Chores and Allowances

Chores and Allowances
One would think these two things are naturally related to each other but I would like to challenge that idea as a capitalistic reward system to indoctrinate our children early to believe that if they work, even help themselves, they need to be rewarded with money or other delights of desire. Is this truly what we want to instill into our children? So we want them to think they get rewarded for doing what needs to be done to keep a household functioning? I dare say, ”No!”
My father told me stories about when he was young. Less than 100 years ago when he, like many families lived on a farm. The children at a very young age began to help out their parents to feed the animals, work in the fields, harvest the food, make butter, care for the house, drive the horse and buggy to school alone for 7 miles, board the horse at a stable and then walk to school, arriving at 7 am to have a before school hour class in German, no playground, strict teachers who used rulers as a means of correction of behavior, and their reward was, they got to eat but not too much, to sleep but in a bed with 3 other children, they got to play without toys. They felt capable, had high self esteem, were better educated, learned how to get along with others, never complained, never whined or talked back to parents or teachers, never thought they deserved more, and were never given money for the effort. (I am not proposing we return to that era but it is worth noting.)
I began to receive an allowance when I was about 10 years old. It was a very small amount and out of that I laid aside 10% to give to Sunday school, % to spend on candy or other indulgences, a % for buying gifts for others, % for clothing, % for saving. I charted my spending and learned early that if I wanted something I had to wait and save. If a birthday or holiday was coming I had to save to give gifts and this I did. I took great pride in being able to be responsible for these things and great joy in buying my own gifts and some clothing. My grandmother made most of our clothes. I shared my sweaters with my sister.
We also did chores when I was growing up. Every Saturday there was housework and outdoor work to do. We would ask my mother what she wanted us to do and we did it; wash windows, sweep the floor, iron, dust, rake leaves, hoe in the garden, etc. There were also daily chores like setting the table, washing the dishes, feeding and watering the chickens. We also did them without complaint or a thought of rebellion. This was all work that had to be done. We all lived in the house and the adults were busy doing other work and caring for the younger children. From this I learned to truly enjoy these household tasks for my whole life.
So with my own children I decided that we would have a similar manner. We would work because it is our duty to help care for the place in which we lived. Every Saturday we had cleaning time for about 1 to 2 hours. There was a list of chores on the refrigerator that had to be completed and we could choose what we wanted to do. In the beginning I would help my children with the chores they chose so that they could learn what it meant to do it thoroughly. As one chore was complete it would be crossed off the list and another would be chosen.
They were also given money with which to be responsible for certain expenses just as I had been. If their eyes were too big and they wanted something they could not afford, they would have to wait and save up for it. By beginning this learning when they were young they held to the example of not to spending what they did not have. This was an important lesson for my son who had ADD and seemed to walk around with holes in his pocket and a most generous nature toward others in need. Later on they were both able to help pay their ways through college by working and scholarships thus graduating without any debt. For this they are both grateful and I am pleased for the gratefulness.

BEING THANKFUL

   Thanksgiving is coming and one begins to think about the things for which we are grateful and how we can express it. Being thankful for our food and blessing it with a prayer before we eat has been a time-honored tradition in every country around the world and in all religions. However, in the last 20 years in America and in other countries it is losing its importance. Maybe it is because we eat so many meals in restaurants and we are embarrassed to show our private ritual in front of strangers who might not share our ways. Maybe it is because we eat so many meals on the run and thereby we forget in the haste. Maybe the tradition was a meaningless one, which we carried on only at the holiday times with the extended family, and now that everyone has moved away from the homestead, the force, which brought prayer, has dissipated. May I venture to say, maybe it is because we have lost our connection to that which is greater than ourselves, the God, the Spirit, the Creator, the energy that permeates all things, with which all ancient people communed intimately.

 

  I came from a family of tradition. We always began our evening meal with our usual blessing. Only then, did we pass the food, serve it and eat it, along with conversation about our lives and the world. No one rose from the table until our father said, “Let’s pray.” Then we said another long honored verse, ”Oh give thanks unto the Lord for He is good and his mercy endures forever. Amen.” Only then did we begin to clear the dishes away and go about our evening tasks. Sometimes we lingered for additional conversation, but it would not have been complete without the closing prayer. As the folks grew older and we lingered more, we would all forget if we had prayed but then we agreed to pray again because twice was better than not at all.

  Now in my own life we continue the tradition of beginning our meal with prayer. We often forget the closing prayer as some wander off amidst other activities or work, which calls, but the opening prayer is steadfast. We even manage to say it in a crowded restaurant quietly together or with bowed heads silently to ourselves. 

  Truly, it is more than a tradition. Something greater is taking place. This is a moment of quiet, of reflection, of gratefulness.

  The food we eat we often take for granted. Our supermarkets are abundantly full of food from all around the world. We have plenty. We do not have to work in the fields or wonder if it will rain or be the right temperature for food to grow. Some farmer somewhere does that for us. We are separate from the miracle of the seed in the earth and its sprouting and growth. For many, a trip to the farm where food is grown is a revelation of the mystery of food. On a field trip once, a parent told me it was the first time they had ever picked food from its source. She stood in awe of the experience.

   Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education, wrote about the importance of children being able to feel veneration for another person, so when they grow up they feel happy when they are able to feel veneration for other things. This later transforms itself into a veneration for truth and knowledge.  If you have ever met a person in the last years of their life and you experience what a blessing they are to know, then that person when they were a child experienced reverence for someone or something greater than themselves. How do we give this feeling of reverence to our children so they can be a blessing to the generations to come?

">So That You May Be One, Joa Bolendas tells of seeing the workings of the greater spirit behind the priest or minister in a church. She describes the light of that being pouring down upon the officiator.  When we bless our food, we are calling upon the greater spirit to live in our food and not only nourish our body but our soul and spirit too. If you can truly live in this image then your young child will feel it too. You do not need to explain it, just live in it.

 If you imagine all those who worked to bring this meal to you, the farmer, the truck driver, the store worker, the cashier, your spouse, then this image, too, will guide you to deeper levels of thankfulness. As children grow older, perhaps 11 or 12, a practice could be made of occasionally acknowledging all who labored for your meal.

  

  The feeling of reverence is becoming more and more difficult to experience in the time in which we live. Everyone and everything is criticized. Even if the accuser does not see the dark side, they often speculate and insinuate its presence anyway. If the young child before age 9 or 10 is exposed to this criticism and mistrust of the good things and people then they have no hope or vision for the greater future good. This we cannot afford for our children to lose.

Dr. Masaru Emoto, of Japan, has proven the power of words through his work with water. He fills bottles of water, exposes them to words, music, or prayer, and then freezes them. He photographs the resulting crystals. The frozen crystals reflect the words or sounds by becoming “ugly” or “beautiful”. There is a clear difference between war and Beethoven. He also said that a group who held hands in prayer forms lovelier crystals than one who just held hands. He shows us through science that even on a molecular level matter is affected by thought and words.

  We can support and kindle reverence in the child by stopping to watch a remarkable sunset or an ant building its home or a silent thank you before a meal or a true word of appreciation for someone who you admire. Or dare I say, we could even say a word of thanks for someone who has done us a “disservice” in our life, as one day we will know how that act led us to an important change of which we could not have arrived had they not inflicted us with their deed.  

  It is not a small gift you are giving by showing reverence to someone or something; it is a gift, which will deeply live in the child’s soul. The first nine years are the time when the child imitates everyone in his or her environment. From this, they develop their whole being, even down to their physical organs.

Reverence is one of those soul foods, which our children desperately need. It is as important as the good organic food we eat. The gift of reverence is a gift for a lifetime.

www.youtube.com/ Positive & Negative Energy Effects on Water

References: So That You May Be One, Joa Bolendas, Lindisfarne Books, Hudson, N.Y.1997

Knowledge Of the Higher Worlds , Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophic Press, 1947

The Hidden Messages in Water, Masaru Emoto, Beyond Words Publishing, 2004

Rolling Stone Wisdom and a Child's Birth

"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes...you get what you need." In my youth when I first heard this pearl of wisdom sung by the Rolling Stones, I wasn't sure what it meant, even though I sang the words along with the radio hundreds of times. As this phrase has stuck to me like a mantra swelling up at certain appropriate moments, its truth has only grown clearer to me with time. Now when I perceive a major, life changing earthquake occurring in my life I wonder, "What am I getting that I need? How long will it take me to discover the answer?" Not months, but years, I now realize it will take to have a glimmer of how my life has just changed for the better even though it appears it has all collapsed. I tell myself, if I have the patience of self reflection, over time I might one day know.
  As my grandson came into the world, not through an easy, reasonable length birth but through days of labor; not in the quiet, rural place of his home, but in a third world hospital; not through the planned no drug entry with a midwife, but physically pushed by doctors who snipped away to create a needed earthly entrance to take his first breath; not a peaceful rest in his mother's arms and natural nursing, but a moment together then whisked away to an incubator and formula for twelve hours. "Why this way?", I ask. I have known for years that Nestle pushes formula in the hospitals of third world countries, depriving mothers and babies of the naturally wholesome breast milk and natural suckling in order to sell more formula to uninformed, inexperienced mothers. How could something like this have happened in my family? But it did and being so far away I have to accept what is beyond my grasp. What was the need of my grandson in this situation?
  "There is no one right way to care for a baby, my son reminds me! One does the best they can with less than ideal circumstances. We are all alive and healthy."  He is right, I must concede. I am grateful.
  I harken back to other, 'A ha moments' when I knew it was not earthly control but other worldly wisdom guiding. I had a student some years ago, I will call Nick, who entered the classroom each day slowly, pausing at the doorway, surveying the room quietly, for sometimes what seemed like an eternity for a 4 year old. He watched everyone intently and then at this own pace, slowly, chose a place in the already deeply involved play, to enter in. Soon he was melded into the totally encompassing kindergarten imaginative play life.
  I always knew he saw, was aware of, something that lay beyond what most human beings could perceive. At times he would reveal a glimpse to me. "You are golden," he told me with shining eyes one dark winter day, even though my dress was green.
  Not long after that he told his mother that his sister would come into the world through the dark tunnel even though he could not. (He had been born by Cesarean section. ) His mother did not know in the moment to what he was referring but  a week later she found out she was pregnant. Nine months later her daughter was born through natural childbirth and did indeed, come down the 'dark tunnel' birth canal. When she told me this story I knew it was true, even our birth is what we need not what our parents might want, imagine, and prepare.
  Since then I have had numerous opportunities to surrender to the gift of greater wisdom and my need. It was not my wants that came to be when my first husband left me for another woman or when it came to the ill experienced, troubled teacher my child would get in school or the beloved jobs I would lose or gain. My choice would not have allowed for the exploration of another journey path in life or the deep inner growth that came from these challenging life experiences. These were not choices I would have made consciously in those moments but were thrust upon me and became a gift over time. In those moments when I was pushed kicking and screaming to a new way of seeing life, another pearl of life wisdom would jump to the forefront of my mind, "All things work together for good, to them who love God."
  "OK, show me,' is my trust-less inner response still whispered after so many years of being shown, but it is not as loud as it used to be.

A Child is Coming Into the World!

  Depending on a person's life situation this thought can create elation or fear, joyful expectation or sad anticipation, hope or despair. Nevertheless, we all were that child to our mother and hopefully, our father. Our certain journey to earthly life began. And the thoughts around us began to contribute to our forming. 
  If you read a little in The Secret Life of the Unborn Child you will learn that the child in the womb is experiencing the activities of their mother from the early months onward. There are numerous accounts of the child later in their life remembering sounds and sensations. Those events were formative in the lives of those individuals. `
  This leads me to wonder if protecting pregnant mothers from loud, invasive sounds even food processors, vacuum cleaners, raucous music, movie theaters, etc. is not a first step in giving our unborn children a peaceful beginning. In some European countries there is already an understanding mothers to be and mothers of young children belong not in the work place but nesting, resting and preparing for the most important of tasks on earth-preparing life for our youngest human beings so they might come gently into this earthly realm. 
  Let us be grateful to every father who gives the gift to the mother of their child the possibility to make a quiet, clean, warm-hearted home for the family without the added stress of earning money. Many other fathers wish for this but it is  not within their financial grasp to their dismay. Even this thought is a support for a family for it is offered selflessly with love. 
  The task of raising up the future generation is the most important task we can be given. With humility and self sacrificing love we must choose to embark upon this road.  At first one thinks it is only our own child, a small babe in arms, who is being cared for by us. In a short time we realize the ripple effect of our words and actions as they cascade out into the world through our children to affect everyone with whom the child has contact. 
  I hope that with a few words of encouragement given in this writing and those to come we can learn together how to raise up these future generations who will carry humanity to the next level of human awakening. 
  My immediate personal interest in the future has been stimulated anew by the birth of my first grandchild, a boy, a fortnight ago. He came into the world 1500 miles away after 9 1/2 months of gestation and 3 days of constant labor. He has already given his parents the gift of patient joy. Their tenacity and intuition made his arrival unforgettable. Now we can hold the image of his unique entrance into the world and contemplate how that sets the stage for his future life. 
  Blessings to all parents as they strive to protect, nurture, and fully love the most precious gift anyone can receive.