on my mind

Last week we took a quick day trip to see Joe's parents who live about 3 hours away. We told the kids that when we got there that there would be no screen time; they would have to be creative about what they would do while we were there, especially since playing outside in August in Texas is pretty much a no-go. About 30 minutes into our visit there was some whispering about ipods and ipads and a comment like, " Mooom, what can I doooo?" I advised this child to talk to Lola (Joe's mom). "Talk about what?" "Well... Lola didn't have ipods and ipads, ask her what she did when she was your age during the summer."

I was lucky enough to be part of the conversation, and what I heard got me thinking. It turns out that Lola got up early and worked all day picking cotton. In the heat. I'm not sure why I was surprised; we have summer vacation precisely so that kids can help on the farm.

I know some of you live in the country and the summer really is a busy time full of hard work, but most of the people I know (including us) live in the city, and somewhere along the way summer has become our opportunity to:

sleep in
go swimming
stay up late
go to the movies
play with friends
take vacations
visit museums
make as many memories as possible
fun!fun!fun!

I have had a whole week to think about this, and I've come to the conclusion that we--I, my family--need to have a summer readjustment (I guess for next year, since summer is basically over). All of these things are fun, and even good, but I feel like what I am teaching my kids is that our life goal is to focus on ourselves, and to have fun instead of the goal of working hard and becoming productive human beings who make the world a better place.

I'm not sure what to do about this, because the truth is that I like to have fun and working hard is, well, hard. I can teach my kids to sweep and mop and cook and clean, and that is all good (and I am attempting to do these things), but I feel an increased desire and urgency to change our goals to something other than "having fun." I think we can make even better memories by working hard together and serving others.

I just have to figure out how to do that (hopefully indoor).