A Father's Vision for Designing Children's Rooms

In a previous post, I wrote about the melding together of "his" and "hers" to make a home "theirs." But, should that carry over into every room in the house, including the children's?

Today, I have asked Jim Bob to write a guest post regarding his vision for our children's room design. —Amy Joe

When designing the children's rooms, they should be gender-specific. I want them to thank God for their God-given gender, and their environment should celebrate the way God made them.

Especially in our home, I want them to each identify with their "element" in the home. I want them to see the strength, stability, and security that being a servant leader requires. The design of the house and the boys' room should solidify that aspect of design in their minds, especially as to the part that is "theirs."

I also want them to see the beauty that a helpmeet brings as she adorns her husband in loveliness. The design of the girls' room should also give them license to gardenize and beautify everything they touch. The rest of the house will be a display of how that plays out in our marriage and family.

When Men Were Men, and Women Were Women

Think of the pioneers: When they moved out West, he cut down trees and built a sturdy home that would protect the family from the elements. She decorated it on the inside, making it a warm inviting place for the family, and any guests that came along.

Once the house was built, he took horse and plow and dug up the rocks, turned over the ground, and turned all the green stuff brown... so that she could come behind and plant flowers and herbs and vegetables to beautify their home and provide delicious meals. Neither would have made it without the other. And each role was very clearly defined and displayed.

Be Ye Separate

In our post-modern feminized world where men no longer provide for their families by the sweat of their brow, and women muscle their way into the world of effeminized men, we've lost sight of the important God-given roles of each. I want my girls to be feminine, and my boys to be masculine. Not to the exclusion of the other, but in great appreciation of the other.

The boys' room, for all of its potential to be cave-like, should not be a cave or even a smelly locker-room, because mom still needs to go in there!

The girls' room, for all of its potential to be lacy and frilly, should recognize that Dad and the boys come in there, too... and if everything is uber-delicate, it's going to get broken.

In the rest of the house, the same is true. The furniture and design should display that a man lives here, but not alone. And the boys should be able to be boys by having sturdy furniture to live on. The accessories and utensils should display that a woman lives here, but not alone. And the girls should be able to be girls by having a tea party in the living room without being trampled on.

Further Up and Further In

Yes, there are gender-specific elements in each room, to bathe them, and establish and ground them in their God-given gender, but they are also given a glimpse of melding the two together in their own home one day, as they move further up and further in into their future roles and husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. Those future roles become a more full expression of who they are now.

For all the strength the boys bring (and I don't want it to be wimpy by any stretch), they must also live in understanding with the females in their lives by taking care of the delicate adornments in the home. For all the frilly, roses and lace the girls bring (and I don't want that down-played at all), they must also live in understanding that flowers are fragile and the males in their lives bring stability and protection so that they can blossom and bloom.

When either tries to do the other, the walls crumble from weakness and the flowers are trampled by brute force. Balance and completion is the key.

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. ‚Genesis 2:18