I really want to like this column by Roberto Rivera y Carlo because I think it gets some important things right. Rivera y Carlo criticizes our culture of careerism that emphasizes work over family:

In the West, however much we “value” marriage and family, our approach to the matter says that we esteem them less than career and a high standard of living. Think about it: we see ads urging 20- and 30-somethings to plan for their retirement now. Have you ever seen anything advising the same level of forethought to marriage and family? Of course not. In our culture, the order is work then family.

Unfortunately, this order ensures that marriage and family, not work, will do the bulk of the accommodating. (Sometimes this can’t be helped: heroic single moms like my own have no choice but to try and balance the demands of work and family. They didn’t choose the conflict between work and family; it was chosen for them.) Marriage and family will be grafted onto already-existing obligations and routines created by our work lives.

He advocates a restructuring of priorities as an anitdote:

So if focusing on our careers before settling down is inadvisable, what’s the alternative? It’s following the cultural model that prevailed until only recently: regarding work as a mean to an end — the end being caring for your family — rather than an end in itself. It’s keeping in mind that, as “Hallmark-y” as it may sound, your marriage and family are the most important thing you will ever do. They, not what you do for a living, are your legacy.

In recent decades there has been a shift away from the old view of work as necessary to survive toward seeing paid work as the locus of our identity, providing our chief source of meaning and self-fulfillment. We are then encouraged to pour our heart and soul into our work, sacrificing the other aspects of our lives when necessary (e.g. the advent of being connected to the office 24 hours a day via pagers, cell phones and e-mail which is touted as “liberation” but is actually the opposite).

Plus, this view of work just doesn’t square with most people’s experience. It tends to reflect the outlook of white-collar professionals, especially those in the more “creative” fields, but would probably resonate less with the people who clean their offices or tend their gardens. For many, perhaps most, people work is primarily a means to providing for themselves and their families, not a creative adventure of self-exploration and fulfillment.

So, I think work could stand to be taken down a peg or two and Rivera y Carlo is right on that score. But I also have to take issue with his claim that “your marriage and family are the most important thing you will ever do. They, not what you do for a living, are your legacy.”

For a Christian (and Rivera y Carlo is writing as a Christian) our identity should be rooted first and foremost in our status as redeemed children of God. My own Lutheran tradition has been particularly good at emphasizing that, before God, we are passive – our staus is not secured by any work of our own, including being good spouses or parents.

Some evangelical Protestants seem to have embraced a kind of cult of the family, where it becomes a haven in a heartless (godless, secularist) world. Early Christianity was, however, rather subversive of family ties. As Camassia recently reminded us, romantic or sexual love should not be taken by Christians to be the highest good, and consequently neither should family life. What room is there in Rivera y Carlo’s scheme for those who, whether by choice or necessity, don’t marry? Do they contribute something valuable to the community?

Now, I wouldn’t deny that the sphere of the family is one of the primary places where we exercise Christian discipleship. Charity begins at home as they say. But the Gospel invites a relativization of all penultimate goods and ties, however much that may seem to go against our “natural” inclinations. By all means, lets depose the idol of work, but without replacing it with that of family.