A Quote - making life too easy

"Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)


Goethe's point is even more true today than when he said this about 200 years ago. One of the most important lessons any of us can learn is that choices have consequences. If parents only allow children to play for the first twenty years of their lives, they won't completely learn this lesson. A young adult will think he deserves for the rest of his life the constant fun he was provided as a child. Michael Barone writes about this in Hard America Soft America.

Nowadays many children spend hours and hours playing. I am sure Goethe would be aghast. I don't advocate sweatshop hours from 4:00 AM to midnight, but by instilling a work ethic in our children early, they'll be happier in the long run. As parents if we can find meaningful ways for our children to work, and make life a little hard for them now, they will have a better work ethic and prosper more as adults.

Some parents think they are doing a kindness to save their children from doing any kind of work. Years ago it was a sign of status for a young woman to be able to play the piano. It meant that her family had enough money to hire servants and thus let her spend time learning to play the piano, instead of helping around the house, or on the family farm. Additionally, as pianos were not cheap, having skill on the piano indicated a degree of wealth.

As parents my wife and I are trying to find the balance of letting our daughters learn to work, and still have time to play. In addition to all their school work, they have about an hour of family chores each day, and on Saturday we try to do a major cleaning, and some yard work. They completely take care of the dishes and silverware. The older ones sometimes will make meals. As they get older we will find more ways that they can contribute. We once heard that mothers should not to be slaves to the rest of the family, but mentors and managers. Our goal is for my wife to work herself out of a job.

We like the idea of raising our daughters to be competent young women. Our daughters are taking piano lessons, but more importantly they are learning to work.