Today’s prompt left me thinking. The task was to write about family traditions, and I struggled to identify what truly was a tradition for my family, the one I created or grew up in. I have friends who spend Christmas day going to the beach to visit the Christmas tree they set up the night before. I know those who will do an amazing Eggmpics on Easter Sunday. But when I think about my family, I don’t see such wild outlandish events. I know family traditions are not solely about the holidays; however that’s all I can focus on right now.
I look back at growing up and think about how most holidays are organized around my dad working them. For Thanksgiving, we never ate early. It would genuinely be Thanksgiving Dinner, not a strange linner/brunch thing. My dad would always be home for 4th July. Which was fantastic since my mom did not like lighting off fireworks. She was paranoid we would all explode and die. That is a reasonable fear for a mother to have because I have that now when I watch my tiny pyromaniacs. Opening presents on Christmas day varied each year depending on the day it fell on and what schedule my dad was working.
But now that I reflect on how my life was organized, growing up, I see that the tradition wasn’t an elaborate display. My family tradition is and has been to value time. It doesn’t matter if it was a hobby, sport, or a career, our parents taught us to put effort into what we do. Wasting our time was not something we did. Time was valuable because there was so little of it. My parents worked hard to provide for us and worked harder, making my brother and I know how loved we were. Family time, of value, was something that my parents stressed. They both grew up in broken families. My mom’s bio-father left when she was in middle and was blissfully absent after her teenage years. My dad’s parents divorced. While my grandmother raised four crazy boys in the north, my grandfather served in the marines and later became a border patrol agent, stationed all over the US. But when my parents became adults they settled states away from their family. The connection broken. All that was left were each other and eventually me and my brother.
I see this reflected in how my husband and I are raising our kids. When we are not working, we are inseparable. Particularly, because I’m super needy, and lucky to have a husband who doesn’t mind my attention. However, we love spending time with each other. We enjoy many of the same hobbies, share the same taste in music, but we are also comfortable in the silence of each other. With our children, we embrace their hobbies and try to encourage them to seek what brings them happiness. We try not to push our ideas on them however; we guide them into putting the best effort in whatever it is they’re doing. My husband and I want our children to appreciate the time someone spends with them and how they use their own time. Because we can’t get it back.