My daughter does without a lot of things I see in baby nurseries and stores. She doesn’t have a lot of toys or clothes. She has one DVD of things we recorded off TV. Her room doesn’t have a theme and I never got a matching bed set for her crib. She has one small playset in the yard (a slide) that we bought for a song. And I’m okay with it. We’ll never be rich, so she’s going to do without a lot of things as she grows up. And as we try to live a greener life we’ll probably make her go without things we could easily afford to give her. This is a widely-approved lifestyle today as we experience the backlash against professionally planned birthday parties and kids with so many toys their parents can’t have people over to the house. But I wonder if it’s enough.
What I have struggled with the most this winter hasn’t been having fewer clothes than some of my friends or having a smaller house or missing out on the latest kitchen gadget.
What I have done without is appreciation, notice, and help. Or, to clarify, the amount of appreciation, notice and help that I think I need and deserve.
Now, I love my husband and he is a very good husband. He’s an excellent, involved father. I have good friends and acquaintances always ready to lend a hand. But there are still times when I think about how hard I’ve been working and how well I’ve been doing and no one’s noticed.
I like to be thanked for the things I do and I like to be told how great it is that I do them. I like for my husband to notice that I’m having an extra busy day and for him to pitch in without me asking for every single favor. But that doesn’t always happen.
Sometimes when things are going pretty smoothly we all get caught up in how comfortable life is and we just stop paying attention. We don’t show gratitude and we don’t point out how well done a job is. We don’t voluntarily do an extra chore just because we have a few minutes free and it costs us almost nothing in terms of time or energy. We fall into a state of non-gratitude.
And when I feel the sting of non-gratitude, I have to keep doing my job as well as I can without hearing “please” and “thank you.” Without the little bit of help I really need. And most of all, without resenting the situation.
People aren’t perfect and we must all put up with one another’s failings and faults. And being on the receiving end of a lack of gratitude can make us better people. I know that I have learned a lesson in humility and service this winter and that’s always a good thing.
It has reminded me to be more aware of what my husband and daughter do do for me and to appreciate them and the things they do – out loud, even to Sofia though she doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
But how do I pass this on to her? That really, in the big scheme of things, it’s not bad to go through times when no one says “thank you” enough? That being humble and serving for the sake of service and not for the sake of praise is a good thing? It doesn’t feel good at all. And it doesn’t look good – as a society we value strong people who stand up for themselves, not people who do for others who are too selfish to appreciate it. We call those people doormats.
Living graciously in a non-gracious world is a hard concept that I still struggle with as I approach my thirtieth birthday. How can I make a child understand? Today, I don’t know. I have no plan for how to teach Sofia about this in the coming years. I only hope that when the time comes she is somehow able to see past my struggle to what it did for me.
Denise G. Pamudji lives with her husband and their first child in their first home in Clinton, Mississippi.
