The value of hard work

We all have a responsibility as parents to teach our young children the value of hard work.  Of course we all want them to succeed in their goals and become self-reliant, so they can fulfill their dreams and so we can be proud of them, or if for no other reason, so they don’t mooch off us in our old age.

In the past weeks, some politician or other has claimed that 47% of the American public pay no taxes and have no appreciation for the value of hard work.  He didn’t use the phrase “shiftless and lazy” explicitly, but many of us heard those unspoken words.  Oddly enough, that 47% figure corresponds almost exactly to the proportion of Americans who have told pollsters they’re voting for the other candidate.  Of course both candidates have supporters who pay high taxes and supporters who pay none.  In truth, we should probably attribute only a small fraction (closer to 4% or 7%) of the non-payment of taxes to the laziness and faulty character of the poor; some is due to old age, low incomes, illness, disability, or even to the greed or faulty character of rich who exploit loopholes and off-shore tax havens to avoid paying the taxes they owe.

Without getting into a political discussion, I think we should consider this question of why some people might not know the value of hard work.   The truth is that many of us, including middle class people, never learn the value of hard work until late in life, if ever.  Why is that?

Consider the young person who devotes hours to perfecting jump shots, back flips, double Axels, or guitar solos, only to receive no recognition, or to be excluded from the team or the band.  Consider the student who puts hours of effort into every school project and extra credit report and still doesn’t get grades as high as classmates to whom straight As come naturally.

Consider the workers who have two or three minimum wage jobs and see little of any rewards for their efforts.  Suppose your mother gets  up to catch a 6:00 bus every morning so she can ride across town to spend all day scrubbing floors, yet she still doesn’t bring home enough money to pay the rent on a decent apartment, plus utilities and health insurance without using food stamps, and she can’t afford to buy a functioning car or even good shoes for you and your siblings.    Suppose that what she does bring home is an aching back, chapped hands and knees, and stories about these other women she works for who can spend all day driving around in their SUVs shopping, who have closets full of shoes, and who can’t be bothered to scrub their own floors.  

Consider the family with a two hundred year legacy of working  involuntarily without pay for a paternalistic master who kept all the wealth they created and never recognized them as adult human beings or allowed them to pursue dreams of their own.

Consider the child with parents who have never encouraged him to work hard nor acknowledged his efforts.  Consider the child who never has the opportunity to get his or her own way, even at winning a game or choosing a favorite dessert.

One need not be economically disadvantaged to lack drive.  Indeed, some of the most diligent among us are people trying to overcome hardships.  Often children who grow up with all the advantages are the laziest among us. 

I have recently come to the realization that my own parents didn’t particularly help  me understand the importance of working hard.  My mother (who worked very hard at a low-paying dead-end job) frequently told me I was uncommonly clever, which only taught me to believe I was somehow more entitled to rewards than people who were merely average, by virtue of who I was and who my relatives were.   Yet studies show that in countries where children test higher in math than American children do, they learn to value hard work (http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning, http://www.tdl.com/~schafer/Asian.htm).  Children were given impossible problems to solve, and instead of giving up right away and saying “I quit.  It’s too difficult for me” they saw it as a challenge and kept working on it for a long time and trying to figure it out. 

Perhaps we need  to remember that what matters most in life is not who we are, which is something we cannot control, but what we do with our lives, which is something we can control.   Better yet, perhaps we can impress that on our children by valuing their efforts and their achievements.

 

Your baby's politics.

You probably don't think your baby is old enough yet to develop a political philosophy.  Think again, and consider the cases of Baby A and Baby B.


Baby A, who is an only child, lives in a big house on a big lot on a quiet street on the edge of town.  Aside from the occasional sound of a vacuum cleaner or lawn mower, Baby A hears few sounds not produced either directly or indirectly by Baby A.  That is, in part, because of the white noise machine which drowns out noises.  More importantly, A's parents subscribe to an educational-toy-of-the-month club, so every few weeks, beginning with the cute little Busy Booties® from Month 1, Baby A gets another new toy expertly designed to meet Baby A's needs in a manner most perfectly suited to Baby A's current level of cognitive development.  The first instructional unit has focused on the concept of Cause and Effect, and Baby A has learned that a shake of Baby A's left foot, thanks to the red Busy Booty®, will produce an amusing rattling sound, a shake of Baby A's right foot, thanks to the green Busy Booty® will produce a pleasant ringing bell sound, a squeeze of the purple plush octopus will produce a squeaky sound tuned to one of eight tones of the C major scale, and a tug on the blue ducky will cause music to play and the mobile over Baby A's crib to turn.  When Baby A cries, one of Baby A's parents hears, thanks to the house intercom, and quickly comes and removes Baby A from the crib and solves whatever problem is bothering Baby A.  As Baby A gets older and learns to talk, A's parents will usually give A whatever A asks for.


Then there is Baby B.  Baby B lives in an apartment on a busy street in the middle of the city.  Baby B shares a room with two older siblings.  The neighbors in the apartment above Baby B's room are also noisy people who often play loud music not requested by Baby B.  Because of the liquor store and the two taverns within a block of Baby B's apartment, Baby B's sleep is frequently interrupted by the sound of breaking glass or drunken brawls from outside the window.  Baby B also hears random sirens, gunshots, and barking dogs.  When Baby B cries, Baby B's parents might respond, but they may both be too busy with the other children.  As Baby B gets older and learns to talk,  B will speak out about what B wants, but B's parents will not usually be able to give B what B asks for.


One of these children, barring the parents' deliberate effort to teach otherwise, will probably grow up to be a free market Republican who believes that the world is a fair place and that with enough effort, one can accomplish whatever one wants to in one's life, so people all deserve to be exactly as rich or poor as they are.  


The other child, barring the parents' deliberate effort to teach otherwise, will probably grow up to be a Democrat who believes the world is unfair and stacked against many of us, and that forces beyond our control often deny hardworking people the rewards they deserve, through no fault of their own.  


I invite you to guess which is which.


Both of these children may grow up unable to understand how the other can possibly have a view of the world so different from their own. 

The Content of their character, pt. 2

We all want our children to be good.  Some of us remember those immortal words of Dr. Martin L. King. 

But how many of us can easily recite a list of ingredients or traits a good character contains?   You might be blessed with wise parents, grandparents, or spiritual leaders who can tell you how to raise the perfect child.  If not, there is enough information out there in libraries and on the web that, if you're lucky, you might teach yourself before your children are grown.  But why reinvent the wheel when you have enough work on your hands as a parent already?  Here are some suggestions, taken from Ben Franklin, thought by some to be the wisest American of all time, and Rabbi Israel Salanter, the founder of the Jewish ethical movement, מוסר.

WORK ETHIC

First, let's consider how we don't want our children to turn out.  If we wanted to use negative language, which we should avoid, we could tell our children not to be lazy.  Many people have wonderful ideas, but if they never act upon them or follow through on projects they begin, nobody else will know what they're capable of doing, and they won't earn the appreciation or respect they should.  


  It is better to encourage them to develop the positive character trait which doesn't have an exact English translation of the Hebrew word, but which has been called alacrity, alertness or fastidiousness, or the tendency to manage one's time constructively.  As the rabbi put it, Never waste a moment, to let it be for no positive purpose, and likewise actively do what you seek to accomplish.

Benjamin Franklin's name for this virtue, #6 on his list, was INDUSTRY, and his advice was, "Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."    
See more here.

Of Timetables and Flannel Teapots

When random stuff happens to a small child, the child learns to think the world is confusing and out of control.  A set schedule--breakfast at 7:00, story time at 7:30, bath time at 8:00, a walk outside at 9:00, playtime at 10:00, etc.--helps children to develop a sense of security and order, to organize, predict, and to make sense of events happening around them, and eventually to become self-disciplined people with better study skills and a work ethic.  

My children had a structure at the university day care center where I took them as babies.  We only used the center part time, because I took leave from my teaching job when the children were small, but to send them there, we had to commit to sending each child there at least two four-hour blocks on different days of the week.  Otherwise, the children wouldn’t have the opportunity to bond and form relationships with the staff.  In addition to free play time with high quality educational toys, naps, snacks, and walks outside, they had art, music, and story time, and even gym at a prescribed time every day.  Then there was my favorite: flannels.  What they did not have was television watching time. 

I had never heard of flannels, but this turned out to be one of my children’s favorite activities, and my friends’ children’s.  By now, for all I know, they have replaced the flannel board with a computer and projector, but I sincerely hope they have not.  The flannel board helped train the children to face the same direction for five or ten minutes and listen to a group presentation, an important skill they’ll need later in school.  It also helped teach them, through daily repetition and a visual component, some Mother Goose rhymes and songs.     

I didn't always follow a schedule at home; in fact, I thought excessive regimentation would stifle their creativity, so I pretty much followed their cues.  Besides, my own schedule didn't always allow a consistent routine day after, depending on classes, doctor's appointments, the weather, and the progress of the plumber or painters.  I'm sorry now that I didn't try harder to follow a schedule like the day care center's, and if I could do it all over again, I would try to do so.

Even children who don’t attend day care centers can get something out of scheduled activities like flannels.  After we left the center, I decided to continue with my own homemade flannel board.  I covered a cork board with flannel and bought some flannel fabric to cut into teapots, monkeys, beds, spiders, waterspouts, mice, clocks, kittens, mittens, and all the other little visual aides necessary for all my children’s favorite nursery rhymes.  It was a tedious process, and soon I discovered I could cut out pictures of all these objects and make them stay up on the flannel board if I glued old dryer sheets to the back of them.  That was better than tossing all that used fabric softener into the garbage.  Unlike books, they don’t cost a lot of money or take up a lot of space, and you don’t have to take them back to the library.  Best of all, it’s a fun way for children enjoy music and poetry while interacting with the adults who love them, and a better use of time than television.