And the work was hard. But my dad worked right alongside us. He took the time to teach and educate us so that we could see the vision of what an ideal garden would look like. And this provided a great learning experience—from the first time we dug those holes and wondered what in the world we were doing, to four or five years later when I was able to walk out there as a teenager and find great joy and satisfaction in the fruits of our labors.
I remember the buy-in that came when I was twelve or thirteen. Suddenly it became a source of great joy to pick bushels of beautiful fruit—peaches and apples and pears—and to have corn growing in the backyard that rivaled the best corn you’ve ever tasted and tomato plants that grew to look like trees because of the holes we carefully dug and prepared for them. I remember how after that—even when I was extremely busy as a teenager—I always wanted to find time to make sure our garden was in order, that our trees were pruned and sprayed and taken care of.
I think that one of the greatest learning experiences I had during those years was in seeing what our family could accomplish together. Walking down those garden rows and knowing that we had done this was a source of incredible satisfaction.
And now I find that that experience helps me in almost every task I have before me. Whenever I become involved in a project where I need to have someone buy into the end result and the vision, I think back on that experience and how my father helped me realize what it would do to our family and our relationships as a family. I can translate that now to a project here in the office and say, “Okay, we have this task at hand. We need to accomplish this. What’s the end in mind?”
When I need to create order in my life, I think back to that row of beautiful green pepper plants. I remember how I thought it was a joke when we bought them in the little plastic canisters. I said, “How are we going to get them to grow?” But weeks later I saw those full plants with leaves that looked like silk because they were so healthy. And I know I can do it.
I think often, too, about my dad’s example in all of this. He got such joy out of doing it. I think he also got joy from seeing me have joy in doing it and in seeing the results of our hard work and God’s help and the wonders of nature and natural law.
Notice how this tradition of working together in the garden renewed this boy and his family. It renewed them socially by giving them the opportunity to work together. Can you imagine the wonderful teaching moments this would create? Look at how it renewed them physically as they worked together out in the hot sun. Think about the mental renewal involved as this boy learned about nurturing growing things. Think about the way this knowledge helped him even in his business career as an adult. This is because he learned in that garden some of the natural laws that govern in every dimension in life, and he was able to apply those laws or principles years later in a completely different situation. So it was spiritual renewal as well. He was close to nature and close to natural law.
Notice, too, what you can read between the lines about this father’s attitude about working with his children. Another father has said:
I think it’s very easy for anyone who works for a living to become task oriented. I know it is for me. So when I’m working with my children, I tend to become very directive and demanding.
I’ve come to realize, though, that the objectives are different when you work with children. The work you’re doing is the work of nurturing character and future capacity. And when you keep that end in mind, you don’t get frustrated. You have peace and joy in doing it.
It’s like the story one man told of a time when he decided to buy some cows to help his boys learn responsibility. A neighbor—a farmer of many years—came up to him one day and began criticizing some of the things the boys were doing. The man smiled and said, “Thank you for your concern. But you don’t understand. I’m not raising cows; I’m raising boys.”
That thought has helped me through many teaching moments in working with my children.
It used to be that families had to work together in order to survive, so work was something that kept families close. But in today’s society “work” often pulls families apart. You have parents going “off to work” in different directions—all of them away from home. You have children who don’t really need to work economically but are growing up in a social environment that views work as a curse rather than as a blessing.
So creating the tradition of working together today is really a matter of inside out. But there are many ways to do it and many benefits of doing it. As we’ve already observed, having a family garden is a great “working together” tradition— one in which you can really enjoy the fruits of your labors. Many families do their regular household chores together on Saturdays. Some parents involve older children in summer work in their profession.
Catherine (daughter):
One tradition we had in our family was the “ten-minute program.” Whenever we’d have a big party and there was a total mess—even sometimes when we’d just have the normal mess we created during the hours after school—Dad would stand up and say, “Okay, let’s have the ten-minute program before we go to bed.” That meant that every person in the family would work really hard for ten minutes to clean up the place. We all knew that if we had eighteen hands working in the kitchen, it would go a lot faster than two. So we knew it wasn’t going to be an hourlong process, and that made it nice.
We also had what we called “work parties.” That may seem like a contradiction in terms, but that’s what they were. We’d work really hard for three or four hours to get something done, but we’d have food and we’d laugh and talk as we worked. We’d also do something fun afterward—like go to a movie—and we’d look forward to that. Everyone expected they’d have to work. It was just part of life. But it made it so much better by adding these little treats at the end or doing something that made it seem like fun.
Serving Together
A mother shared this experience:
My husband, Mark, grew up in a Polynesian village where people had to work together to survive. And my own mom was always helping people—whether it was in the church or in the neighborhood or just someone she heard about that had a need. So Mark and I both grew up with a sense of working and serving together. And when we married and began to have our own children, we decided that one of the values we wanted to instill in them was a sense of service to others.
We’ve never had much in the way of financial resources, so we felt a little limited about making charitable contributions. But as we talked together, we realized that there was one thing we could do: We could make quilts. Piece goods are fairly inexpensive. And tying a quilt is quite simple—something we could do as a family, something that requires physical effort and skill. And a quilt is something people can use and appreciate.
So every year we piece together about twelve quilts for different families. This year we made some for my aunt’s family, who have had some hard times. We’ve just started one for a neighbor who’s going through a divorce.
The kids have been a big part of identifying people in need because young children are more open with one another and are not so embarrassed by the need. And they really enjoy helping. We sit around the quilting frames and talk about a lot of things—so it helps with communication, too. And they love to deliver the finished quilts, whether we do it secretly or not (although I think they enjoy the secret drop-offs the best).
We have a lot of good times doing this together as a family. Even the little girls (three and five) have things they can do, such as cutting out pieces of fabric and clipping the yarn. Sometimes they make the little cards to go with the quilt. But everyone is involved. We feel that’s important.
A father shared this:
Some time ago my wife and I decided that we have been given a lot in life and need to give back more than we take. So we started a youth group—a kind of outreach group—in our home. We also have teenage children, and we thought what better way could there be to understand and be part of their lives than to offer something like this to them and their friends.