Welcome back to the Simplicity Parenting podcast, otherwise known as the Simplicity Diaries, with me, Kim John Payne. Right off the bat today, I would like to again, like extend our thanks, our heartfelt thanks from everyone here at the office to those people who have donated to this podcast. My goodness.
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This week, I wanted to talk about how we set an example for our kids when we keep on top of of gifting, on top of receiving gifts, giving gifts and and the thoughtfulness that we can bring to that. Now, the sort of, you know, starting at the big picture, the macro picture, I think what's going on there, at least it is for many, many parents that I've spoken to over the years, is that we're all aware that we've we've, you know, we're in a climate crisis, as it's often called. We're in kind of peak, we're in sort of peak fossil fuels.
But I also wonder if we're in we're in peak gifting, peak materialism, where we've reached a kind of crescendo that for many of us, we think, OK, enough of that now. We're consuming more of the Earth's resources than our precious Earth can can provide. Now, that's a big thought, right? It's all in the big, big thoughts.
And in a way, particularly for little children, we, you know, do our best to to not burden them with too much cognitive, intellectually based conversations about that. But then what can we do? Because our little children are in the realm of doing. They've come into this world and they are they are here.
Boy, do they make that known. And their whole world is exploration from the youngest of ages. They're touching, they're feeling, they're they're tasting.
They are then, you know, constructing and project building as they get a bit older. And they're they're just taking delight in what they can and they're in their bodies and they are coming into this world. Down to Earth they come.
Trailing clouds of glory, perhaps, but down to Earth they come. So how how can we also be of this Earth and have reverence for this Earth, but also make it manifest in a day to day level about about how much material goods we consume in our home? And that's the way to do it. Honestly, that's the way I find to not talk about global warming, to not talk about gross consumption, talk about materialism, but is to show it.
And we show it through very thoughtful, for example, thoughtful giving and receiving of gifts. We show it when we can make a gift, when we construct a gift, when we make our cards, we go and search for leaves and they're very special shapes. And and then we bring all those leaves back and we make we make the shapes of butterflies and moths and bugs and bees out of all the different leaves that we've collected through the autumn.
And we've put them in a special box or we've pressed them between a big, thick book. And there they are, these special leaves that we've pressed. We can even dip the leaves in beeswax and and we can then make our our cards out of those.
You can tell I'm probably not I'm not making this one up. That's what my kids did for years and still do. They still do, even though they're big now.
That's what they do. And so we show our kids reverence for the Earth in many ways. But one of the ways we can do it is to really work out what is essential and what is not essential or inessential.
And we can do that through the kinds of gifts that we give to others that are gifting the gift of time. They're gifting the gift of thoughtfulness as we help children hunker down at the counter, at the coffee table. And we're making those cards or we're making those little friendship bracelets or beading or whatever it is a child can do, a little one can do, or a tween or a teenager.
Of course, it gets more elaborate as their motor skills and abilities increase. But we can establish this right at the get go. And what it's doing is not only gifting the gift of what is essential, what is not essential.
It's the time and the thoughtfulness. Because if you decide, and that's a little hint, by the way, as you set out to make the bug card, you know, the card with leaves that looks like a butterfly. Let's use that as an example.
And that's for grandma. Then decided at the outset, because then for a good hour or more often, they are in grandmother, grandma-ness. They're in grandmotherland, right? They're thinking of her.
And it's a way that grandma lives within them. Even when they wrap it, the grandma lives within them. And it's not just going to a store, seeing something, buying it, bringing it home, quickly wrapping it, sending it off.
There's so little grandma-ness in that. Auntie-ness, uncle-ness. But when they make something, that's alive in a child's heart for the longest time.
And what we bring alive in a child's heart is, it's an inner loci, it's an intrinsic quality. Whereas when we buy stuff as a consumer, that's very leaning very much into the external loci. We're centered outside ourselves somehow, a little bit more.
And so this way of being, it's a way of being with children, then sets them up well to not over-expect in return from others. So, for example, if it's a gifting time of the year, the holiday season, or what I call the holy day season, then when they get something that is being constructed for them, let's say you've planned ahead and you've contacted extended family members and you've said, look, let's say it's a two-parent home, a two-guardian home, then one gift from one side of the family, one gift from the other. Guys, get together and decide what it's going to be and then make it.
If at all possible, make it. And if you can't make it, we understand. But you might have a particularly gifted project maker, a very good crafty person, an artist in the family, someone who, and they make that, they construct that, they draw that, whatever it is.
You know, one, I know one mum was saying to me that they received a gift from one member of the family who did a beautiful drawing. Another member of the family made a simple but very well-constructed frame for it. And then a third member of the family did some little printing, like I presume it was like potato stamping on some nice paper.
And that was handmade gift wrapping. I thought that was genius, really, because three or four members of a family had all got together and all given the gift of time. And I said to the mum, wow, that is really special.
Well done, your family. And she said it's taken years to coach everyone up to do that. But the point is not just that, is that if we have raised our children in that kind of spirit of essentialness, of what is essential, of the inner loci, of the inwardly preparing something to be able to give, when they receive something simple that is not battery operated, you know, all dancing, you know, beeping, burping, whatever gift, when they receive something that looks to others like it is homemade or very simple or whatever it is, your children will value it and value it highly because they know what it's like to do that.
Do you see, they have now, they have the eye to see the gift of creativity, the gift of time. They'll know that when grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle sat down and actually constructed that, made that. And even if it's just buying something, but making the gift wrapping or whatever it is, if they receive something, they will have, definitely have an eye for my grandma, my grandpa, my aunt, uncle, whoever it is, my family friend has taken time over that and they'll know it.
And how do they know it? Because they do it. And so you basically reset a child's expectations, yes, but you reset their eye for authenticity. And that authenticity isn't just about gifts.
That's about seeing authenticity as it exists everywhere in the world. That's about the authentic-ness of a friend who's a good friend, who's not such a good friend, who's a really fake friend. That authenticity will go into so many walks of life that they will go hunting for the real and not for the two-dimensional fake.
And that is a quality that is built up in lots and lots of little ways. And gifting is a prime way of doing this little building up of micro-authenticities that build and build and build through their life and lead to something really quite special. And it's also a way of walking more lightly on the earth.
And it's a way not just of walking our talk. It's the way of doing our talk. I sure hope that's helpful.
Again, our blessings go out to all of you. Thank you for those who donate to keeping this podcast going. Thank you to those who just listen in as well.
OK, that's it for today. I sure hope that's helpful. Bye bye for now.
