Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Feet on the Ground

"If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. " - Abigail Van Buren


I was looking for a good quote today to use on a special project, and I came across this one. I loved it. I am trying so hard to help my kids keep their feet on the ground in the midst of all the indulgence and excess in this world. Sometimes I worry that they have it too easy or that we don’t expect enough of them. Truly, they work hard in school and with their music. We expect great things. Actually, we expect them to do their best, but it just so happens that so far, their best has proven to be great. So the bar is set high. We expect them to help keep our house running by doing their share. Each child has been given “zones” that they are responsible for at home. That was Ryan’s idea, and I like it. Our beloved white board that hangs prominently as the only work of art (if you can call it that) in our laundry room is our method for communicating evening or weekend chores to the kids. “Go check the board.” The board needs to be cleared before playing. We expect them to earn and pay for some of the “extras” they want. Amazing how the “must haves” become less important when they are faced with parting with their own money.

But still…I wonder.

Are we really doing all we can/should to help keep them grounded by giving them responsibility? I think my parents did a good job raising my brother and I to understand the value of work, responsibility, and commitment by doing three things. First, they showed us by example. My parents have always worked hard. In the house, in the yard, in the church, in the service of others. Always working. My parents own more pairs of work gloves than anyone I know. Just yesterday, for example, they went over to my cousin J.R.’s house and mowed his yard so that he could focus on getting his house ready for move-in. They are always doing things like that. They have done a great job of instilling that work ethic in Michael and I, but are also now helping our kids, their grandkids, appreciate a good day’s labor. During the summer, Thursday mornings are traditionally “yard work” days at my parent’s house. The grandkids old enough to work hard and stay focused for a couple of straight hours are invited to come over and mow, weed, sweep, and do other necessary clean up. And it’s usually not just my parent’s acre lot, but the bonus of both my grandparent’s yards as well. (Grandpa Steve pays some good wages too. I tell him that he’s over paying the kids, but he tells me that they earned it.)

Second, my parents insisted that we make substantial contributions to the upkeep of our home and yard during our childhood/teen years. Everyone worked. Since it was just the two of us kids growing up, there was plenty of work to be shared. And if we “forgot” to do our chores before playing (not an acceptable choice), then we had a good “talking to” and some extra chores the next go round. It didn’t take long to figure out that we worked first and played later. Truly, it is amazing how much faster we worked when we had somewhere we really wanted to go or something fun we wanted to do.

When I was a young girl, my parents wanted to get their front yard landscaping done, but it needed some fill dirt spread to level the ground. Through some connection of which the details are now shady, they were able to obtain some very cheap (if not free) fill dirt, which they thought was a screamin’ deal. Unbeknownst to them, the fill dirt was laden with rocks.

Rocks, rocks, rocks.

So many rocks.

In fact, despite all our efforts to pick up and remove the rocks, they seemed to practically grow back every time they irrigated. Needless to say, both a common chore and an occasional punishment involved picking up rocks. But I was pretty wise in my youth. It didn’t take long to figure out that if I found a gigantic rock to fill half the bucket, then I could just cover it up with small ones and meet my bucket quota much quicker. I thought I had my parent’s fooled, but I’ve since learned that they knew my game all along. I remember on more than one occasion complaining to my dad about all the chores I had to do.

His simple, half-joking reply: “That’s why you have kids. When you have kids, you’ll do the same thing.”

But really, now that I am a mom, I know that he was not only teaching me to work for the benefit of our family at that time, but so that I would learn the life-long importance of work and responsibility. He wanted to keep me grounded. I so much appreciate the lessons both my parents taught me.

And thirdly, I think my parents helped us keep our feet on the ground by, ironically, giving us the freedoms we wanted, within reason, after we showed that we could be responsible and trusted. Trust is like a leash. It can be short and tight, or very long and free. I think all of us would admit that we like our freedom to choose and want to be trustworthy. That trust has to be earned. Of course, I made plenty of mistakes growing up and still make them all the time. Of course, there are choices I wish I’d made differently. But I was grateful to have had parents who let me choose, who gave me some freedom, who trusted me. I was taught by their example, I was trained to work with their encouragement, I was enlightened by the wisdom they shared, and I was given the freedom to bloom. Even though I sometimes start to float, I think my feet are planted pretty squarely on the ground. And much of that is due to the influence of my good parents. I pray that as Ryan and I forge ahead in the parenting of our four precious souls, that they’ll be able to look back as adults, with feet firmly planted, and recognize the lessons learned in their youth.

Here are a few scrapbook pages featuring my terrific kids.



2 comments:

  1. I was just catching up on the blog.

    I loved the post about keeping our kids grounded. It is such a challenge. We work on it continually.

    I wish we had been at the park with everyone. That looked like tons of fun. The beach will be great for catching up.

    Great job on the running. I can only go about a mile now. Dan has to wear the 40lb weight vest to make things fair :)

    And I am sorry about Jacob's dad. That is terribly sad. I hope Linda and her son are dealing okay with it.

    Can't wait to see you at the beach. I am looking rather large and feeling even more so. Should be interesting :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. you're planted well Kelli and blooming beautifully...your kids are so LUCKY/BLESSED!!!

    ReplyDelete