Children and Work

The Need

I was talking to some men on a work site about raising children. These men all work hard every day, yet there seemed to be the assumption that the children should free from work to help the family. They believed that it was OK for them to work at school, and good for them to work at sports/ play, but chores around the house or working to help support the family were thoughts foreign their mind.

History would laugh at this idea; after all, children eat - shouldn’t they help get the food? Large farm families were the norm with everyone wanting to do their part to help with the work. Perhaps it is the abuses of child labor at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution that caused people to believe that children shouldn’t work.

Yet we were created for work. Adam tended the garden, and “… for six days you shall labor and do all your work…”, the Decalogue thunders at us. Work is a good gift from God.
And what better heritage could we give to our children than knowing how to work and how to work hard? (OK - Love for God, His church, and those in the kingdom of darkness would rank above work, but it’s up there, and will serve them better than a love of soccer or a volleyball scholarship to college.)

So if you are with me, the question becomes how to teach them.

Working Together

Children learn by example more than by word. Do you work? Do your children see you work, or is all your interaction with those God has entrusted you with training based on play, sports (the male state religion of this nation), movies, and vacations?

I am a not the greatest businessman. (Just ask my accountant.) Yet one of the reasons I don’t “get a job” and work for someone else is that I can involve my children in my work. This spring I got in a bind with too many jobs going on at once. Andrew, my oldest, came down between graduation and leaving for his summer internship and bailed me out. This summer my 13 year old, Jon, has come in, to save my back, time and again. My boys learn how to work hard and also that labor = pay, something that eludes those who just see money appear.

In hard times my boys will tell me not to pay them, that they “just want to help.” It is humbling for a man to have his children help support the family, but I believe it is good for them and for me.

So what if you aren’t self employed? Can you do more than “take your kid to work day?” Is there work to be done around the house? If it is like mine there is always work still to do, so do it together. Children can start helping out almost as soon as they can walk. Do you live in a condo with a maid and cook? Volunteer to work at a Habitat for Humanity site. Cook for the rescue mission. Cut the church lawn. Help someone move. There is always work to be done -- do it together. Outside work is especially good for boys, so see where they can participate. One of the reasons we chose to live on a farm is to provide our kids with opportunities to sweat as they care for the animals and land.


Tools for Teaching Work

Stories are a powerful teaching tool. I don’t mean to discount plain instruction, but stories make learning painless. There is a series of books that teaches the principles of work and business better than any other I have run across. Ralph Moody wrote a semi-autobiographic series with the hero “Little Britches.” Set around the turn of the last century, “Little Britches” grows up in rural Colorado, moves back east, and returns to the west again. He learns from his dad in book one, becomes “the man of the family” after his father’s death in book two, and so on. Geared primarily for boys, the girls also play an important part in the supporting of the household. These books are great for read aloud.

Another excellent book for teaching children about work is Created For Work by Bob Schultz. I'll try to post a review of that book at some later date.