The Gratitude Talk

Confession: My kids are spoiled.

There are. They have a lot of people in their lives that love them and show that love by buying them gifts…big gifts. And yet, there are days when I feel like all I hear is…

“School was boring.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“I don’t want to eat that.”

“But I wanted this.”

Complain. Complain. Complain. I sincerely fear for my children. I recognize seeds of selfishness that I fear will grow into trees of ingratitude. It started off with my generation and has only gotten worse as North America has become consumed with consumerism.

We take for granted a warm place to sleep, good food to eat and the privilege of going to school, having access to clean water and being able to play soccer, dance, do gymnastics.

I don’t think I have to tell you that this doesn’t only applies to children either. Bréne Brown in her book Gifts of Imperfection makes an excellent point when she says,

“But here’s the dilemma: Why is ‘how-to’ so alluring when, truthfully, we already know ‘how to’ yet we’re still standing in the same place longing for more joy, connection, and meaning?

Most everyone reading this book knows how to eat healthy…We also know how to make good choices with our money. We know how to take care of our emotional needs. We know all of this, yet…

We are the most obese, medicated, addicted, and in-debt Americans EVER.” (Pg. 36)

Yesterday, as we were chatting with our lunch company we were contemplating why people do not practice hospitality anymore. We came to the conclusion that it is because are selfish. We are too busy trying to get what we want and do what we think we want.

I asked Jakob what would make school not boring to which he replied, “if there were iphones and ipads everywhere.” Suddenly, sirens and lights are going off all around me. What have I created?

We are in a day in age when we can have access to anything we want. We can do anything we want. We can be anyone we want. But will we ever be happy? I have to ask myself the same question. I feel like I have been complaining about life for the last year and a half. And while Ben and I will occasionally call out our discontentment and ask, “are we truly discontent or is this just a season – is it simply circumstantial” I wonder if our attitudes, (even though we try not to discuss our discontentment around the kids) is slowly infecting them.

So I had the gratitude talk with Jakob. I said if we can’t be grateful for the things that we have, then we should not have them in the first place. Now, I admit, I’m probably not winning the parent of the year award here, after all, I included the Deathstar in those things which we don’t deserve if we can’t be grateful but honestly, what else do you say? It makes my heart so sad to hear him come home from school and say it was boring or say he doesn’t like violin, or choir, or soccer, or anything. My husband assures me it is just a stage, but friends, I am so worried – if he is like this at 6yrs old what will he be like at 15?