“But mom, why can’t I do my homework in front of the TV??? I’m not watching it, I’m just listening to it!!”, says my 12-year-old girl, emphasizing the word ‘watching’ with a half roll of the eyes.
My daughter is a really cool human & a great child. She is a tween so craziness and challenges come with the territory. Still, she has sweet moments, and she “OKs” everything, whether she remembers later or not.
But, my life was very different growing up in Italy and then Tanzania…
By age 9 my older brother & I alternated daily chores. We had to do dishes & sweep daily. There was no dillydallying, no talk-back, no having to dry our hands to like a song on Pandora…. none of that. We did homework on the kitchen table, our beds, in the yard, and wherever else. After I was done with homework I’d have to use the house phone, speak to a parent with good phone manners, & find out if my friends could come play. There was no texting them.
Everyone knew our plans; at least initially (smile). Outside we used our imagination to play with nothing. We picnicked under a tree in this huge sunflower field. We rode our bikes in circles in the bus’ parking lot and made sure we were home when the lights came on.
When I was 11 we moved back to Tanzania. Life here was drastically different, yet, in some respects there was more access to things than we had in the small Italian town we lived in. However, constant electricity and running water were gone. We had a western toilet in our home, but often had to use toilets requiring squatting, be they a hole over a sceptic tank, or an Eastern latrine. Not having water & electricity all the time required planning.
Though there was hired help, we also had to fetch water. If you don’t like fetching water you learn to use it sparingly. You take a shower from a bucket that’s a quarter full and come out clean! You recycle water so that first you wash your hair by dipping it into the bucket, then use the same water as the first cycle of your laundry, which you wash by hand. Having city-wide rationed electricity, meant ensuring you have kerosene, wick for lamps, and match sticks. You actually needed plenty of match sticks in Tanzania, because there is this one brand that makes them and you’re lucky if one out of five matches actually lights up & stays lit. HAHA!
We must see these things as humorous. Lack of electricity and paying for it in advance, meant using it responsibly. The radio would be on, and so would the TV for some parts of the day. We knew to close the fridge fast and to unplug the iron as soon as the job was done. Ironing was not always done with an electrical iron, either. Some times we would use a charcoal iron. It sounds like it’s from an entire different era, right? It’s still being used. A charcoal cast iron had to be used carefully. You’d also plan how to get hot coals so instead of wasting charcoal, kerosene fuel, and good match sticks, you’d use the charcoal for cooking. That required planning as well. A lot of planning and patience for a youngster, and children had to consider all these things from toddlerhood!
I am so infinitely grateful we lived this kind of life in my teenage years. Though I am sure I threw crazy hormonal arrows (figuratively speaking) at my mom, I think that having to deal with these realities made me get myself together quickly, thus sparing her six years of teenage craze. As far as school goes…wow! We had mandatory knee-high socks & buffed black shoes, mandatory hair pleats that I never had, monitors & prefects who thrived on their power to make us kneel for ‘misbehavior’, and hit-happy, switch-carrying teachers in the hallways who would whack you for no good reason.
In elementary school we had to chant….slowly & loudly…..”GOOD MORNING TEACHER!” Then we’d answer & ask, “FINE THANK YOU TEACHER, AND HOW ARE YOU, TEACHER?”, then we’d be permitted to sit down. In boarding school we had exactly 30 minutes to eat. The first year we ate food we individually cooked the night before, hoping it was still good without refrigeration. As a senior, food was made for us, so we’d hope it was ready & that we didn’t have to scoop bugs out of our beans. We’d always wash our dishes before returning to class. All of this, in 30 minutes.
At this school there was no corporal punishment. However, if we were late or didn’t follow other rules, we’d have some agricultural work for at least one period.
We studied in the hall after we cleaned our dinner mess. After two hours of supervised solid studying, we’d return to our hostel rooms (mine had four bunk beds with three beds each), and lights were out by 10pm. Everyone took showers in the morning, which I found to be unnecessary as the water was very cold, so I would leave some water in the courtyard for the sun to heat , and take a shower after school.
When I came to the United States I didn’t think I had a different work ethic than anyone else. I thought we all work hard & have different struggles. As the years passed I began to see certain differences & felt extremely fortunate for my history as it was.
As a girl I was lucky that my mother (who is partially Afghani & Punjabi) didn’t believe that I was worthless, blessed that she believed in education and sent me to school. I was also fortunate that I wasn’t betrothed at a young age, or at all. As I was in college I understood that I was privileged and had to make other women proud.
I would have to get the best grades, be a well-rounded student & not take electricity and running water for granted. So when my daughter asks why she can’t do her homework in front of TV, I don’t know what to say! OK, I do answer her, trying to use logic she’ll understand. She visited Tanzania for a few months in 2010, but she cannot relate to my history.
When my daughter was round age four she always asked if she could help with chores, but as I tried to rush I’d ask her to draw or play instead. I thought the environment around us would do for her what it did for me at her age. I knew I wasn’t in Italy, or in Tanzania, but I still thought I wouldn’t be the only one pushing for a balanced human. I also didn’t anticipate technology advancing so incredibly fast & how much gadgetry she would have at her disposal. In retrospect I should have encouraged her willingness to help.
She is now 12, doesn’t like to do any chores other than the occasional Swiffer mopping. She wants to do homework while listening to TV, somehow ignoring the visuals, and she wants to spend her other homework time listening to pop songs. She does practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and has a unique passion for it. But when not doing her school work, she looks at photos with funny quotes, watches short videos, and messages her friends on her phone. Our lives are so different. How do I teach her what I’ve been taught?
Is it drive? Is it thirst? Can you relate? How do you teach your children how to work hard? Please share your findings with me!
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Sophia in Florida, USA. You can find her blogging at Think Say Be and on twitter @ThinkSayBeSNJ.
Photo credit to Trocaire. This photo has a creative commons attribution license.
ThinkSayBe
I am a mom amongst some other titles life has fortunately given me. I love photography & the reward of someone being really happy about a photo I took of her/him. I work, I study, I try to pay attention to life. I like writing. I don't understand many things...especially why humans treat each other & other living & inanimate things so vilely sometimes. I like to be an idealist, but when most fails, I do my best to not be a pessimist: Life itself is entirely too beautiful, amazing & inspiring to forget that it is!
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A very intriguing topic!
It reminds me of an interview I heard about top sports some weeks ago. One of our famous tennis players was telling about the difference between her carreer path and that of youth now. She said the current generation is not that ‘tough’ anymore, that they don’t know how to work very hard for a goal. They have so many other opportunities and are a bit pampered.
Also, it reminds me of my own story. Growing up, I envied the children with ‘nice’ homes, with loving parents, with enough money to buy a decent winter coat etc. I worked very very hard to be able to ‘escape’ from that life. Now, those children that I envied so much, are now looking up to what I have achieved.
And that makes me wonder. I also want my children to learn how to work hard. But on the other hand, I also want them to learn how to love life and give them a childhood without sorrow. It’s a difficult balance.
I do give them (little) chores, whether they want it or not. They play the violin each day (for about 15-30 minutes), which is not evident for a 5 and 7 yo, because none of their friends ‘have to do that’. The oldest gets an allowance to learn the value of saving money.
But in between they can just enjoy being children without the sorrows of adults. They are quite free to do whatever they want, we have a big yard to go on adventures, to climb in trees and catch frogs etc.
That’s how I approach it: teaching them how to help out and work hard for small amounts every day, but with a lot of freedom in between and without the burden of worry and sorrow that I grew up with.
Sophia, I am so happy to connect you today with this post!
Firstly, my life was similar to yours in a few ways, to your life in Tanzania. We had running water. But we had electricity scarcity while growing up. And we were like, always able to live our life with or without electricity and it did not matter. Nothing depended on electricity at all. We did our homework in our bedroom, or the kitchen table or the living room, or the portico. We used to hang out with our friends using the bicycle and had to be back home just as the lights were being switched on.
You just stole the words with your “Good Mornign Teacher … ” We did the same too until grade # 12. lol …
And I am so grateful for all the experiences my life gave me. Even with all that so called hard work which did not seem hard at all while we were at it, in childhood, we still had so much joy, happiness and my childhood was one the happiest!
Well, coming to the focus of your post about teaching kids the importance of hard work, my son is just 8. And he helps out with some chores now and then. Not regularly though, because I do not ask him often. Well, let me see how things turn out to be like in the tween and teenage years…
And all that I can tell you is, hopefully routine would work. Perhaps you can delegate her a few tasks as part of the household on a routine basis.
Sometimes i think, the world just got simpler and “getting things done” just got simpler, and perhaps this generation has a lesser need to work ‘hard’.
Thank you for this post! It brought back so many memories of my childhood and my day got brighter today 🙂
Thank you K10K for your response. One thing I want to have for my kids is a big yard with trees (at least one) and space to just be. Be silly, be adventurous, be lazy, be whatever. We go to the park & stuff, but I think there is a difference while growing up, when you have a space that’s…yours. The huge field behind our house in Italy was mine, though we didn’t own it. 🙂
Purnima, you made me smile! Also, I think hard work is necessary, and that smart works makes it better. Some times I feel that having lived my life as it has been, gave me an understanding of working smarter with everyday things. I don’t do it all the time (LOL), but I think I was deeply & positively impacted by the lack of; which as you said I didn’t really feel like it was a lack.
Thank you both!
The thing that strikes me the most is really the impact of what our childhoods have had on us and the ethics that we have as a result. Our children, as you so well put it Sophia, are growing up at an age of so much difference and access to things that even throw some of us parents off balance sometimes (Ill speak for myself! hahaha) I relate a lot to K10K’s comment about how, you look at other privileged kids growing up, and that sort of motivates you to work hard and get a shot at a better life than what you had. Now, they look up to you! and your kid is probably the privileged one now!
The challenge now is, getting the motivation going to want to work hard and be responsible and conscious.