Olivia: The most important spiritual work you'll do this week won't happen at church. It'll happen at 8 PM on a Wednesday, when you're wrestling a screaming toddler into their pajamas. And you're probably doing it all wrong. Jackson: Wow, okay. That sounds less like spiritual work and more like a hostage negotiation I conduct nightly. And I'm definitely the losing party. What are you getting at? Olivia: I'm getting at the core idea of a book that has been absolutely buzzing in parenting circles, for good reason. It’s called Habits of the Household by Justin Whitmel Earley. Jackson: Habits of the Household. Sounds… tidy. My household is the opposite of tidy. Olivia: Exactly. And what's fascinating is that Earley isn't a monk or a professional organizer—he's a high-powered mergers and acquisitions lawyer and a father of four young boys. He's writing this from the absolute chaos of a demanding career and a busy home, which makes his advice feel incredibly grounded and hard-won. Jackson: Okay, a lawyer with four boys. He has my attention. So how does a lawyer end up writing a book that calls a bedtime tantrum 'spiritual work'?

Olivia: He gets there through a moment of total parental failure. It's a story that I think every parent will recognize. He describes a typical Wednesday night, trying to get his three young sons to bed. It’s pure chaos. He’s barking orders, they’re running wild, and he almost slips on a puddle of bathwater on the floor. Jackson: I have lived this exact scene. The bathwater puddle is a universal symbol of parental defeat. Olivia: It is! And in that moment of frustration, a thought hits him with devastating clarity: "This is our normal." This cycle of impatience, of just trying to get through the task, of being a drill sergeant instead of a father—that had become the default rhythm of their evenings. Jackson: That’s a rough realization. It’s so easy to fall into that pattern without even noticing. Olivia: And this is where he introduces the book's big idea. He argues that these routines, these "normals," are actually liturgies. Jackson: Hold on. ‘Liturgy’ is a churchy word. What does Earley actually mean by that in the context of, say, spilled bathwater and screaming kids? Olivia: He means it's a repeated practice that shapes what you love. A liturgy is a pattern that forms your heart. We all have them, whether we realize it or not. His family's bedtime liturgy wasn't one of peace and connection; it was a liturgy of efficiency, frustration, and impatience. It was training his heart, and his kids' hearts, to value speed over relationship. Jackson: So a 'liturgy' is just a pattern that shapes you, whether you intend it to or not. That’s… a little terrifying, actually. It makes you look at your whole day differently. The mad morning rush to get out the door, the way we eat dinner in front of the TV… those are all liturgies. Olivia: Precisely. They are all forms of worship, pointing our hearts toward something—convenience, quiet, control, you name it. And Earley's breakthrough wasn't to find a magic trick to make his kids perfectly behaved. It was to introduce a new, tiny, intentional liturgy to interrupt the old one. Jackson: Okay, I'm intrigued. What did he do? Olivia: He started a simple bedtime blessing. After the chaos, after the teeth were brushed and the pajamas were on, he would go to each son, put his hand on them, and say a short, simple blessing. It was a way of ending the night with a clear statement: "Despite the chaos, you are loved. Despite my frustration, you are cherished." Jackson: Okay, but does saying a quick prayer really change the fact that the kids are still bouncing off the walls a minute earlier? Olivia: That’s the key insight! He says the point of the habit wasn't to magically change his kids' behavior. The point was to change his heart. It forced him to pause, to re-center, and to end the day on a note of grace instead of frustration. It reframed the entire chaotic event. The goal shifted from "getting them to bed" to "connecting with their hearts." It was a small thing, in the right place, that had enormous consequences for him as a parent. Jackson: I see. It’s not a tool for control, it’s a tool for transformation… for the parent. That’s a much more manageable goal. I can’t control my kid’s meltdown, but maybe I can control my response to it. Olivia: That’s the whole foundation of the book. It’s not about becoming a perfect parent with a perfect family. It’s about being a parent who, in the middle of the mess, is being parented by God’s grace.

Jackson: I get the bedtime thing, but let's talk about the real battleground: discipline. It’s one thing to feel impatient, it’s another when your kid looks you in the eye and does the one thing you just told them not to do. How does this 'liturgy' idea apply there? Olivia: Earley dives right into that. He tells another story about his youngest son, Shep, who was about 18 months old. He’d greet his dad at the door by joyfully smacking him in the face. Jackson: Oh, I know that move. The toddler head-butt to the chin is also a classic. Olivia: Exactly. And Earley’s first instinct, his liturgy, was control. His mind screamed, "Make him stop!" He wanted to use his size and his voice to shut it down. But he realized in that moment that there's a huge gap between what a parent wants—which is control—and what a child needs—which is loving, engaged discipline. Jackson: That gap feels like a canyon some days. So what's the alternative to the "control" instinct? Olivia: He reframes the entire goal. He says discipline is not a tool for controlling behavior. It is a process of discipling a child’s heart toward the right loves. The goal isn't just to stop the smacking; the goal is to guide the heart behind the smack. Jackson: That sounds great philosophically, but what does that actually look like in the moment? What does 'discipling a heart' mean when a kid is mid-tantrum? Olivia: He offers a very practical framework he calls the "Pyramid of Discipline." It’s a series of habits to walk through. It starts with things like establishing your loving authority, but then it moves to crucial steps like "Pause for a Moment," "Pray and Talk to Yourself," and "Be Relentless in Seeking Understanding." Jackson: "Seeking understanding" sounds… difficult with a screaming two-year-old. Olivia: It is, but the point is to shift your own posture. Instead of asking "How do I make this stop?", you ask "What is happening in my child's heart right now?" Are they tired? Scared? Testing a boundary? It forces you to see them as a little human to be guided, not a problem to be solved. And the pyramid always, always ends with the same step: "Always End in Reconciliation." The relationship must be restored. Jackson: That feels so different from just sending a kid to their room. The goal is connection, not just punishment. Olivia: Yes, and this applies directly to another huge battleground: screentime. His wife, Lauren, has this incredible quote in the book. She says, "The fight is not about ‘Are screens okay?’ or ‘How much screentime is too much?’ The fight is about whether you are forming your children or you are defaulting to letting screens form them." Jackson: Oof. That’s a powerful reframe. I think many of us, myself included, use screens as a default babysitter. It's the liturgy of "I just need 20 minutes of peace." Olivia: And Earley is not saying screens are evil. He’s saying they are intensely formative. They are teaching our kids what to want, what to value, what a good life looks like. So the habit isn't just about limiting screen time, but about curating it. Choosing well, and even more importantly, watching with them. Using it as a launchpad for conversation about what they’re seeing. Jackson: So you’re turning a passive activity into an active moment of discipleship. You’re using the screen’s liturgy for your own purposes. Olivia: Exactly. You're interrupting the default pattern and inserting an intentional one. It's harder, no question. But the book argues that this is the real work of parenting.

Olivia: And all these habits—bedtime, discipline, screentime—they're incredibly hard to sustain. Earley argues that's because we often neglect the one habit that powers all the others. Jackson: Let me guess. Getting more sleep? Olivia: (laughs) Close, but no. It's the habit of marriage. He makes a bold claim: marriage isn't just a theme of the Bible, it is the great theme. And a healthy household is built on the foundation of a healthy marriage. Jackson: I don't think anyone would disagree with that, but it's also the first thing to get pushed to the back burner when you're exhausted and overwhelmed with kids and work. Olivia: That's his point. We treat it like a luxury when it's the load-bearing wall of the entire structure. He draws a sharp distinction between love as a feeling, which is fickle and conditional, and what he calls "covenant love." Covenant love says, "I love you despite what it costs me." It's a promise, a commitment, an action. Jackson: That's a beautiful idea, but what does 'practicing covenant love' look like on a random, exhausting Wednesday night? Olivia: It looks like a habit. Specifically, the habit of a date night. And he's very clear—this isn't about fancy restaurants or romantic getaways. For him and his wife, it was often just putting the kids to bed, closing their laptops, and sitting on the couch with a glass of wine to actually talk to each other. Jackson: A weekly date night? With four kids and a law career? That sounds impossible. Olivia: He acknowledges that! But he calls it a "monotonous rhythm." It’s not always exciting. Sometimes they're too tired to talk about much. But the rhythm itself is the point. He says it's by acting like people in love that we become people in love. Not the other way around. The habit leads the heart. That regular, protected time is what he calls "rehearsing the covenant." It's the practice that reminds them they are on the same team, which gives them the strength to handle all the other chaotic habits of the household. Jackson: So the date night isn't for the feeling of romance, it's for the practice of commitment. It’s another liturgy. Olivia: It's the master liturgy. He says it's a terrible fiction to imagine we can be good mothers and fathers without first being good husbands and wives. That relationship is the source from which everything else flows.

Jackson: So, it seems the whole book is a rebellion against accidental living. It’s saying that if you don't choose your family's habits, the world—or just pure chaos—will choose them for you. You'll end up with a liturgy of impatience or distraction by default. Olivia: Exactly. And the beauty is you don't have to be perfect. That's the message of grace that runs through the entire book. Earley is so vulnerable about his own failures. He has this amazing line where he says, "I’m qualified to write about this stuff not because I’m so good at it, I’m qualified to write about this stuff because I need it so badly." Jackson: I love that. It takes all the pressure off. It’s not a manual for perfection; it’s a field guide for fellow strugglers. Olivia: Yes! And the big takeaway isn't to go home and implement all ten of his habits tomorrow. That would be just another liturgy of stressful perfectionism. The takeaway is to pick one. Just one. To choose to do a messy, imperfect "something" instead of a perfect "nothing." Jackson: That feels doable. Start with one small, intentional act to interrupt the chaos. Maybe it's a bedtime blessing. Maybe it's pausing for three seconds before reacting to a spill. Olivia: It could be anything. The point is to begin. To recognize that these small, repeated moments are where the real life of your family is being forged. Jackson: It leaves me with a question for everyone listening, and for myself, really. What's the one small, chaotic moment in your day that you could reframe, not as a task to be finished, but as a moment of connection? Olivia: A perfect question to end on. This is Aibrary, signing off.