Throughout my childhood, my mother was determined to make my siblings and me understand one idea above all: We were not in charge of our lives, but God—and that God ruled via the parents and elders He had set over us. Our duty was singular: to obey them. Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Their power over us was absolute, and we would do well to accept that without question or protest. These were, as the New Testament put it, the bounds of our habitation. It was one of my mother’s favorite phrases.
