How healthy is your family bank account? Would you say you are in the black or in the red? What if I removed the word “bank” and just asked, how healthy is your family account? Does that change your answer?
Our families are like our investments. We reap what we sow. I’m pretty sure I’ve read that somewhere before. Investments bring dividends and while their outcome is not always certain, not investing guarantees you will not yield any dividends. It is really no different when it comes to investing in the intangible things in life, such as our families.
Each family has an identity. This happens whether you intentionally cultivate an identity or not. If we want to have a healthy family account, a healthy family identity, we need to choose to make the investments in order to reap the dividends.
While there are many way to invest in your family, one of the most enjoyable ways to is to purposely create traditions. Sing it with me, “Tradition! Tradition!” Did you sing it in your best Jewish voice trying hard to sound like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof? If you have no clue what my goofy joke is referring to, well, maybe it is time for you to start a new family tradition of movie night. Order the pizza, pop the popcorn, and search Netflix for Fiddler on the Roof. And, then, next week, do it again. And the next week, and the next week, and, well, you get the idea. See, you have already made a deposit into the family identity bank account.
Notice that traditions do not have to be grand. While we all may want to take an annual family vacation to Hawaii every year, let’s face it, not many of us can do that. But, we can take a trip together each year. Maybe your family spends a day at the beach each summer. Maybe your family goes skiing one day each winter. Maybe your family hikes the woods near your home in the fall. Maybe your family visits the same little town over spring break each year. My family had the privilege of attending the same Family Camp every summer. It was just for the weekend. It was just at a campground. It wasn’t fancy and it wasn’t glamorous but it was ours, and the memories we made are the dividends from our investment of time in our family.
How about birthdays? Do you have any traditions that your kids look forward to on their birthdays? Of course there are presents. Who doesn’t love a great gift each year? But what does your family do that makes birthdays unique? We make a big deal out of birthdays in our house. No, it is not the gifts. Typically, we do not buy them computers or cars or jewelry. Instead, we make the day different from all the other days. Our kids get to pick what they want to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on their birthdays. They wake up to streamers on their bedroom door – one streamer for each year of life. And, then, there is the birthday banner. It is a cheap $3.00 shiny, silver banner that reads “HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ in multi-colored letters. I bought the banner in 1998. What is truly amazing is not the fact that it has lasted for nineteen years, but that it has moved with us seven times and not been lost or destroyed in the process! While the banner was only a $3.00 monetary investment, the worth of the family investment has been priceless.
There is a domino game called Chicken Foot. Normal people, meaning people other than the members of my family, probably play Chicken Foot and think it is just a nice, easy-going domino game. Then there is my family. Chicken Foot is a tradition in my family. The rules of the game may look like the rules that everyone plays by, but then there is the other stuff, the unique-to-our-family stuff, in other words the family traditions. When my family plays Chicken Foot, we typically start the game late, as in 9:00p.m. or later. We play all twelve rounds, regardless of how late the night may become. If you are married into the family, you are allowed to leave the game early if you need to go to bed. However, if you are just the boyfriend or the girlfriend, well, no sleep for you! You cannot be excused. You have to endure the ridiculously late hour and all the punchy silliness that goes along with it. As for the game itself, well, we have goofy, loud, obnoxious ways of announcing a “chicken foot” is happening. Then there is the strategy of never letting “the blank” be “exposed”, because it means someone will most likely get stuck with fifty points in the end. Yes, it is a cut-throat game at times for us! What I want you to see is not that my family may be slightly crazy, but that these family traditions were just the ordinary things that happen when you chose to invest your time in being together. No one set out to make the game a late night game. No one planned to make the boyfriends or girlfriends suffer. No one announced that we must be silly in our manners and words. Those things just happened. They happened when we made the investment of the time spent together playing the game. The game was the initial investment. The silly rules and side-splitting hilarious memories are the dividends, and I call tell you that every single member of my family would say they are priceless!
So how is your family bank account doing? Is it gaining strength in the black or floundering in the red? Is it time to start making or increasing your investments? Are your traditions growing a healthy crop to sow? Make the choice to invest in your family today. Tomorrow you will look at your child and think, “Is this the little girl I carried?” Your investment in your family through your traditions will yield dividends that show you are, indeed, a rich man.
Tricia McDonald is the wife of a newly retired Army Sergeant Major and a mother of three amazing children, ages 17, 18, and 21. She recently gained a wonderful son-in-law as well. She currently resides in North Carolina, where she homeschools her two youngest kids. Tricia enjoys reading and is passionate about U.S. History. She also volunteers as the music coordinator for a local semi-professional youth theatre group. She would like to encourage young moms to enjoy each moment, as the years really do fly by quickly.
Anne Marie
thank you for this practical reminder and that “traditions” do not need to be complicated or expensive.