Just last weekend, Jon and I were sitting down trying to figure out what to do about Christmas. What to do about our children tearing through present after present after present, discarding each one behind them as they search for the next one with their names on it without so much as a glance at the person who gave it to them or even a minute to marvel at the new treasure they were given. It's not a usual kick-off-to-summer type of conversation, but it's been on my brain off and on since a) last Christmas, and b) finishing up another school year in my extremely wealthy district.
It was probably just a couple of weeks ago when I brought my Wii into the classroom for my students to play as a celebration/bonding activity. The students, without question, had the best time in Literacy class that they'd had all year (trust me, I have no illusions about this despite some of the self-professed amazing lessons on plot structure they experienced, in my humble opinion). The goofy dancing game was so popular, in fact, that I had not one, but two students tell me on the following Monday that their parents had either bought them the game, or the game console and the game over the weekend. A third student told me that she was thinking about putting a Wii at the top of her wish list, over the iPad, for her birthday, though her Kinect has kept her perfectly satisfied since she turned 11. My students are all around age 12. They are not graduating high school or even accomplishing something notable enough to justify $250 worth of gifts on a random weekend. Some of their parents, however, believe that they deserve such showering of gifts because their kids simply want them. Because our culture has evolved from the days of Austen: it is a truth universally acknowledged that a child of well-meaning parents must be in want (and possession) of everything. As a result, their children are sometimes extremely sweet, normal kids (and sometimes self-important rascals) who also seem to understand that they deserve extravagant gifts because that's the way their world operates. It's just how things are.
So, back to Christmas. Both of my kids' birthdays are within 20 days of Christmas. Not only do they take home a truckload of gifts on their birthdays from all of their generous aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends, but then they do it twice with Christmas time factored in. Zeke is not quite old enough yet to understand why hundreds of dollars worth of gifts suddenly appear in our house during the winter, but Gracie, at three, is starting to. She's already starting to expect it. I'm aware of how melodramatic this thought is going to sound, but my mind is creeping to Student X and Y who are lovely children and believe they deserve gifts because their parents and family members are generous and can afford it.
I want to nurture in my children not only gratitude, but also the spirit of giving. That our purpose here is not to receive 80% and give 20%. That the world needs to see more selfless people who can give and not count the cost, as quipped in my favorite prayer by St. Ignatius. That we aren't entitled to be given mountains of gifts just because we were fortunate enough to be born in the middle class suburbs in a family that loves us. That our extreme wealth in circumstance is the very reason we need to be denying ourselves more and extending love to those who are without. I want my children's Christmas memories to be more about others, steeped in love and faith, and less about quantity of gifts.
This is where I become very overwhelmed. To teach my children these things, I need to fully understand it myself and put it into practice more often. Yet daily, daily, I find reasons and justification for taking more for myself.
Earlier in the week, I found myself sobbing while folding laundry. We had just returned from a short trip to the lake house, deprived of sleep, and were staring down the witching hours before bedtime. I was craving a break, so I grabbed a laundry basket and closed the bedroom door behind me. Then I melted into self-pity between the balls of socks and folded squares of t-shirts. With my forehead pressed into the mattress, I entered into a conversation with God. The words of the prayer I mentioned earlier, the Prayer for Generosity, scrolled through my head, "Lord, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve as You deserve; to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for reward except to know that I do Your will." I explained to God that it's the toil and labor part that gets me. Sometimes I'm just tired, and I do need rest. I need it, don't I, to be a good mother? Then I stopped talking, because Jon was downstairs with the kids, emptying out their suitcases while they played nearby, and I had abandoned him, as if my own fatigue was somehow more extreme than his. I called myself out on my own behavior and decided to stop explaining. I listened for God's advice.
He was telling me nicely that I didn't really deserve anything. Nobody does. "Deserving" is something that comes from people and our cultural norms. What we "deserve" is in our heads, because it all depends on our environment, social upbringing, etc. Someone in St. Louis feels he deserves a summer with less humidity; someone in Africa feels he deserves another goat. It's a human notion. Outside of my limited understanding of the universe, I don't really deserve anything. Nothing good, and nothing bad. Deserving is a human thing, and I only should really concern myself with serving God and being an expression of peace and love (the best I can). So, those times where I've just come back from a vacation home during these lovely, wide-open summer days that we teachers get, and my beautiful kids are driving me a lukewarm version of crazy, I should not be concerning myself with "deserving," because it's all in my head. My family needs me, and the messages I send myself about preserving time alone because I might fail shows a lack of trust that God's grace exists. I need to know that I can actually ask and receive whenever I want from a Heavenly benefactor--not piles of presents, but grace to get through the times when I tell myself I deserve more. Once I understand that, I think, I can better extend myself beyond, well, myself.
I want my kids to not have to learn about service and selflessness as late as I have. I don't want them to grow up believing that they "deserve" everything in the world because they are born privileged. I really don't want another Christmas to go by where we've allowed ourselves to bask in all that we have and not sacrifice in love for others who have less. I want to stop asking myself, "What should I buy for the kids who have everything?" I want the kids who have everything (including myself), to spend Christmas (and eventually, a life time) sharing the wealth. It's rolling around in our brains, what to do about Christmas. What to do to spend more time serving, and less time deserving.
