Just Because You Can...

Just because you can afford to spoil your children, does that mean you should?

What responsibility do parents have toward their children? The basics: food, shelter, clothing. All else is gravy. Let's take a little look into the recent past.

Less than a hundred years ago, a child would consider herself lucky to have her own bed, let alone a room all to herself. Three square meals a day; an after school snack was luxury. She might have two outfits for school and one for Sunday. Getting up in a cold house, and lighting a fire or a heater to take off the chill was normal. If one was lucky enough to have indoor plumbing, it included one bathroom for the entire family. Water had to be heated as needed. It was pumped by a hand into the kitchen sink. Early washing machines were agitated by means of a hand crank. The wringer washer got filled with hot water, and things were washed in the following order: whites (sheets, shirts, towels, undies) first, while the water was clean and hot, followed by school and work clothes, and lastly, play clothes, gardening clothes and cleaning rags. Then the water was drained out, and rinse water put in. Some things got rinsed and wrung by hand, but sheets and such things as could benefit from being put through the mangle would be rinsed in the machine. The heavy baskets were carried outside, and the clothing hung on a clothesline to dry. Most houses had an indoor clothesline that lowered on a pulley from the kitchen ceiling for when the weather was not conducive to outdoor drying.

So many of the comforts we take for granted, and raise our children to take for granted, were unbelievable luxuries to our grandparents.

When electricity was new, often only the downstairs of a house was wired. People still carried a lamp up to bed. Even if one had central heat, one still had to fuel the furnace with coal or wood.

We scramble to the microwave when our kids say, "I'm hungry." We don't think of the time when satisfying that hunger involved lighting a fire in the stove, and baking something from scratch. Hunger is satisfied, these days, in 45 seconds, and heralded by a beep.

We no longer fix things. Your bicycle tire needs a patch? Throw it out and buy a new one. Your jeans have a hole in the knee? Tear the other to match. There's a hole in your sock? Chuck it!

Even as recently as my generation, we had one bathroom, one car, one phone, one TV. I remember getting my own record player, and the old radio from the kitchen when Mom got a new one. It was a luxury to be able to listen to my music whenever I was allowed to go to my room.

A significant amount of time was spent doing chores. Collecting eggs, feeding chickens, gardening, housework, simple cooking, washing dishes, setting the table, ironing, cleaning out the hen house (eeww), walking the dog; all these things were expected of me.

Homework happened in the kitchen, where Mom could make sure it was done.

So, here's where I'm at for today. Put a comfortable roof over your child's head. Provide nutritional food. Get him enough clothes to keep him warm. Anything beyond that--make him earn it. Much better preparation for life than handing it to him. He wants an IPOD? there's always yard work or carwashing. $80 jeans? Lots of people need a babysitter. His own car? Ha! Mickey D's is hiring!

We are not doing the next generation any favours by giving them everything they want, as if we owe it to them.

We don't.