The kids were heading out to play in the snow for 30 minutes between lunch and nap/quiet time and I mentioned to Luke that they could shovel the back stairs if they wanted. I am a person who frequently asks my children to help with things--folding the laundry, picking up toys, making meals--because it's important to me that they know about and participate in the work of keeping a family going. At the same time, I was fully expecting the gentle request about shoveling the stairs to go in through one ear and out through the other because I wasn't invested in making them help. It really was just some information--"The temperature is going to drop soon, which means that all that snow on the porch stairs will probably freeze into ice and make the stairs slippery by this evening,"--coupled with a suggestion--"If you boys are looking for something to do out there, you might consider shoveling the snow off the stairs."
Imagine my surprise when, five minutes later, two little boys were surveying the stairs, plastic shovels in hand, and discussing where to start. (Background: The back stairs consist of exactly five stairs.) In the end, they decided to start at the bottom stair and use their shovels to break up the ice and snow and then scrape it off the stair. Except that instead of pushing it off the side of each stair, they were pushing it down onto the stair below, so they had to re-do the whole set each time.
Oh, dear. This would take forever. Maybe I should go help. I could let them do the bottom stair while I quickly did the rest. Or I could go and suggest that they start at the top stair, or at least that they push the snow off the sides so they didn't have to keep repeating their work. Or at the very least, I could go out there and monitor more closely.
See, even though I ask them to help me with other tasks all the time, this felt different. Bigger, somehow, like a job that should be done by a pre-teen rather than a preschooler. They would have to break up the ice, push the snow off, and do it all while keeping their balance on the stairs. And, perhaps the most difficult part of the task, they would have to communicate and work together to avoid being conked over the head--either accidentally or intentionally--by a shovel-weilding brother.
And then, I took a deep breath and picked my knitting back up and hoped that I was making the right call. Yes, this was a hard job--but it was one that they chose, either because they thought it would be fun or because they thought the work was valuable and worth doing. And if it got too hard, I trusted that they would either walk away or ask for help. Yes, they were hanging out on stairs--but there were only five stairs and they were sitting down, so they were pretty well balanced. Yes, their snow-clearance plan wasn't the most efficient, but it was getting the job done. Yes, I could have stopped a couple of little squabbles about whether someone was infringing on someone else's space, but they will spend the rest of their lives working out little (and big) misunderstandings with other people--and in most cases, I will not be there to help. Might as well practice now, when the stakes are low and I'm watching from the other side of the window to step in if I'm really needed.
I stayed inside and watched as the job became fully their own. Their ideas, their process of trial-and-error in implementing those ideas, their laughter as they both tried to work on the same stubborn patch of icy snow, their attention to detail as they made sure every speck of snow was off the stairs. We have clean stairs now...and more importantly, we have two little boys who came inside, red-cheeked from the cold and the work, and exclaimed with great pride that the stairs were all clean. Two little boys whose faces shone with the satisfaction of doing a job their way from start to finish. Two boys who got to feel capable and helpful. And a Mama who got to see two boys grow up, just a tiny bit, right in front of her eyes.
Imagine my surprise when, five minutes later, two little boys were surveying the stairs, plastic shovels in hand, and discussing where to start. (Background: The back stairs consist of exactly five stairs.) In the end, they decided to start at the bottom stair and use their shovels to break up the ice and snow and then scrape it off the stair. Except that instead of pushing it off the side of each stair, they were pushing it down onto the stair below, so they had to re-do the whole set each time.
Oh, dear. This would take forever. Maybe I should go help. I could let them do the bottom stair while I quickly did the rest. Or I could go and suggest that they start at the top stair, or at least that they push the snow off the sides so they didn't have to keep repeating their work. Or at the very least, I could go out there and monitor more closely.
See, even though I ask them to help me with other tasks all the time, this felt different. Bigger, somehow, like a job that should be done by a pre-teen rather than a preschooler. They would have to break up the ice, push the snow off, and do it all while keeping their balance on the stairs. And, perhaps the most difficult part of the task, they would have to communicate and work together to avoid being conked over the head--either accidentally or intentionally--by a shovel-weilding brother.
And then, I took a deep breath and picked my knitting back up and hoped that I was making the right call. Yes, this was a hard job--but it was one that they chose, either because they thought it would be fun or because they thought the work was valuable and worth doing. And if it got too hard, I trusted that they would either walk away or ask for help. Yes, they were hanging out on stairs--but there were only five stairs and they were sitting down, so they were pretty well balanced. Yes, their snow-clearance plan wasn't the most efficient, but it was getting the job done. Yes, I could have stopped a couple of little squabbles about whether someone was infringing on someone else's space, but they will spend the rest of their lives working out little (and big) misunderstandings with other people--and in most cases, I will not be there to help. Might as well practice now, when the stakes are low and I'm watching from the other side of the window to step in if I'm really needed.
I stayed inside and watched as the job became fully their own. Their ideas, their process of trial-and-error in implementing those ideas, their laughter as they both tried to work on the same stubborn patch of icy snow, their attention to detail as they made sure every speck of snow was off the stairs. We have clean stairs now...and more importantly, we have two little boys who came inside, red-cheeked from the cold and the work, and exclaimed with great pride that the stairs were all clean. Two little boys whose faces shone with the satisfaction of doing a job their way from start to finish. Two boys who got to feel capable and helpful. And a Mama who got to see two boys grow up, just a tiny bit, right in front of her eyes.
1 comment:
*tear*
Wow, I could see that being a hard decision for me, too. Great job raising some awesome boys, Mama!!
I saw parallels to some of the best marriage advice I've received; unless it's gonna kill someone, let your husband do it his way, even if it's not the way you would do it.
It is so much more satisfying seeing his proud face and having his willingness to do it again and again.
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