After being beat down by her day job, cramming for interviews and preparing a case study for a much-desired (and deserved) promotion, and the nine (9!) college credits she is enduring this semester in an effort to walk with the Class of ’14, the Mrs. was voluntarily awake at 5:45 AM on the pre-Frankenstorm Saturday.
Whereas I cannot help but be up before the sun, doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen, or pounding keys on the laptop, my wife isn’t a morning person in the traditional or modern sense. On a weekend, with nothing on docket, it is not at all uncommon for my lady friend to rise somewhere between 9 and 10 AM, hours after the kids and I. It kinda drives me crazy. But last Saturday, thanks to the clock radio alarm that obnoxiously buzzed me awake too, she got herself up, dressed, made a cup of tea to go, and had the Bear in the car before 6:45 AM. They were going to spend their very early day off volunteering in a shitty part of Philadelphia, at a community day care facility in much need of some TLC. They’d be painting playground equipment and fences and pumpkins, and making blankets for the baby room. Not grueling work by any stretch, but work nonetheless. It was the Bear’s idea, one she’d push for on a weekly basis, to do something somewhere and be useful in the world at large. And, well, when your kid wants to leave her warm comfy suburban home on a Saturday morning to help others less fortunate than herself, your affirmative answer isn’t really negotiable.
This is a microcosm of what excellent parenting is about — doing what is sometimes unpleasant but important for foundation building a quality citizen, instilling in your children the core principles of selflessness and generosity even when it is not convenient and there’ll be no TV crew capturing the activity for glory or recognition, and then reinforcing the principles when applicable, even if the application of it occurs 4 hours before you’d ideally like to be awake on a dreary weekend day. The Mrs. demonstrated excellence in parenting by saying yes, making the arrangements, waking up, and being on time to catch the bus that would take them into that particular North Philadelphia battlezone (exaggerating for effect.)
As proud as I am of my oldest daughter for volunteering to help people and places in need, I am, in a way, more proud of my tired, busy, stressed-out, and stretched-to-the-limit wife for adding one more thing to her plate in an effort to help raise our girl to be a compassionate human being.
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