A few weeks ago, my 10-year-old daughter held a bake sale to raise money for foster families and our local senior services center. When I say she held a bake sale, I mean SHE held a bake sale. Not me. I wish I could take credit for it, or at least take credit for teaching her generosity.
But if anything, her generosity persists in spite of my best efforts to temper it.
When she first told me her idea, I smiled and nodded, hoping she would be occupied in her room for a few hours “planning,” and then forget about it completely. When she asked to bring our kids’ cookbook to school so her friends could pick out the baked goods they wanted to contribute to the sale, I said, “sure,” thinking that would be a fun activity for recess but nothing would actually come of it.
When she came home from school with a bake sale flier she had made on the computer and asked her teacher to print for her, I started to feel like maybe it was getting out of control. When her friends’ moms started texting me, “Can’t wait to see you at the park on the 7th!” and “Mila is excited to bring brownies to the bake sale!” I realized this bake sale was happening with or without me.
Before I lose you completely, let me explain myself. I think I’m a fairly generous person. I am a monthly supporter of a few charitable organizations. I set money aside so I can be spontaneously generous. I bring friends meals or coffee or flowers when they are going through a tough time. I volunteer with Meals on Wheels (bringing food to homebound seniors in my community).
When I was in high school, my big sister in college said she liked my new outfit, and I shipped her a box FULL of all the brand-new clothes my mom had bought for me on our last shopping trip. A teenage girl! Giving away all her new clothes!
But, as a working mom of two young children, I don’t always have the capacity to go along with all my daughter’s generous whims. Like when she wanted to invite everyone we knew over for a party to celebrate “how cute and funny” her newborn baby brother was. I had a newborn. I was barely sleeping. The last thing I wanted to do was clean up behind a four-year-old party planner.
Or when, at the beginning of the pandemic, she wanted to put a handwritten note and picture in each mailbox in our neighborhood “so our neighbors don’t feel lonely.” There are more than 150 homes in our neighborhood. Do you know what it was like homeschooling a first grader (recently diagnosed with ADHD) while keeping a three-year-old boy quiet so dad and sister could be on video calls AND trying to get my own work done? Did I mention I was trying to do this in a house the size of a two-bedroom apartment?
Or when our neighbors’ house burned down a few days after Christmas and she wanted to give them ALL of her Christmas money. Give, save, and spend.
Listen, we had the party to celebrate how cute and funny her newborn baby brother was. We just kept the invite list to immediate family members. We taped letters (like law-abiding citizens) to all the mailboxes in the neighborhood. We just used a copier instead of handwriting each one. And she gave the neighbors ALL of her Christmas money – that is, all the money we had set aside for giving. I tempered.
Admitting this is tough, especially to an audience of some of the world’s most generous people. But it’s important. My daughter is (very slowly) teaching me an incredible parenting (and generosity) lesson.
Jesus often pointed to young children as examples of how we should live out our faith (Matthew 18:3). Furthermore, he tells us specifically not to hinder them in their own walks of faith (Mark 10:14). I believe this directive extends to generosity as well.
Proverbs 22 tells us our job as parents is to train our children well. But I think sometimes they can also train us. Our kids can teach us to slow down long enough to see the needs around us. They can teach us to be creative with what we have in order to bless others in big ways. They can teach us to be radically generous in ways our responsible-adult brains sometimes won’t let us.
There came a point (way too late, and when I really didn’t have the choice anymore) in my daughter’s bake sale project when I stopped and asked myself, “Why are you standing in her way? She is being the force for good you always hoped your child would be!” So I helped her select the charities she wanted to support. I helped her make a SignUpGenius page for all her friends. I helped her bake cookies and cakes (gluten-free, nut-free, and dairy-free “so everyone can have a treat!”).
And when the day of the bake sale came, my daughter and the friends she recruited raised $419.46, and I got the invaluable gift of watching this creative, loving, magnetic child of mine bring her vision to life and realize the power she has to change the world.
And when she gave all her tooth fairy money to her little brother so he could buy a treat from the sale, I didn’t suggest she keep some for herself. And when her little brother used that tooth fairy money to buy his big sister a lemonade “because she might get hot,” I didn’t encourage him to get a cookie for himself instead.
I just watched. And learned.
Images: Author
