A grandmother was talking to me about her granddaughter whom
we shall call Sophia. Sophia who is now
16 grew up quite privileged. Her father was very well-off and happily spoiled
his daughter. Sophia has an older
half-sister named Maria. Maria and Sophia have the same mom but have different
dads. Maria vividly recounted Christmas in their household when Sophia was much
younger. Sophia would be showered with dozens of expensive gifts, she would sit
on the floor opening one present looking at it for 10 seconds then literally
throwing the present to the side to move on to opening the next present. Maria said that there was no gratitude in
Sophia’s heart because it was nothing special to her anymore….she could get
those toys or books or clothes any time she wanted anyway. At least that was the truth until around 4
years ago. Sophia’s life took a dramatic turn.
Her father went bankrupt and their finances plunged and
unfortunately Sophia struggled to adjust. Her grandmother said that they had
viand that was meant to be shared but that Sophia decided she didn’t want to
eat rice and just ate all the viand herself leaving none for her companion.
It was a minor thing. It however spoke volumes about her
mindset and point-of-view. I do not blame Sophia at all. How can we expect her
to know how to share when she hasn’t
ever been asked to all her life. Money was no object in the past and so
she never had to consider someone else when eating. Sophia grew up sheltered and now ever having
to think about the cost of food or consider how consuming something at home
could impact another person’s meal.
I couldn’t help but compare the same situation with my
daughter Andrea. You see, my daughter
was around 4 when we experienced our lowest point financially. Andrea was blissfully unaware that we were
struggling but she knew about limited resources because we explained it to her.
For example, there would be times when the 4 of us (my husband, my daughter,
our helper and myself) would share 1 can of SPAM for dinner. The SPAM would be
split into 12 slices and each of us would have 3 slices each. I distinctly
remember one time when Andrea asked if she could have more. I explained to her
that she could get one but that would mean another person would have less. She decided not to take one. From that point
on, every single time we would eat SPAM (please don’t judge, we don’t eat it
often but it is a guilty treat we do enjoy every once in a while) my daughter
took it upon herself to dutifully divide the SPAM in order to make sure everyone
had enough.
Fast forward 5 years later. We were doing a bit better
financially (we could actually afford to open more than one can of SPAM for a
meal hahaha) but the lesson of those difficult times still remains in our
hearts and our daughter’s hearts. I remember just last month when we were
eating chicken. There were 3 people
eating and 6 pieces of chicken, my daughter has eaten her two pieces and I
wasn’t going to eat mine so I asked her if she would want to eat another piece.
She looked at me and said “But mom then you won’t have enough” and I told her I
am fine because I preferred to eat more of the veggies than the chicken. She
thanked me profusely and got her next piece.
I shared this story to my husband with tears welling up to
my eyes. When we were struggling 5 years ago,
our mindset was just survival and relying on Jesus we never thought of life lessons. Now in hindsight
those times brought us so many blessings in terms of character development and life lessons.
One blessing is the lesson we were able to impart to our daughter of
caring for others and not only considering herself. I know for a fact that
despite my good intentions and my training in parenting I would never have
thought of teaching this lesson to my daughter. I had to teach her that lesson
because we were in the midst of lack. Had we been experiencing abundance then,
I wouldn’t have needed to teach her!
So I ask parents to find blessings in your struggles. Use your
struggles as an opportunity to teach your kids life lessons particularly about
resilience and faith and empathy.
(P.S. I just want to make sure to point out to make sure
that we share the lessons to our kids without burdening them with our problems.
There is a difference.)
