Spring Cleaning and Parenting….Immediate Results?
Spring is in the air. You can tell by all the sounds around you. The birds are tweeting, kids are playing, lawn mowers are rumbling again, and millions of women are saying, “It’s time for spring cleaning!!!!”
I stumbled onto this deep thought in a magazine and wanted to share:
“I really love to clean. It’s not anything
compulsive, it’s just that you can see a difference when
you’re through. Not like raising your kids or
something that you’re not sure how it’s going to
turn out for a couple of decades.”
–Jill Churchill, Farewell To Yarns
I have never looked at cleaning this way, but after I read this, I realized I could relate to this thought. Cleaning equals results. I too, will admit I like cleaning for the immediate results. A show of accomplishment for the day. A task I can mark completed. I enjoy all of that…immensely. No matter how big or how small, you can see the fruits of your labor. Unlike parenting, when it my take decades or you may never know what you truly accomplished.
Parenting, most of the time, does not show you immediate results. You try your best to teach your children some qualities like compassion, humility, love, patience, thoughtfulness, respect, and honesty. And then you are left to wait and wonder. And through the years, little accomplishments will show themselves to you. Possibly one day, you will observe your child stopping to help a friend that fell off their bike…compassion. Perhaps another day you might overhear how your child defended a bullied child at school…humility, thoughtfulness. Maybe even your child discovers a hurt animal outside and runs to get you to help…love. All accomplishments.
Parenting may not have immediate results like cleaning, but I think they are much, much more rewarding and worth the wait. The accomplishments may take days, months or even years to show up. But when they do…you know that you have accomplished something big. Bigger that cleaning out the closet. Bigger than organizing the garage. You have accomplished nurturing your child to have amazing qualities and values that will serve them the rest of their lives and everyone they meet. Your accomplishments will be seen for years, decades and maybe even centuries…now that’s BIG!
