But if You Teach a Man to Fish...

Today, the word "work" has developed such a negative connotation. Too often, is associated with being bad or a punishment to children because they are nagged and it is approached in a negative way. If you approach it with the attitude of family time, togetherness, teamwork and make it fun, children will learn to value working and self-reliance. Not only will this teach children responsibility, but it will have the direct affect of children becoming more well rounded, better people that understand how they can contribute to their communities and society as a whole.

What is it about working side by side that allows for deep meaningful conversations?

• Progression

• Preparation and productivity

• You’re actually doing something, and you are in it together

• Allow children to make chores enjoyable for themselves (within reason, of course)

• Memories!

• It is human nature to want to accomplish things

• Bonding

• Patterns and habits and attitudes that we create as children more often than not follow us through adolescence and into adulthood

Most of our cultures have lost these ethics and values that used to be so beneficial. There is an article written by a woman who grew up in a big family that lived on land and were very self sustaining. She goes on to express how beneficial this lifestyle was to her and her siblings and how much better off they are because of it. She states that: “Caring for our large family kept all of us busy most of the time… As children we often worked together, but not all at the same task. While we worked we talked, sang, quarreled, made good memories, and learned what it meant to be family members, good sons or daughters and fathers or mothers, good Americans, good Christians. Today many social and political forces continue the devaluation of family work, encouraging the belief that family work is the province of the exploited and the powerless. Chief among these forces is the idea that because money is power, one’s salary is the true indication of one’s worth. Another is that the important work of the world is visible and takes place in the public sphere—in offices, factories, and government buildings. According to this ideology, if one wants to make a difference in the world, one must do it through participation in the world of paid work".

The patterns and ideals that the current and most recent generations have set fro society are toxic. Worth has become dependent on worldly, materialistic things. People and things are judged for what is on the outside.

My wonderful professor, Brother Michael Williams, put it so perfectly: "One of the biggest problems today is that adolescents are obsolete. Generations ago, adolescents were important contributors to the family and to society." Today's youth can sense that they are not important. They begin to wonder: "What is my role?" "Do I actually matter?” The same happens when people get enough money. They often determine that their children do not need to work. They get machinery and/or people to get the tedious chores done. “But it turns out that menial labor is often the most meaningful labor.

The more hard things that you accomplish, the easier they (and all other tasks) seem to get along the way. Even if you start small and work your way up to it.

One of the greatest gifts you can give to your children is to allow them to accomplish hard things side by side with you so that they are prepared to accomplish them on their own someday. Yet so many people hope that they make enough money that their children never have to “suffer” or “work a day in their lives” or do “hard things”. This is actually the biggest disservice you could ever do your children.

You can give a man a fish and it will feed him for a day. Or you can teach a man to fish and he will be fed for a lifetime.