Are you helping or hurting?
I don’t know if it is the economy of today, or if people have changed that much, but the dynamics of society have changed. I was married at the age 18, and my husband and I had no savings to speak of. What we did have is a car payment, and an old-fashioned set of values. We didn’t have a plan per say, about how we were going to live our lives, we just knew we wanted to be together. My husband had a job, and insisted I would stay at home like his mother and my mother did. We found a little one bedroom house to rent which we could afford on his wages. We bought a refrigerator for $25 and got hand me down stove, kitchen set, box springs and mattress. We were ready for life now, all set up in our little house. Determined to make it on our own, we stuck to a rigid budget. I could spend $20 a week on groceries, and not one penny more. We paid our bills on time, that money coming out of the pay check first. We saved our money until we had $120 to buy a whole living room set, couch, chair, two end tables, and a coffee table and two lamps, all brand new. We were coming up in the world, they all matched!
We learned things as we went along, like the space between the front door and the storm door keep the food better than the refrigerator did. But I grew bored after three months of sitting home alone, out in the country with no car, while he was at work. To help with the loneliness he got me a cat, but you can only read, and play with a cat and solitaire so much before you go a little crazy. I ask if I could get a job, but that idea was greeted with a resounding NO! What am I going to do? Well, you can take care of kids, so we planned on having a family. No problem there, but the house had sulfur water and when morning sickness hit the rotten egg smell didn’t bode well for me. I thought I was going to die! I didn’t die, and we will be together for 50 years this year. We have had help, and have given help, and paid some forward, but I hope we are never guilty of enabling anyone.
Do you know any of today’s generation starting out in life that way? They start out their lives with two cars, two or three TVs, and a set of parents that will be paying off their wedding for the next five years. They leave their childhood homes, with the expectations of moving into a place furnished like, what took 25 years of work, for their parents to accumulate. So how did all this happen? How did we become a generation of hard-working, sacrificing people, to excuse making, indulging, over compensating parents? When did the train jump the tracks to raising independent self-reliant children?
Don’t misunderstand what I am saying, everyone needs a hand up once in a while. Most of us helped our children when they went to college. But some of us paid their way to party city, and didn’t even demand good grades, while second mortgages were being taken out on our homes. I have two friends, whose children went to college, got good enough grades to get degrees, and still live at home. They offer nothing to help pay the bills, even when they do have jobs, which doesn’t ever seem to be for long stretches of time. One acquaintance takes her children to drug recovery programs every day, while watching the grandchildren in the car, and when they get home.
Everyone and every circumstance is different. I am extremely blessed, in that my children went to college, paid their own way, with scholarships and student loans and paid them off themselves! All are self-reliant, and I am very proud of each and every one of them.
My husband and I still have deep discussions about decisions we are going to make, and whether it will be a help or an enabling factor for the future of our family. The trouble with enabling someone, is you are making them weak and hurting them. Even though you have the best intentions, irreparable harm can occur when you are an enabler. Just as a baby bird, turtle, or butterfly must struggle to come into their own, people too must struggle from time to time.
You can still help people, but hold them accountable for what you do for them. If they borrow money, set up a manageable payment schedule for them and make them stick to it. You will not always be there to help, so if you love them, let them struggle and get stronger, and learn to stand on their own two feet. It is the best help you could ever give them.
As parents it is our nurturing senses that tempt us to indulge our children. Letting them have pop instead of water, or sweets before bed. For us to be good parents we must be vigilant to help them stand on their own two feet and be responsible for their actions. Irresponsibility is a learned behavior, so what are you teaching your children?
We as authors, often have the underdog, rise to the top, because of their tenacity, ability to make do, and be grateful for what they have. Always striving to better themselves, and not make excuses. We need to apply those standards in the raising of our youths today.
For every man shall bear his own burden.
Galatians 6:5
He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.
Proverbs 10:4
But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
I Timothy 5:8
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
Ephesians 5:11
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
II Thessalonians 3:10