Walking my dog today I couldn’t help but notice the steady stream of cars, vans & trucks going to the homes of my neighbors. Cleaning ladies, window washers, gardeners, nanny’s, home organizers, laundry services & food deliveries, the list goes on & on. It made me ask myself, ‘does anybody do things for themselves anymore?’ What has happened that so many people no longer care to be independent? Is this the sign of achieving the American dream or is it indicative of the erosion of basic hard work & family values? I am suddenly feeling old thinking about all the jobs I worked. The sacrifices made saving, budgeting & planning in order to buy a home. I remember the hard-work of stripping outdated wallpaper, painting, cleaning & renovating to make it my own. I planted & tended my garden, cleaned my house, laundered & ironed my clothes & when I was blessed with children I raised them. Was it hard work, yes! Was it worth it, absolutely!
Nowadays, it seems to me that so many people live by bigger, better & more. People want new cars, bigger homes, exotic vacations & the supposed best schools. Things matter more than experiences. Others doing what we can do for ourselves has become a norm & I’m afraid much has been lost with this shift. We have become people checking off the never ending lists of what we want & desire, forgetting that we do not need a lot & we are capable of many things. I chuckle when I hear about babies being shipped off to the ‘best pre-schools’ (nothing more than glorified daycare) instead of parents making the tough choice & sacrifices to raise their own children. A bigger house outweighs the difficult choice to be your child’s role model, instead it’s left to the influence of a paid nanny. It’s comical to me when I see a child who won’t clean up their toys or demands someone waits on them. They learned this. Prior generations had to make tough choices & they did it. Whether enlisting extended family & doing things ourselves, we worked hard, years flew by & our children grew up inherently learning about being self sufficient. ‘Having it all’ has entered our vocabulary instead of ‘do it yourself’ & this myth is robbing kids & families of a simpler & more meaningful life. When we wonder why so many people are helpless & expect other people to do things for them we have to look no further than what we do ourselves vs what we expect others to do for us. Life is tough & the struggles of working hard are getting lost on a generation who aren’t being taught & shown the value of being self-sufficient. Cleaning our own homes, cooking our own meals & raising our own children can be tiring & difficult but it’s rewarding. From my observations on my morning walks, I am afraid we are deluding ourselves to believe that outsourcing every aspect of family life to others is the American dream. I assure you, it is not.
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