To the Work

One of the biggest challenges Darin and I deal with is teaching our kids to love their work.  We grew up in the 70's and 80's mindset where we were led to believe that the world revolved around filling our spare time with fun activities.  And not only our spare time was devoted to our entertainment, but we were encouraged to fill all our time with "fun opportunities."  It has been a hard, cold slap in the face for both of us to grow up, get married, have a family and realize that the world was not actually created for our entertainment.  There's work to be done and no one is going to do it for us.

So the biggest challenge in teaching our kids a work ethic is ourselves.  We have a hard time overcoming the cultural lie that the kids should be constantly at leisure to fill their days with activities that leave them little time to develop that work ethic.  We have to constantly remind ourselves about the frustrations we've felt as adults when we realize that we weren't prepared for certain adult responsibilities.  Then of course the next thing we struggle with is follow through.  After all, we ARE children of the 80's.  We want our kids to LIKE US.  ;-)  No, really, we do.  We don't want them to grow up and be bitter at us because we forced them to do chores and stuff, but at the same time, we don't want them to grow up and feel frustrated with us because they weren't prepared for life as an adult.  It's a fine line we find ourselves standing on.  Another thing we've discovered through parenting is that there are no "tips and tricks" we can use that will make the teaching and learning painless.  It's gonna hurt.  The kids aren't going to want to do their chores.  We're going to find ourselves not wanting to make them to them.  The best solution we've come up with is to follow God's advice in 1 Corinthians 16:14: " Let all that you do be done with love."  If we can keep our perspective straight and teach our kids "with love" we feel sure that God will bless the work.  The next hardest thing is persevering over the years and years it takes to see the benefits of the work, but that's a whole other issue!  ;-)