While parenting young children, you always hope you are doing a good job. In the daily up and downs, the temper tantrums, disagreements, firm talks, routines, school work, homework, play dates, chores, sports — it goes on and on!– you can often feel unsure about how it’s all going. Are you raising good kids? The time does fly, and you hope you are sharing your values with your kids as well as helping them grow up knowing how to survive on their own.
Now that our kids are pretty much grown, I stumble upon little signs now and then that make me feel quite proud of our parenting skills and hopeful, even, about the future. One such occasion happened recently.
On a Saturday afternoon, I was talking with our son, who we fondly call The Boy, even though he is fully grown and lives with his young family live not far from us. We were discussing our activities of the day. Mine had included a stop by the local Kiwanis’ Thrift Sale Shop to drop off a couple bags of some no-longer-needed items.
The Little Family, as we call them, had included a drop-off at the Kiwanis in their day as well. That made me feel quite pleased.
To me, it seems no big deal that we should have “excess stuff” in our house. We’ve been around a lot longer and have absorbed the belongings of relatives and also have a tendency to accumulate stuff. Jim and I think it’s right and good to pass on clothes we don’t wear, household items we don’t use, books, CD’s, etc, that don’t fit into our lives anymore. The “Kiwanis Bag” is a long-standing tradition in our home; the bag waits patiently until brimming and then the next Saturday we make a run by the drop-off. To us, donating items shows a small bit of generosity in being able to give away (as opposed to selling) possessions as well as a sense of care of the earth in not throwing away still useful objects.
Apparently, the Little Family feels the same way. So I’m just saying: maybe we did something right.
