I know that we, as parents and grandparents of adult children, are so annoying because we watch (stare at) everything these amazing people do as they raise new little people, developing their own style, making their own decisions as to how it is best done.
I did my share of staring.
The moment that struck me was my son thinking out loud, "Now what job can Anna (age 2 1/2) do?"
Their family rhythm of experience centers around jobs. I am a baby boomer and recognize that our generation almost threw away that most amazing phenomenon--we tried to raise kids by giving them too much and sparing them work, pain, suffering, failure. What an injustice we tried to impose.
For a whole generation, we started building a house of cards based on overindulgence and rights and never learning to lose.
That household, for one, is taking it back--it being the rhythm of experience that built this country: the expectation that work and suffering are required:
The 9-yr-old does the kid laundry and makes and sells handcrafted coat racks on etsy.
The 7-yr-old starts a fire every night (with the 4-yr-old helping to bring in firewood from the outside stash). He makes breakfast smoothies in the Vitamix, combining ingredients from the perch he can reach best--the floor.
The 6-yr-old is the kitchen ninja, cracking, mixing and scrambling (a lot of) eggs for yesterday's birthday (hers) breakfast and doing much of the cleanup after each meal. At a friend's birthday party, she rolled sushi so fast the adults were amazed.So when Anna needed a job--besides routinely getting everyone drinks at each meal--he put her to work taking items that had migrated downstairs back up (a long flight of stairs) to bedroom and laundry room destinations.
Here is the crazy part: these kids think this is normal. Since rare complaints produce more jobs, these kids prove to me that the work ethic our country was founded upon can be reclaimed by every family.
Today's young parents can translate the house of cards we handed down into houses built on the solid foundation of accomplishment (and failure), and the beautiful rhythm of experience that comes from serving each other and carrying their part of the load of building life.
Galatians 6:
Don't be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others--ignoring God!--harvests a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God's Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.Ignoring the needs of others is ignoring God. Scary how we've implemented that.
We don't see the needs of others unless we position ourselves to serve God. When we offer our families to him, he will drive. Climbing into God's car of service, taking our kids along, means learning as family to serve each other and the community beyond.
Stuart and Sarah: thanks for reclaiming that which our generation tried to lose.
Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.
