values

One of the great challenges, burdens, and privileges of being a parent is influencing the lives and character of your children.  And pretty much everything that we do in rearing our kids influences the lives and character of our precious offspring.  If we teach them discipline, they might lose some creativity.  If we focus on academic, intellectual activities, they might lose out on the joy of free play.  And vice versa.

My dueling values struggle with this often.  The circles I run in tend to promote developmental activities for kids as early as possible.  That leads to kids at the twoddlers age who know their colors, shapes, letters, etc.  There are times when I wonder what the nanny does with the kids all day and if she has been doing any of these types of activities with them.  And then I remind myself that they will learn all of that in time and it doesn't really matter if they grasp it at 19 months or 3 years.  Maybe it's better for them to just have a day filled with laughter and joy and learn kindness and happiness from the nanny.

We obviously want the best for our kids.  The hard part of that is determining what the "best" is.  It might not be the most sought after daycare.  It might not be an ivy league school or a professional career.  It might just be discovering who they are, embracing that, and living their own dreams rather than what society tells them to do.  Of course, I'm in a position to say that because I have had the opportunity to 'achieve' professionally and make a good living and I'm not living paycheck to paycheck to keep my family fed, housed, and clothed.  Probably the richness outside of the "successful life" society preaches wouldn't be all that great if I was worried whether or not we'd have lunch the next day.

This article is a good reminder that if I really want my children to happy, I need to focus on, live out, and teach them more than just letters and numbers and colors and shapes.  I need to show them how to love others and be loved.  How to be generous and kind.  How to cherish experiences and interactions more than things.  And I need to live it.  For my joy and for theirs.