“We do not bother to teach the great virtues, though we love them and want our children to have them; but we nourish the hope that they will spontaneously appear in their consciousness some day in the future, we think of them as being part of our instinctive nature, while the others, the little virtues, seem to be the result of reflection and calculation and so we think they absolutely must be taught.” NATALIA GINZBURG, THE LITTLE VIRTUES Over the summer, my husband and I did a parenting check-in. We listed some topics that we wanted to reflect on (discipline, meal time, spiritual formation), then we went to separate rooms…
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The Little Cannot Contain the Great: Engaging the Eternal Over the Relevant (The Little Virtues, Part 4)
“The great can contain the little, but by the laws of nature there is no way that the little can contain the great.” NATALIA GINZBURG, THE LITTLE VIRTUES One helpful aspect of the big/little virtue template is its focus on priority. In her essay, Ginzburg is adamant that little virtues aren’t problematic because they are bad, rather they are problematic only when they aren’t moderated by big virtues. The trouble starts when we mis-order or equate big and little virtues. Here’s a battle between big and little virtues that I bet a lot of us feel: the call to engage the eternal, versus the call to only engage the relevant.…
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Mindless Production: The Littlest of Little Virtues, (Part 3)
“Not that the little virtues are in themselves contemptible; but their value is of a complementary and not of a substantial kind; they cannot stand by themselves without the others, and by themselves and without the others they provide but meagre fare for human nature.” NATALIA GINZBURG, THE LITTLE VIRTUES Here’s a bit of irony: I decided to leave the classroom and start a small run-from-home business so I could spend more time with my kids during their earliest years. But I often find myself complaining that my kids leave me little time to do my work, even though I chose this work so I could spend time with my…
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That Their Love of Life Should Never Weaken: The Little Virtues, Part 2
“What we must remember above all in the education of our children is that their love of life should never weaken.” Natalia Ginzburg, the little virtues While re-reading The Little Virtues, the above sentence stuck out to me. It made me think of all the times, both at home and at school, that we fall into a trap that whispers something like this: We must diminish a child’s love of life today so that he will have a life worth loving tomorrow. We do this when we dismiss pervasive boredom, discomfort, embarrassment or frustration as “character building.” Of course discomfort is part of life and learning, it does build character.…
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The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg
When I was pregnant with my first child, I came across an article about “The Little Virtues,” an essay by Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg. It was a breath of fresh air. I’d already gorged myself on parenting advice by reading books on eating, sleeping and first aid. But I longed for something both deeper and broader, a template that cut to the quick of parenting. I found that template in “The Little Virtues,” which begins this way: “As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not…
