Farm Summer

Perhaps I am mistaken but I swear I once heard a story about a young Johnny who forgot to make his bed as he hurried off to school. His parent (was it Grampa?) promptly ventured to Johnny’s school and had him return home to tidy said bed. Is this a fictitious memory or based somewhere in the Moore Genealogical record? It reminds me of a similar story from my youth when this same John ventured to a middle school dance to apprehend Maurika and have her come home to finish her kitchen cleaning chore of rinsing out the drain in the sink. I remember our daylong marathon of Saturday chores and our hard earned allowance being a bright shiny quarter. Not being allowed to eat candy (much), the 25 cent treat was a tasty round of beef jerky purchased at the little corner drug store and our joy was full.
So I think it is partially due to this Moore family work ethic as part of my upbringing that I lost it the other night. It was one of the first days of summer and close to bedtime when I ventured downstairs to see my sweet and lovely children (because despite this following description, they truly are sweet and lovely) watching TV in an utter mess of a livingroom – popcorn on the floor, throw pillows strewn about, a cup carelessly tossed to the side. It was at this moment that I welcomed the poor lambs to Farm Summer. The ensuing rampage went something like this; “Do you know why summer was invented back in the day? It wasn’t so that children could have a break from school!! It was so that they could work on the farms from dawn til dusk to ensure that there would be food to eat throughout the winter!! They worked so hard that going back to school was probably a nice break from the heavy labor of summer plowing, planting, and harvesting!! And that is what we are doing this summer, my young chickadees, learning how to work – we’ll call it Farm Summer!!”
Did I overreact? Perhaps. It has been known to happen. However, I prefer to call it a moment of clarity. That as a society, we have truly done our children a disservice by entertaining them the way we do. With all the video games and 20 million television stations and many varied and unique handheld electronic devices – we have created a great minion of minis that are programmed to play. And we have forgotten to teach them how to work. Carter is nine and the first toilet he has ever cleaned was last week. There is something wrong with that picture.
Our first day was long and full of chores; cleaning and weeding and scooping and scrubbing. Lots of “I don’t know how to do this” and “Seriously?” but do you know what Jerry noticed when he got home that day? How happy the kids were. It was so clear that good hearty work creates fulfilled children rather than children pacified by technological entertainment.
I do plan on slowly letting them earn playing with friends and going to the pool and enjoying the fun that only summer holds but it is something to be earned – not something they are entitled to. And it is this Moore-ness that we all so cherish that has brought me back to this really important basic that I am so grateful to re-learn myself.
Love ya’ll!!





BTW Thought I would throw in a couple pics. We did go for a nice drive after church on Sunday so I am not completely controlling and cruel. Here is Carter with his fancy summer Mohawk – you can see how much I love it, the girls in the setting sun, and my awesome Jer since I never post pictures of him. Did I tell you that he has coached almost all of Carter’s sporting teams this last year and that he is a rockstar of a husband?