What We Choose To Give Our Children

What We Choose to Give Our Children

As parents, we spend so much of our lives wondering what we can give our children.

We think about the practical things first:

a safe home,

warm meals,

good opportunities,

help when they struggle,

comfort when they hurt.

But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to believe some of the most important things we give our children are much quieter than that.

We give them the atmosphere of a home.

We give them memories of what peace felt like.

The sound of laughter in the kitchen.

The comfort of traditions repeated year after year.

The feeling of being welcomed at the table.

The knowledge that someone was there.

And perhaps most of all, we give them seeds.

Seeds of kindness.

Seeds of faith.

Seeds of perseverance.

Seeds of forgiveness.

Seeds of gratitude.

Seeds of how to love other people.

Sometimes we plant those seeds faithfully without seeing immediate growth.

Sometimes we wonder if anything we tried to teach truly took root at all.

But gardens do not bloom overnight.

Many seeds grow quietly beneath the surface long before anyone can see the first signs of life.

I think parenting often asks us to live by faith in that very same way.

To keep loving.

To keep showing up.

To keep planting good things.

And to trust that in time, some of those seeds will bloom beautifully in ways we may not even fully witness ourselves.

What we choose to give our children becomes part of the gardens they someday plant too.

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” — Proverbs 22:6

May your home be a place where good seeds are planted gently and often.

Helene

— Rosemary Thyme