Surrounded as we are by experts from Lynne Spears to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, we are living in a golden age of advice on how to nurture a functional family. It’s almost enough to make you think no parents successfully raised a kid before it was possible to order books on the subject from Amazon.
In fact, there has been no shortage of happy, prosperous, healthily bonded families since before recorded history. Sure, the parents of centuries past never signed their kids up for violin lessons or enrolled them in a hockey program or worried about monitoring their internet use. But some of the pillars that, we are told, keep a family strong were the same then as now. Like: it’s always a good idea for the entire family to gather together for an evening meal and discuss their day. Today’s parents put out a spread of cassoulet and filtered water; for Vikings, it was a whole roasted goat, washed down with mead — but they ate it as a family.
The Viking lifestyle seems brutal from our privileged perspective. But there are a wealth of lessons children could learn at their marauding parents’ knees: you should show your status with a giant, ornate shield. British women make great concubines. Grooming your facial hair is for chumps. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg — which, by the way, Vikings would have seen lots of in their travels.
You can always rear your kids using the same techniques as your neighbours — spending time with them, learning their interests, blah blah blah. But if you want to bring the same expertise to bear on your children that helped your ancestors to start the line that’s extended all the way to you, it takes a pillage.
