As parents, we try to invoke in our children a sense of gratitude and generosity. We ask them to say thank you. We coerce them into sharing. And we do so because we know that they could have it worse.
At the same time, we work on keeping that knowledge from the kids. We don't share with them the stress and efforts that go into providing them with a good life. We ask them to be grateful on faith, because we say so.
How do we help our children to understand, thereby giving them the belief that they should be grateful and generous? How do we make their sharing more then an empty gesture?
My exploration of Heathenry includes the study of the modern interpretation of Heathen values, the Nine Noble Virtues. One of these is the virtue of hospitality.
Hospitality is the concept of opening your home to those who need/ask it. But unlike the Christian concept of charity, Heathens believe that receiving this generosity invokes a debt of honor and reciprocation.
It was not unusual for a host to ask a favor of his/her guest, such as aid in a building project, hunting, killing a human or animal menace, and more. The host was expected to only ask for that which the guest was capable of providing, while the guest was expected to fulfill the request without hesitation. Beowulf is actually the story of such a request.
But why would this be acceptable, to demand a boon from a guest?
It all comes down to resources. Hosting a guest requires the provision of foods, bathing items, bedding and entertainment. To be able to host a guest, one has to have these things in reserve, that is, in addition to what one needs for the family to survive.
To be a guest is to strain anothers' resources. But it isn't just the use of resources and the cost of the disposables that a guest uses.
To be a host, one doesn't just provide food, but also the plates and utensils to eat and serve the food, the kitchen, pots and pans to cook the food. It isn't just the pork, but the salting to have preserved it. It isn't just carrots, but the herbs to flavor it. Add in the years of experience to develop cooking technique, and a simple meal can have a huge investment by the host. An overnight guest requires an extra space and bedding which the host must acquire and maintain.
So generosity isn't just about the resources consumed, it's also about developing and maintaining the ability to be a host. All of these are taken into account when considering the debt of a guest.
Now, it isn't as though they walked around with a ledger. It was about the spirit of that. They also took into account that a host may someday find themselves a guest. In the cold, harsh northern climate, this could easily be a matter of survival. So, the spirit of generosity to others became about a social debt that everyone owed each other for survivals' sake.
But how does this apply to teaching children?
We can talk to our children about the efforts required to get things. Talk to them about how paying the electric bill let's us charge handheld games, and the cable & internet bills give us tv and that website we love to visit.
Talk to children about how paying our bills allows us to share those benefits with their friends when they visit, and how they share it with us when we visit.
Talk to children about money (it's important to let them experience that knowledge... before they are dropped into the world of paying their own bills) and time, paychecks and bills. How much time does mom and dad have to spend at work to pay for the internet the kids use every day? How much time & money would they save if they spent x amount of time without the lights on?
If kids get an allowance, talk to them about how much time they spend earning it, and talk to them about how much they use on top of that.
You don't have to be accusatory or call them lazy mooches. Just show them the facts, bit by bit, and they will begin to understand the work and effort that they would have to do to get that thing you bought them.
And then, maybe, they will be truly grateful.
