Working
Together
(Sadly, since I wrote this a year or two ago, we lost Grandma)
As a child growing
up in rural Vermont, there were some chores I hated doing,
and, yet, for
some reason I have this strange compulsion to drag my kids through
the same motions I so
despised in my childhood. Why? Because now I see these
experiences as
valuable.
This past
weekend, while my husband and daughter were out on a
father-daughter
trip, I spent the
afternoon with my boys, ages 7 and 9, stacking wood for my
parents. There have
been times when the kids have balked at the idea of manual
labor, but on this
particular day they were amenable to participating. It was a
beautiful sunny, but
chilly, day and perfect for such an activity. We went with
Grandpa to fix the
tractor , but as daylight waned we decided to use more old
fashioned methods
instead. The boys cooperated (a rare sight between
brothers in our
household) to fill a dolly with wood and transport it across the
dirt road. My youngest,
in little brother fashion, tried to one-up his big brother in
strength, but had to
accept the fact that his brother had two years on him which
was not going to be
ignored.
For a while, my 7 year
old helped stack wood in the basement. He made a game
of it and started
trying to see how many logs he could throw in before I grabbed the
next one to stack.
Later, while I collected wheelbarrows full to add to the pile,
he
showed me a marvelous
stack that impressed me, and him. He was so proud of his
work, celebrating the
sense of mastery he felt over a job well done. He didn't even
need praise from me,
although I acknowledged the size of the stack he had built.
I left him to finish
his work and went to look for his brother who was shirking in the
kitchen. After a bit of
coaxing, my older son came with me to add to the stacks in
the woodshed. While he
worked, he talked about the exercise we were getting
from all this work and
mused: “Ya know, we don't do this to get rewarded, we do
this to help out the
family; to be out on this nice day and so Grandma and Grandpa
will be warm”. All of
this came not from me, but from the act of putting in some
good honest work.
Sometimes, as a busy parent, I forget how these
experiences
provide, all by
themselves, a sense of accomplishment, mastery and strength. Had
I paid the kids or even
tried to sell the activity as a “good deed,” the point that
didn't
need to be made would
not, in fact, have been made at all.
As I worked, I thought
to myself how thankful I am to have such an experience
to share with my
children. As I breathed the fresh, crisp air that was infused with
woodsmoke and looked at
the setting sun over the mountain, I thought about how
valuable this whole
experience was and on how it was right on so many levels. It
would be a challenge to
conjure up an activity that could rival this one for teaching
self-esteem, healthy
exercise, the value of hard work and giving to others. And
the best thing of all
is that it was free. Plus, when it was too dark to work, we
went inside and had
endless cups of tea and chocolate-covered tea biscuits with
Grandma and Grandpa.
