Family Life
The Joy of Serving
In the not too distant past, I engineered my weekly routine to involve cleaning a single room of the house every day. Since I spend almost all of my time at home, I want to have an environment that is clean and well maintained. When there’s clutter or mess or dirt I feel impeded in both my energy and my creativity. When all is in order I feel balanced and at peace.
After several months of trial and error, I determined that while daily cleaning allowed me to make progress every day, it was a huge time suck. I threw out the playbook and batched cleaning and laundry into one giant marathon. It turns out that while 15 minutes every day cleans the house, so does 1 hour on a Saturday morning at a rapid clip. My favorite time to clean is when Alison is at work. I love the thought of her leaving a dirty and messy home and coming home to a sparkling environment.
While serving often requires an increase in our workload, it paradoxically increases the joy in our lives.
Placing your wife at the center of your life is the ideal in marriage and it should be the end that we’re all actively working the achieve. By caring for her first, you take an active role of serving. This could be shown in small acts like getting her drink for dinner or big acts like taking care of the kids so she has the night off. If cleaning the house is typically in her domain, doing it for her once in a while can really rock her world. The objective is to discern her needs, decide how best to meet them, and then serve her.
The act of serving is something to be enjoyed. If you’ve ever used a premium service, you notice how great it feels to be well looked after. As the recipient of that service, I feel not only respected, but cared for. When you take good care of your wife, when you serve her well, she can have those same feelings. Think about how thrilled she’ll be now that she can read a book instead of having to clean the house. Think about how excited she’ll be getting to have a little extra time playing with the kids before bed because you’ve taken care of the other pre-bedtime preparations.
As you work to master the skill of serving your wife, do the same for your children. Your kids are certainly stuck with you, but it’s important to work daily on those relationships. Blow their minds by doing something unexpected for them. It could be a surprise trip, throwing around a ball with them, or even cleaning their room. Be a great dad and teach them a lesson at the same time.
Serving is a joy unto itself, but one that’s only derived from humility. Love your family, lead your family, and serve your family.
The Secret of Service
When you reach a certain level in a company, one of the perks that you may be given is an administrative assistant. The job of your admin is to take things off your plate that, while they may be important, don’t necessarily need to be done by you. If you’re running a division of a company, do you really need to be spending your time playing phone tag with a client?
Admin assistants are extremely valuable because they can do routine tasks so you don’t have to. Hopefully admins have a high level of job satisfaction because they know that while they’re doing your lower-level to dos, they’ve freed your time up to do really impactful things that will help a lot of people.
Depending on your company, an admin might have a wide range of flexibility in terms of the tasks that they’re allowed to complete on company time. For example, it may be permissible for them to run out and buy something that you need or pick up your dry cleaning. Again, their whole job is to take pressure off your schedule so that you can do work that really matters.
Many of us dream of having an admin. So many things come up during the day at work that we wish we could have someone else complete. We’d love to not have to call that company that we know has a disastrous phone tree, we’d love to not have to pick up our dry cleaning and we’d love to have things in place right when we need them.
There’s good news. While you may not have an administrative assistant at work, you can be one at home. One of the best ways that we can spend our time is in service to our wives. A perfect way to do that, and one that you might be doing already, is by being her administrative assistant.
There are a great many things that need to get done in your household: car maintenance, bill paying, customer service calls, taxes, cleaning, and more. These are each opportunities to take that task (and sometimes frustration!) off of your wife’s plate so she can be freed up to do other more important things. For example, while you’re getting the oil changed, she could be taking care of the kids. While you’re on hold with the cable company, she could be enjoying getting lost in a book.
We all love the idea of what an administrative assistant does, so why not give that gift to your wife? You could go further with this concept and inject a few things into your evening routine to make her life better. You could tidy up the house or lay out her PJs. In the morning, you could have coffee ready for her as she wakes up or make her lunch before she has the chance.
The most fun that you’ll have as a husband is serving your wife. Take on the mindset of an administrative assistant and figure out ways that you can blow her mind with service.
Honor the Dead
Today is the 12th anniversary of my maternal Grandfather’s death. It’s a special day for me because I had the privilege of being with him when he died. Growing up, I didn’t have much time to spend with my paternal grandparents, both having died by the time that I was in 2nd grade. I was fortunate to have most of my childhood with my maternal grandparents. My mom’s dad died when I was in 8th grade and my mom’s mother died when I was in college, but developed dementia starting shortly after my grandfather had died. I really looked up to, and still do, my mom’s parents. I treasure the memories that we made together. In fact, many of the crafts that I made with my grandparents can be found in Benedict’s room.
I’m very grateful to have had a positive experience with my grandfather’s death. He became sick very quickly and was hospitalized on life support for a few days. While life support generally indicates that a person’s life is close to the end, it does lend the benefit of allowing family to better anticipate when someone will die. So, when the decision was made to withdraw life support, all of our family had time to fly in and say our final goodbyes. A priest from the local parish came that evening and administered the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick and we all prayed together. Afterwards, my parents let me stay at the hospital with 3 other family members and we prayed with him through the night, though he was heavily sedated. I was honored to be with him in his last moments in a very beautiful testament to life.
All of my maternal ancestors are buried in the same cemetery plot in our ancestral hometown. I think it’s kind of fun to walk amongst the graves and learn about each person. In fact, I have a plot there myself. Each Spring, a contingent of my family goes to the cemetery to plant flowers on our family’s graves. Although the local parish handles all of the lawn maintenance, planting flowers is a nice tradition that honors the memory of our family who has gone before us. This past year was particularly special because we were all in town for my great aunt’s birthday. As a part of the festivities, all of my mom’s siblings went to the cemetery to carry on the tradition.
We’re constantly confronted with the reality of death. While the absence of a loved one is indeed very difficult to cope with, it speaks volumes of the strength of our human relationships. We’re so connected to one another that the absence of someone in our lives is deeply impactful. It’s difficult to cope with the loss of a loved one. No longer having their presence is felt for a very long time, sometimes even every day for the rest of our own lives.
It’s important to be constantly praying to and for those who have died. Since I’m not the Pope, I’m unable to declare that any of my grandparents are in Heaven. They certainly lived virtuous lives and were models of holiness for me, but I do not know the mind of God and so I’m unable to know with certainty where they are. God is outside of time, so there’s no way of knowing if someone is in Purgatory, or how long they’d be there in terms of our sense of time.
In the days and weeks after someone dies, it’s our human nature to use phrases such as, “They’re in a better place” or “They’re in Heaven now” as ways of both coping or comforting. Though difficult to say, saying things like that are dangerous. I know that when I die, the last thing I want is for people to think that they don’t have to pray for me! Prayers can shorten one’s stay in Purgatory and, if I’m there, I’d be looking for a quick exit and any and all prayers would be greatly appreciated.
The great beauty of our Church is the connectedness of souls through the Communion of Saints. It’s a beautiful thing that they are able to intercede for us, and that we’re able to intercede for them. Let’s be diligent in praying for our loved ones both here in this life and those who have passed from it.
Room to Breathe
We all need a little wiggle room. In the course of a week, most of your time is spoken for. Living an overly burdened schedule can lead to exhaustion, burnout, and you not giving your very best every day. You deserve, and you need, room to breathe.
Idle hands are the Devil’s tools, there’s little doubt about that. Idleness can get anyone in trouble very quickly, but room to breathe isn’t about being idle, it’s about taking the time to manage a slowdown. There are plenty of things that you could do during your downtime, but I’d be willing to bet that you know what your favorites are.
On Saturday afternoon, after a full week of tending to Benedict, writing, and a top-to-bottom house cleaning, I’m ready for a break. In all of the busyness, I don’t have time for one of my favorite downtime activities, computer games. I’m not a big gamer and I don’t really care about the outcome. It’s a little escape that lets me do something different. I have two main games that I’ll play, Civilization V or Modern Warfare 3. During the week, I’ll spend no time playing at all because, honestly, I’ve got a full schedule just working towards my goals. So on Saturday, after the chores are done, and on Sunday, I’ll take the time, while Benedict sleeps, to play for a while.
In those times, I’m not worried about all of the other things that I could be doing. I’m not concerned with looming deadlines or how much writing I could get done. I’m not thinking about other ways that I could be doing with that precious time. Instead, I’m recognizing that I need room to breathe and that by taking this time to play, I won’t be tempted during the week.
Downtime is crucial for goal attainment. Time management is all about doing the right thing in the moment and not being concerned about anything else. When I know that I’ll have time to play during the weekend, I can sit down and write with a clear mind. When I know that I’ve scheduled time to write during the week and that the household cleaning is done, I can play on the weekend with a clean conscience.
If you overload your schedule, you won’t be successful. Life is all about balance, and balance demands that you give yourself space. The time is there, you just have to allocate it.
Tell Your Kids Their Story
These days, things are changing rapidly in the world of Benedict. He’s getting pretty good a mimicking, a few new words come out of his mouth weekly, and he’s dangerously close to figuring out how to walk-any day now he’ll start running around the house.
The mind of a child is astonishing. The rate at which they process the world around them and start to understand things is nothing short of mind-blowing. I watch Benedict’s eyes as he gazes on the world around him and I just think about what’s going through his mind. Colors, shapes, things that I’ve gotten so used to that I hardly notice are completely new to him. The world is a wide open place for him right now and he’s soaking it up like a sponge.
While he’s certainly learning a lot, his memory is a different story. He’ll have a tough time recalling his emotions, feelings, and the events of his early life when he’s older. We all tend to have a bit of a romantic spot in our hearts for childhood stories. These stories convey events in our lives that we were a part of, but can’t recall on our own. Our first words, our first trip to the Emergency Room, heck, even the stories surrounding our entrance into the world are cherished.
We love to see baby pictures, we’re all dying to know what we were like, and if we’re honest, we can’t get enough of heart-warming stories from our development.
With this knowledge comes tremendous pressure on parents. We want to record, capture, and remember all of these stories, but it’s just way too much. The speed of life events, the busyness of our already hectic schedule, and the pure daily exhaustion that comes with caring for a child completely dependent on you makes it hard to scribble down some thoughts or spend time arranging these many memories.
I feel it, too. You start to feel a little guilty for letting things fall through the cracks. I can only imagine how parents of multiple kids feel! Sure, you did a good job with the first, but the second, third, fourth? Yikes!
I’ve decided that it’s best to try to capture the major milestones, but to not worry about the day-to-day. Benedict will do cute, new, fun, and amazing things every day and many of those memories will just have to be tucked away in my own treasure chest of memories. I’ll share them with him when the time comes, but it’s ok if he doesn’t have an all-access pass to them.
Thankfully in the digital age, it’s getting easier to capture these life events. Cameras with unlimited photo taking capabilities allow you to take pictures indiscriminately, whereas before you only had so many chances. HD video capture capabilities on your phone allow you to preserve and instantly share those wonderful little moments. Computer-Based diary programs, such as Day One (Mac/iOS) make it easy to write notes and give some back-story, without the fear that fire, flood, or forgetfulness will cause your hard work, and those precious details, to be lost forever.
Telling your kids their story is an important and fun way to help them learn about who they are. Take the time to preserve those milestones so they can treasure them long after you’re gone.
Family Traditions
Growing up, I lacked, in a certain sense, roots. Most children get to experience what I like to call the “Tree House Childhood.” They grow and live, for the most part, in 1 or 2 homes. There are growth charts on a door frame, a tree house in the backyard, and stories of the same teacher instructing all of the siblings.
My childhood was a bit of a different adventure. I literally traveled the world. My playground was whatever town, state, or country I was in at the time. I experienced a vast cross-section of cultures and peoples. I’m certainly not complaining about my life, it’s been amazing! How many 4th graders have climbed the Great Wall of China, celebrated Christmas Day in Singapore, kayaked the waters of Hawaii, and seen the Grand Canyon? The military offered my family a rich blend of culture and history, but it wasn’t able to offer me physical permanence.
Physical roots, though important, are not as important as familial roots. The bonds forged between family members is far more important that the memories created in a singular physical space. While I find it awesome that some “family homes” are passed down from generation to generation, I’m more impressed by longstanding family traditions passed down through the ages.
I’m about to embark on a family genealogy project, and as I prepare the tools and my plan of research, I’m reminded of the importance, as a parent, to preserve the legacy of my family (both my family of origin, and Alison’s) and pass it on to Benedict. Right now, for Benedict, Alison and I are the keepers of those precious family traditions and it’s up to us to safeguard them and hand them on to our new generation.
Family traditions are wide and varied. They surround seasons, holidays, and special occasions in our lives. In a sense, these traditions are how we mark our lives. The Christmas morning prayer before presents, for example, is a tradition that Alison’s family has. The prayer reminds us of the true gift on Christmas morning and signals the welcoming of the Christ-child into the manger.
Traditions like this simple prayer reinforce family values. A daily tradition practiced in my family was family dinner. My dad would often work late (no such thing as 9-5 in the military!) so we’d often eat dinner at around 7pm. The time wasn’t the important thing, but the fact that we did it together. I like to think that my brother and I made it a tradition to then fight about who loaded the dishwasher the last time we had to clean the kitchen together.
As keeper of the family traditions, you should also feel emboldened to forge some new ones with your wife. After all, you’re leading a completely new family. There might be opportunities that previous generations didn’t have. For example, Alison and I have started the tradition of a Technology Bowl at dinner to give ourselves some peace and time away from incessant and intrusive communication and information.
Family traditions are both beautiful and deep. I’d encourage you to reflect on the traditions of your family and be vigilant to pass them on to your children. In that way, you connect your family of today with your family of yesterday.
How to Schedule Family Time
As families grow and mature, they all face the same essential problem: with all of the different schedules, how do we spend time together? More importantly, how does the family spend time together on a regular basis?
The divergent nature of scheduling is inevitable in a family. Each member will have their own interests and obligations to fulfill. If you take a close look at your own family’s schedules, you’ll see that there’s actually very little overlap of time when you can “guarantee” that every member is available. In fact, you might be surprised at how getting your family together is just as difficult as pulling together a meeting at work.
Consider, for a moment, what reserving an hour or two weekly for your family to spend time together would be like. You could play a game, go on an adventure, pray, anything really. Regular, scheduled family time does two things. First, it’s a real memory builder! If done consistently, your children will remember this time their entire lives. Even better, when they have families of their own, they might seek to incorporate it into their own family’s life. Second, it emphasizes to all members of your family that it’s important to spend time together regularly. This is a win-win.
Family time is important, and none of us would disagree with that statement. What’s challenging is moving beyond the theoretical, “my family needs to spend time together” to the reality of “my family spends time together every week."
Scheduling and implementing a weekly dedicated family time is hard to do and requires a lot of advanced planning. Some members of your family will be asked to sacrifice part or all of an activity for the sake of the family. That sacrifice goes to the heart of the matter: this time together is so richly important that we need to be ready to quit something so that we can make it happen.
Once you’ve sat down with your wife, reviewed the schedules, and selected a weekly “safe” time, it’ll be time for you to announce the new activity to your family. There may be some grumbling or open revolt in the ranks of your kids. You’re declaring a weekly hour to be sacred, immovable, and mandatory, which means they’re going to have to flex. There should be few (if any) exceptions made. So, if your weekly family time is Saturday at 2pm and your son wants to sign up for a play that has practice during that time, he’s not going to be able to be in that particular production.
Believe it or not, there’s a benefit to your kids when they have to pass on an activity because of Weekly Family Time. You’re helping them learn the important life lesson of time prioritization. There have been many times in my life when I’ve been unable to do something that I wanted to because a more important activity was going on at a particular time. By having this experience as a kid, your children will be better time managers in their adulthood.
Putting all of this into practice is going to be a real challenge for you and your wife to implement. Yet, you both recognize how important it is for your family to be together. So pick the best, safest time, work with your kids, and then plan to have amazing weekly family time.
Clean House, Happy Wife
I love a clean house and a fresh start in the morning. I get up and work for about two hours until Benedict stirs and demands breakfast. Lately, I’ve been refining my evening routine to allow for more time to pick-up the house before bed.
I’ve noticed some significant changes since making this tweek to my evening routine. Each evening, I do a full cleaning of the kitchen and run the dishwasher, I pickup Benedict’s toys in the family room, prep the coffee machine for the morning along with our water bottles, clear the dining room table, and setup my desk to be ready for whatever work I’m starting with in the morning. In addition to setting up my physical workspace, I close all applications on my computer and open only the window I’ll need first thing in the morning.
I’ve found that it’s much easier to get out of bed in the morning and I’m able to more quickly shift from sleeping to working. The clean spaces and prepped workspaces have really allowed me to get up and running instead of spending time preparing. It would take me between 15-30 minutes before from wake-up to starting work and I can now do it in under 10 minutes. I’m also more productive and have a clearer head space. I’m not worried about what I have to do before I get to work and there aren’t any physical barriers slowing me.
I’ve found something else. Alison really loves it.
She loves the order and cleanliness that it brings to our home. Messes are no longer huge, unmanageable projects that have to be deferred to the weekend. Dishes are always clean and ready. Since the dishwasher is empty in the morning, breakfast dishes land in the dishwasher, not in the sink. It also means that she doesn’t have to worry about tripping over anything.
I start the evening cleaning around 8:15pm. The kitchen is already clean after dinner, so I begin with unloading the dishwasher. I then work from the front of the house to the back, and then upstairs in order. I’ve also found that this is a great way to close out the day. When everything is clean, I’m ready for bed because I don’t want to get the house messy again. There’s also nothing else for me to do. It’s a really awesome way to stay in control of my cleaning.
Clutter creeps and sinks fill up fast. With daily maintenance, I’m able to better manage our home and keep it clean for us. It took me two years to figure out, but a small investment of 15 minutes in the evening can result in huge wins in the morning.
Men Do Manly Things
It seems that there’s a natural hesitation among men to engage in any activity that’s determined to be primarily for women. We don’t really craft, we generally don’t clean, and we don’t spend time with mom groups. The problem with distinguishing between activities for men and women is that we might really miss out on something that could be really good for us.
I don’t personally believe in gender specific activities. I have absolutely no problem with dads staying at home to care for the kids (I do!). I don’t mind women being into sports or hunting. It doesn’t matter to me if a man enjoys shopping, romantic comedies (also guilty), or anything else that we consider to be for women.
The fact is, as men, we can do anything we want to. It’s only the limitations that we allow others to put on us that guide our behavior. Some of those limitations are healthy, but many are arbitrary. If your wife does something, you can do it too!
Here’s the perfect example. Alison, Benedict, and I went apple picking twice this year. We decided to convert our bushel and a half of fiji apples into both apple butter and apple sauce. I didn’t really know how to prepare the apples (peel and core) for cooking, so I let Alison take point. She got pretty busy and our apples were in danger of spoiling, so I pulled out the recipe, asked her for guidance, and made a batch of butter and sauce myself.
The simple fact is that as men, we’re crazy smart. We really can do almost anything that we set our mind to and, with practice, can become skilled at it. Our limitations come from within. Imagine how much your wife would enjoy receiving a knitted blanket from you for Christmas. After all, can your wife ever have enough blankets?
Pitch in and help when you can. This is perhaps the most important part of teamwork, being able and willing to assist. If you love something, if you have a talent for a particular skill, regardless of whom society says that skill is for, put it to use for the good of your wife and your family.
You’re a man. You can do anything and it becomes a manly activity because you’re doing it.
Don’t Bury Your Talent
I used to work for a non-profit. My job was to go into communities and start youth programs. The biggest obstacle I faced every time I tried to get a program started was getting the parents involved. It seemed like no matter where I was, urban, rural, affluent, poor, parents just didn’t want to volunteer. There were some very notable exceptions, but by and large, most parents that I met seemed pretty absentee.
We’re each given special gifts and talents that we’re supposed to use for the benefit of others. Our skills should be put to work improving the lives of our family and of our community. When we hold back, we rob everyone of the chance for a better life.
It’s critically important for your growth and health as a human person to give of your time. Don’t go overboard and give so much that you do it poorly, but give an appropriate amount. Our communities need volunteers. Our communities need leaders.
Instead of being the person hiding in the back trying to dodge helping out, get involved! No one likes people who only take. So coach a little league team, lead a youth group, or staff the local food bank.
We all have talents, big and small, that can be put to use improving the lives of others. Put yours in action starting today.