Value Added
Why? I've been asked on a number of occasions. Why do you raise your own food? Why don't you send your kids to day care? Why don't you send them to head start? Why...like a child with endless questions.
Many times the answer was pure Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof. "I don't know" or "Somewhere it is written."
As with many things in life, and especially as young Christians we were feeling our way along. There was not enough knowledge for us at that point to understand how to proceed, or why to follow a certain path over another.
Indeed, as it says in I Corinthians 13: "11) When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. 12) For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known."
It was like looking in a mirror in a half light room, or feeling your way down a darkened passage.
The only thing I could ascribe it to was me from childhood up having to take care of myself in an uncomfortable world. You learn to trust only when something has proven to be trustworthy. Survival rule number one might be, trust or depend on no one.
Another thing—pay attention. Proverbs 22:3 "A prudent man seeth the evil, and hideth himself; But the simple pass on, and suffer for it."
That is a hard lesson to learn because we are often focused on not the lesson we should have learned, but the victimhood mentality and how we've been cheated or deceived.
Another aspect that seems to be genetic is to ask the questions related to these two rules. To think through the different paths—critical thinking. When someone gives me a gift, for example, I know why they have given me a gift.
Easy-peasy. Friends and family either like me, or they feel compelled to give me a gift because it's expected. They generally know better than to expect one back unless we've had a really good year. But there is no ugly ulterior motive.
Anyone else has a motive and those are easy-peasy to figure out as well. I've been blessed with a couple of 'free' books for entering a couple of contests. It's marketing 101. No ulterior motives there. They are hoping you'll buy more, or like the book enough to give a good review.
On the other hand when I tell my family 'there aren't any free lunches', anyone giving you a 'free handout' means someone has already paid for it. If it's the government, you've already paid for it. They've already taken it out of your pocket.
The sad thing about the government handouts are this, even if you've already paid for it, if you take it you will pay for it again. Everything they give you has a string attached to it.
What, then, does this have to do with why we've raised our children the way we have? Maybe you've already figured it out...but my post limit has been reached so I'll have to take this up next time.
