Yesterday I had a difficult conversation with a teen who lamented that friends seem to spend, live, possess so effortlessly. Shopping trips to malls, holidays overseas, new cars, the latest computers, eating out a lot, expensive sports kit and hobbies. I looked around our home and saw all that we have.
This morning I came across this thought in a notebook I am about to toss in my ongoing efforts to stop holding onto things that just clutter my space:
Privilege = the gift of special favour.
Every privilege has a 'give-back'.
If privilege does not give back, then it becomes a "right". If we don't give back, then we become users.
My challenge: Ensuring my privileged kids - and I - don't take what they/we do have as a right, but see all that we have been given as a gift of special favour. I want to raise givers, not users. What can I hang to that privilege so that it's not just a right?
(And no, I am not saying that my teen's friends are users, I am saying that I don't want to ever take what we have for granted. It's natural to want more, but it's good to realise that what we do have is enough.)
