I read an interesting post on Facebook the other day.
The post tells of a couple of fellas carrying on a conversation over a cup of coffee in one fella’s kitchen. They were busy chattin’ up the fishing, hunting, sports and whatnot tales friends like to do.
One of the fellas stands and says to his friend, “Keep talking I need to wash up some dishes.”
His friend looks at him a bit perplexed and says, “I’m glad you help your wife, I don’t, ’cause she never says thanks. Why, I washed the floor the other day and I got no thanks for my effort.”
Well, the post’s gist was about the dish-washing buddy, enumerating to his friend about how he doesn’t ‘HELP HIS WIFE’ … in any of the things the average male counter-part assumes is ‘woman’s duties’. And… he doesn’t look for a ‘Thank you’, from his wife, because, as he puts it, ‘he lives there too, so he’s doing his part’. It’s what’s expected and for that you don’t expect to be thanked.
The story doesn’t provide a ‘reply’ from the ‘non helping friend’, but we’re left to assume he was either stunned, aggravated, or became a member of UTBAF fraternity (ibid: Used To Be A Friend).
This kind of thinking is just foreign to me.
I grew up on a small farm in mid-central Indiana. My father, mother, older brother, younger sister, me, and 70+ year old grandfather were our core labor force. There would be the occasional visitor, neighbor or friend to ‘lend a hand’. But frankly, most of the time (like 99% of the time) their ‘help’ cost us more consternation that it was worth. However, all of life’s experiences – my parents taught us – were, ‘moments of training for something important’, so we were expected to ‘pay attention and learn’. As much as I didn’t like hearing that, their words not only came true, but paid off handsomely.
We didn’t have assigned jobs. Each day would begin with jobs needing to be accomplished. That was the goal. Those jobs were jobs that needed to be done. Not electives but necessities. For every one of those jobs, there would be from a half-dozen to a dozen other little things to get done, either as prep or a result of doing the jobs.
There just weren’t enough of us to distribute about to tackle a specific job. So, everyone was expected to work towards getting the work done; whatever that ‘work’ happened to be.
This wasn’t easy on Dad. I was too young and could not understand at the time the level of responsibility he held. But now …! Oh, MY! I see just how strong, tolerant, merciful, and effective my dad was in his role. He truly kept the ‘machine’ in order
This takes a team effort. No one person -an [ I ] – can do it all. Dad was the core; the ‘go to guy’ for guidance and assistance. But EVERYONE pulled the same effort in getting the jobs done.
My mother and father raised and taught us, long before I ever heard it in a sports analogy:
“There’s no “I” in TEAM.”
... Undetermined
I did as many dishes, sweeping of floors, planting of flowers, washing laundry, hoeing the garden, picking goods in the garden and orchard, as I did cleaning stalls, milking cows, rounding up stock, gathering eggs, feeding stock, preparing fields, harvesting, cutting wood … man! YOU name it, we did it! ,
By the time I was a sophomore in High School, I was competent in all sorts of, household chores, cooking, gardening, stock care, grain farming, machinery repair, welding, carpentry… even cider and maple syrup making. I didn’t need Driver’s ED, to learn how to drive. I’d been driving tractors, trucks and automobiles since I was 5 years old. The knowledge of the various projects and the confidence derived from accomplishment, served me well now for 68+ years.
So, yes. I learned when you ‘HELP someone’, it’s going to be someone OUTSIDE of your ‘Working Group’ (aka, Family). When you’re working inside the Family structure, it’s not ‘helping out’, it’s doing what you SHOULD BE DOING as a ‘member of the TEAM’.
This is but one of the reasons I’m so thankful for being blessed with growing up on a Farm, living in the country and having parents who knew what we truly needed as kids.
This, and many more lessons have never failed me. I’ll continue working, to complete the job, so to not allow them to fail.
