things I want to ingrain in my children.

Maybe just from a fundamental perspective, why do children need to learn how to work? And why is it so important from a biblical perspective that over and over again throughout the Book of Proverbs, it talks about fathers training their sons to be diligent. And it's something that I don't know if the average dad or mom is thinking that obviously there's the spiritual truth and you say like, I want to spiritually train my kids, but maybe outside of instructing your children in the fear of the Lord, I don't know if there's a more consistent command given, especially in the Book of Proverbs, than teaching your children to be diligent. So maybe just walk through that. Why is it so important to teach your children how and why to work?