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Home economics is essential though a bit redundant. “Economics” comes from a Greek word that literally means “household management”, so home economics and economics really mean the same thing. What are parents managing in the home? The complex dynamics of human development, spiritual growth and progression, education, conflict, in addition to things of less eternal significance like physical health, diet and nutrition, the house itself, and finances. The economics of the home and the economics of the world are very different.
 
Worldly economics is concerned with the production, consumption and transfer of wealth. Catholic parents teaching home economics is not about an inheritance, trust fund, or passing on the family home, all of which have the potential to make a person spiritually impoverished. It is, however, really about the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth, only the wealth in a family is not counted in dollars and cents, but in love.
 
The home is an economy whose currency and labor are one in the same: love. How is love produced, consumed, and transferred in a family? This is an economy built on a paradox, for in the economies of the world, the more you spend the less you have. In the family, however, the more one spends in love, the more love they have. The more love is given away, the more love is retained. The more one shrinks from self to love the other, the more love grows.  

The institution of the family is not simply one value in society among others, but it is the highest value against which all other societal goods are, or ought to be, measured. It is important to appreciate the family in the strictest sense of the word. Appreciate, derived from the Latin appretiare, means “to set a price to”. What is the value of marriage and the family? Its worth is simply beyond any other societal good. There is no monetary price that could be put to the family because what occurs in the family cannot be purchased: fidelity, honest vows, true equality, genuine liberty, and creative capacity -- to name a few.  

Both the means for commerce and remuneration in a family are intangible. The products of family life are worth nothing in a typical marketplace but are more valuable than the entire market. The currency that lubricates the economy of the family is love. The paradox of the worth and value of the family, a thing that flies in the face of all the laws of material economics, is that this thing of such great value is not rare. Its value is derived from the fact that it is everywhere in society. It is as common as a kitchen table, which does not have much worth on its own, but the real family who sits down to eat around it in freedom and love is beyond all price.  

It is the family that holds together the whole of society. Pope St. Paul VI wrote about the essential nature of the family: “This mission-to be the first and vital cell of society-the family has received from God. It will fulfill this mission if it appears as the domestic sanctuary of the Church…”¹ The family is the first cell of society because, simply, the greater society and culture is made up of a unity, a body, of the smaller societies that make up the home. The family is vital because it is through the family that new life comes into the world. The family fulfills this God-given mission to the extent that they give God a place in their home, making it a domestic sanctuary. What can then take place in this first and vital cell is a revelation of the Trinity to the world.
 
Home economics questions for parents to reflect upon: how are we handling the economy of the home? What does our investment of time and treasure reveal about our prioritization? Based on our actions and choices, what things are most valued in our family? Where do we need to invest less? Where do we need to invest more? How is the Lord calling us to manage the economy of our home at this point in the life of our family?  

1 Apostolicam Actuositatem 11.