Proponents of government schools and private schools (and I am speaking mostly of professing Christians here) who want to denigrate those home educators who emphasize holiness in training and discipleship of their children, are fond of painting such parents as bizarre iconoclasts who dream of little more than returning to some fantasy world of yesteryear made popular by Laura Ingalls Wilder. (Hey, if the best argument they can muster is the equivalent of a third-grade “nanny nanny boo boo, you like Little House on the Prairie,” I guess that’s better than nothing.)
Well, after the birth of my seventh child, I decided it was about time to see what all the fuss was about. I was part of that generation that watched LHP when it aired its original episodes back in the mid-1970s, but more than three decades have passed since then, and I figured it was time for a refresher on the show that captured America’s heart. (Also, my interest was piqued again when I spent a little time getting to know Melissa Gilbert’s former husband on the set of Gods and Generals.)
Next thing you know, I procured the album sets for seasons one and two of the Michael Landon television classic. Watching the series for the first time as a family was, for me, as if I had been transported back in time — not to the nineteenth century, but to the 1970s when I was a boy thrilling at the stories of family life on the American prairie and anxiously waiting for the next exciting episode. [As a footnote, I had several very interesting conversations with the actor who portrayed Laura Ingalls’ husband, Almanzo Wilder (a.k.a., “Manly”) last year when he contacted the office of Vision Forum to see if we would be willing to help him produce and market an historical series on the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Although we respectfully declined, I was fascinated to learn about the inside relationships of the actors participating on the set of LHP, and their relationship to Michael Landon, as well as of the deep emotional commitment to the story felt by many of the actors and the painful but strategic decision by Michael Landon to burn his set of Walnut Grove to the ground for the concluding episode so as to bring a final and conclusive ending to the series forever.]
I asked my son, who read the complete original LHP series twice before ever viewing the episodes, if he could stomach the television show, even though it was not completely consistent with the original story. His answer was a resounding yes.
Little House on the Prairie is not a perfect series. As a Christian critic sitting on the sidelines, it is easy for me to state that some things would be notably different if I were directing the episodes or writing the scripts. (No doubt, there are ample opportunities for wise Christian parents to point out to their children doctrinal imprecision in the script itself.) And perhaps the same could be said for the original series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder herself.
But both the books and (amazingly enough) the television series have emerged as classic American icons for a very important reason — antithesis. The thesis of the modern era is radical individualism. It is selfish materialism. It is the subordination of the family, community, and generational continuity to the pursuit of self. This thesis may be sugar-coated in psycho babble jargon, or it may be ennobled under the banner of science and technological advancement. Call it what you may, it reflects the hollowness, loneliness, and horror of a modern world that has abandoned the generational continuity that comes from historic biblical patriarchy in exchange for toys, worldly security, and the pursuit of self.
The world of Laura Ingalls Wilder draws the reader and the viewer into an epoch of American history in which the fundamental virtues of Christianity yet still underscored the fabric of American life. By the end of the nineteenth century, these virtues were already being co-opted by the many nefarious “isms” which emerged in the horrible wake of evolutionary dogma (these isms included feminism, socialism, statism, and humanism, to name a few).
Yes, materialism, selfishness, and cruelty do exist in the world of Walnut Grove, but they are social pariahs always meant to be overcome by Christian love and charity. The father is the head of the home, the mother is his helpmeet, the children are under the authority of the parents, the meetinghouse of the church is the central gathering place for the community, the Word of God is the most highly esteemed fount of wisdom, tender fatherhood is inextricably linked to manhood, both men and women dress modestly, and their clothing reflects a Christian emphasis on distinction between the sexes. To survive, families must work hard, support one another, eat together, play together, worship together, pray together, and stand united against every obstacle in the path of generational continuity.
Thus, the great appeal of LHP is not that it rekindles a desire of home educators (and other sane parents) to put on bonnets, ride around in covered wagons, fight Indians, and eke out a living on the prairie. Only philosophical pontificators with no understanding of the movement they seek to critique would suggest such. No, the real appeal of LHP is that it reminds us, imperfect though that reminder may be, of transcendent virtues which rise well beyond the enigmatic nineteenth century and point to those eternal truths, those ancient paths wherein one may find rest. (What a tragedy that so many professing Christian clerics with an ax to grind against principled, conviction-driven home education, lack the ability to distinguish between a passionate love to rekindle transcendent, eternally binding principles of biblical family life, on the one hand, and their own fantasy-world image of a fictitious home school movement obsessed with prairie bonnets, butter churning, and other non-transcendent cultural manifestations, on the other hand.)
In a world where the best that the Christian community often has to offer in terms of culture is the chaotic and discordant cacophony of screaming guitars or ultra-hip, individualistic youth culture, it is downright refreshing to visit Walnut Grove, if only for a good dose of antithesis. There we are reminded that once upon a time in America, the life of the individual was in large part defined by the life of the family, that strong male leadership was a virtue, and that it was once normative for Christian women to be keepers at home. But here is the best news: These LHP-watching home schooled boys and girls are growing up. And many of them (like those participating in the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival) carry a vision to rebuild the beauty of Christian culture, not by producing schlock that stinks like the world and then Baptizing the stink with Scripture verses, but by taking the eternal, transcendent, ancient paths and making them applicable to the twenty-first century.