YouTube Sensation Jefferson Bethke on Reclaiming Nuclear Family

A Declaration of Independence

Author Jefferson Bethke declares his independence from what he believes is “the insidious individualized culture we live in that has trickled down to affect every facet of our lives and that has become the poison at the root of just about every family tree.”

Bethke has decided to take a stand “against the typical Western family story that creates consumption monsters. Built to consume. To hoard. To stockpile. To fight for their rights. To get what’s theirs. To only use our family as a launching pad for the individual success of ourselves.” He urges the reader to join him “in finding a completely new yet ancient way to do family,” setting the stage for the next eleven chapters on how to Take Back Your Family.

The Nuclear Family

Citing several studies that found the nuclear family in America to be unhealthy and unsafe, sadly sending our elderly family members to nursing homes rather than including them in a multigenerational family unit, Bethke decries the “nuclear family ideal” as “an experiment that absolutely needs to be declared bankrupt. It’s failing, and it’s over.”

“Nothing has done more damage to Scripture’s vision of family than the ideal of the nuclear family.”

A concept born from postwar prosperity that peaked in the 1950s and ‘60s, the nuclear family “consisted of a mom, a dad, and two kids as the social unit. It generally centers itself on consumption, safety, and individual happiness. In other words, if we can get what we want, have nothing go wrong, and everyone does what he or she wants to do, then the family has done its job.”

Bethke compares the nuclear family to the concept of family in the Scriptures, which he finds to be “in many ways antithetical…not least in the fact that it was based on consumption, while the first-century family was based on production.”

In a time where young couples marry while tied down with massive student debt, maintain two jobs to make ends meet, put their children in daycare, and try to make it all work without benefit of a family safety net, “the nuclear family is the locker room of disintegration, individualism, and consumption.”

So, what is today’s family to do to avoid falling into such an endless cycle of imminent alienation from each other? Bethke suggests that “being a strong family team can counteract all those negative currents we are so mindlessly floating down the river of destruction on.” And the good news is that “every family can be a team.” 

The Original Family Blueprint

Comic books often provide “origin stories” of their main characters. These backstories help provide some clarity as to why the characters behave the way they do. Different circumstances, events, and experiences shaped their psyches, leading them to respond to life in various ways.

Similarly, the Bible provides “an origin story in Genesis—one that gives us a compelling story to help make sense of, or at least be a launching pad for a myriad of enormously large ideas: marriage, family, sexuality, evil, vocation, job, God,” says Bethke.

When God had created the world, he created “two particularly unique image-bearing humans. Divine reflections of him, similar in image bearing, yet obviously not the same.”

He put this team into the garden of Eden to accomplish his mission: to maintain it. He also “gave these image bearers the capacity to multiply themselves and have kids. And in that generational multiplying, the mission remains the same: order, shalom, beauty, fruition. In essence, God’s answer to the first problem in our story was a family.”

So how has the modern family deviated so far from God’s original mission for us? Bethke reminds that “God brought your family together to be a team that was stronger together than separate, with one goal in mind: to do the job given in the beginning. To make stuff. And to show his grace, love, beauty, and blessing in it.”

Family on Mission

“Businesses still center themselves around mission, whereas modern families are built around consumption. When mission is the focus, then building to pass something on is the goal. And a great idea.” He says that the family mission statement “unlocks everyone’s energy and focus and potential in so many ways. Because what it does is let your body and attitude fall into place once expectations and assignments have been set.”

In addition to a specific family mission statement, Bethke’s family also has eight pillars (high values) “that guide us to specifically fulfilling that mission.” He offers suggestions for creating family mission statements based on questions family members ask each other to hone in on the family’s focus. A true family has input and buy-in from all members. He offers suggestions on how parents can integrate their children into the family team through direct involvement and transparency. 

Training and Mission

“There’s a magical matrix, I think: high demand coupled with high support.“ Bethke continues his discussion of parent as coach, but delves deeper into the importance of high expectations, high support. A coach, he says, “is usually much more intensely focused on the you inside of you than you are. They see a future and a potential that you can’t and are willing to help and assist in taking you there.”

Similarly, the coaching parent does the “imaginative groundwork” to see their children “in a new future and new creation possibilities that they themselves cannot see.” Like in the other chapters, Bethke uses his family and their experiences to exemplify training as a team to accomplish the family mission.

Group huddles, making decisions together, offering words and gestures of encouragement as a team—all prove that “teams talk like teams,” whether they are on the football field or at the dinner table.

Community Impact

In the final chapter, Bethke expresses how consumerism, consumption of “stuff” we don’t need, has damaged us. Having the most toys is not a basic need. Food is a basic need. Farms supply food, contributing what they grow and raise “to the necessary needs of others and those around them. And that’s what we want to do: feed others.”

Having an impact on the community is a way to take family goals and mission and put it into practice.  “We want to be a family that spends a lot of time working deeply and thoughtfully, bringing something into the world that actually feeds people. Their souls, stomachs, hearts, and minds.”

Tying scriptural principles to family mission leads to the concept of “blessed to be a blessing,” which is a mantra the Bethke family says a lot in their home. Fulfilling to both the family team and those who benefit from the blessing, the family as team comes full circle. As Bethke says, “A family oriented around contribution is a stream that receives blessing from God in one direction and then lets that flow out of them to the other side, providing life and nourishment and refreshment as a crystal-clear river to others.”