Thou Shall Not Covet

As a parent we are supposed to teach our children the right things. This is hard to do. I like to think I have the right ideas about things. I know that we are lucky to have what we have and I know that as a whole Americans are lucky in the extreme compared to a great deal of people in the world. Each year the BDN at Christmas features the same biblical verse about the birth of Christ and comments that in all the time since the birth of Jesus a great deal of people live much as they did then. In poverty, fear and ignorance. For us in America this seems like something hard to agree with but it is by all rights true.

We have five people and four animals living in a small three bedroom cape. None of the bedrooms are big, the kitchen is outdated and our second son is in a bedroom designed as a spare room. Someday it will be my man cave. Everybody has their space but no one as too much. Still compared to the houses our fathers and grandfathers grew up in we are fortunate. We told our kids we might have a baby, we have since backtracked on that idea, and they expressed real fear about having to double up. The fact that we have raised them to consider not having their own rooms a hardship perhaps says something about our jobs as parents.

Of course we are a blended family which adds to the importance of no one losing something they once had, i.e a room of their own. When I was a single Dad and living in a townhouse my son and daughter shared a room. They never complained. Of course they were only 11 and 7 when we moved into our house but still they did not consider it a hardship then.

On a whim I looked at a house on sale a couple of weeks ago. Four bedrooms, a large attic level, a big kitchen, dining room and living room. We could spread out. In retrospect though for me the need for that house was superficial. We have all that we need and in truth soon enough our family will be shrinking. The desire for new things, for bigger and better is never ending. As rational as I am right now however I know that I will soon be wanting something new and bigger and better.

We all go through this. How we deal with it determines the values we teach our children and how satisfied we are with our own lives.

We all have too much. We all have more than we need. We all need to be more thankful. We all need to remember what is important. Myself included.