Should you make your kids work?

Our oldest daughter learned to drive a tractor on her 14th birthday. Our whole family was out working in the field when Opa decided Cami would serve us best on the John Deere. Opa and Scott needed to do some heavy lifting on the ground, clearing old almond trees off our property, and someone had to run the tractor.

I had a baby in my arms. Oma was piling brush with the younger kids. So Cami was it. And she wasn’t happy about working that day. If I remember correctly, I think Cami said something like, “My friends don’t have to work!” But once she was on that tractor, the smile never left her face. This was before we planted West Butte Orchards, before we began farming in earnest on our land, before our kids really learned how to work.

Our first three children grew up in the military. We moved from town to town, and the kids played a lot of soccer, spent summers at the local swimming pool, and pretty much just enjoyed life like kids do when they aren’t in school. It was an easy existence in a lot of ways, except their dad was often away on missions, and raising the kids fell mostly to me. I was that mom driving from soccer game to soccer game with my hair on fire.

I didn’t grow up this way. I grew up learning to work on my parents’ ranch and my grandparents’ peach farm. Back in my day a lot of kids worked on farms. We didn’t return to school until after Labor Day weekend because young people were needed to help bring in the harvests. Some of my guy friends didn’t return to school until mid-September when the almond season ended. I also had to work at my dad’s engineering firm, nothing glamorous, I washed toilets and ran plans in the print room. In college, by my junior year, I worked two jobs and went to school full time. I never thought a thing about it. We kids grew up working.

A lot of kids today don’t know how to work. Worse off, they think food, clothing, shelter, transportation to all their activities, and iPhones are entitled to them. Far too many teens play video games day and night and still come to the table for a free meal. My grandparents would have lost their minds over this. My parents still do. The Bible says, “If you will not work, you will not eat” 2 Thessalonians 3:10.

And “He who gathers crops in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.” Proverbs 10:5.

Both my grandfathers had full time jobs by the time they graduated 8th grade, one in a gold mine, the other on a peach farm, neither went to high school. My grandmas worked hard too, one milked cows morning and night on her father’s dairy. My other grandma when she was 17, sold her beloved horse in Montana and came to California alone by train to work in a gold mine’s kitchen with her older sister. She met my Grandpa John there.

Life just fifty years ago for teenagers in America wasn’t all that easy, but back then teenagers served society instead of society serving them. That was a good thing. In high school, my dad stocked grocery shelves by night and went to school during the day. He put himself through college working. Oma, my mom, worked on her parents’ peach farm as a kid. She became a nurse and helped get my dad his engineering degree. The work ethic my parents still have is formidable. They are self-made, and well-off enough not to work, but are still working in their seventies because that’s what they do.

They work.

When did our society decide kids shouldn’t have to work? And when did children become the focal point of our families, sending parents scurrying from one sporting event to the next, or one play date to the next keeping our kids entertained? Often today’s parents wear themselves out beholden to their children’s activities. I get this. I really do. We love our kids.

I remember the day I said to Opa, “He’s only twelve years old. I don’t think Luke should be working out here in the orchard this hard. He gets plenty of exercise playing soccer.” My dad looked me right in the eye and said, “You want to ruin your kids by not teaching them how to work? People are ruining their kids today. Absolutely ruining them by not making them work.”

Not Opa’s exact words, he cusses a lot so I can’t quote him exactly, but my dad really is a wise man. Kids being raised like they are the center of a universe that serves them are growing up believing they should be served all the time. People need to learn how to work. And learn how to serve others. We are all born knowing how to serve ourselves. We must learn how to serve humanity.

 

I realize not everyone lives on a farm where the work never ends, but there are other ways to teach your kids how to work. And how to serve. Instead of hiring someone to do your yard work, make that your kid’s job. And don’t just make your child do the yard work alone every time. Get out there and talk and laugh with your kids while you clean up the yard together or clean up an elderly neighbor’s yard if you don’t have a yard of your own.

I’ve spent the past two summers working side by side with our son, John, at the farmers’ markets. I’ve learned so much about his life at school, and with his friends. John has told me his dreams on our way to and from the markets, and when things are slow, and customers few and far between, John shares his secrets with me. Working with your kids helps you know them. Really know what’s going on in their lives.

We need to get back to raising kids that serve. In families that serve each other and those around them. Growing up in 4-H, we had to pick up cans and garbage along the roads to clean up our community from time to time. I haven’t seen a crew of kids picking up garbage along the road since I was a kid. One day I made our kids pick up garbage along the road for a service project. You would have thought I sat on them and tore out their toenails with my teeth for all their complaining. By the end of it, I was exhausted (I think I had a baby in my arms while picking up trash) and discouraged with my kids, and decided never to do that again.

But we do other things, like helping Oma and Opa who always help us, and our kids all have chores each day like feeding chickens, horses, dogs, and doing dishes. Yes, we have a dishwasher, but we hardly ever use it. Some of my fondest memories are doing dishes with our daughters. We’d crank up the music and clean the kitchen together at night. It was so fun. Okay, maybe the girls didn’t think it was fun, but I loved it. Now Scott and the boys do dishes. I love watching my husband and sons laugh and talk and enjoy each other as they work together in the kitchen. Sometimes they snap each other with towels, and I intervene because the little guys need protection.

So you don’t need a farm to work with your kids.

Honestly, sometimes I feel bad for our boys. And I really can’t tell you if they’re going to turn out okay or not growing up working on our farm. But I can tell you Cami, our girl who learned to drive a tractor on her 14th birthday, has become a speech therapist. In her mid-twenties now, she’s a hard worker with a warm and tender heart. A gift to us, her parents, and to other parents who trust her to help their children learn to talk.

I used to feel bad for Luke, who had to get up early, work all day in the orchard, and then go to soccer practice in a 100 degrees on afternoons before the school year started. But at 18, I see Luke coming into his own. He’s still a bit spoiled, we’ve always called him Prince Luke the Rotten, but he knows how to work and doesn’t expect a free ride to college or anywhere else anymore.

Our second daughter, Lacy, is always working. I’ve found myself telling her on more than one occasion that working two jobs and going to school full time isn’t good for her. It’s just too much.

But teenagers and young adults not working isn’t good for anybody. John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” We need to get back to this mentality.

My aunt and uncle raised their kids in the suburbs. My aunt would load up her three kids and several lawn mowers and go mow old people’s lawns on weekends. This wasn’t just about making money, my aunt is really good at serving people, but my cousins made pretty darn good money at it. Those old people loved my cousins, and paid them plenty to come on Saturdays after soccer or Sundays after church and care for their yards.

I think the key is raising well-rounded children. Kids that work and play and care about others. Kids that sometimes get to be the star of your family’s universe, but mostly don’t get to be the star of your family’s universe. Because we especially need to teach our kids that life’s not all about them. Because when they leave our homes, they will quickly, perhaps painfully learn this for themselves. We should prepare our kids for this reality. Working is a good way to instill this. Working also teaches kids to earn and save money. So grab a wheelbarrow, and start them young. But work alongside your kids so they not only learn how to work, they learn how to love, too.