Loving Other People's Children: Part 2

The other day I went to visit my friend who lives near the demilitarized between South Korea and North Korea. She lives about 4.5 hours from me so I don't get to see her often and thus we took a trip North to see commemorative park.

None of this really matters... okay, what we do with or friends always matters, but what I mean is, in context to this topic, it doesn't matter. I'm just taking a long cut to explain how I came upon the swords.

Among the gift shop goodies were real Korean practice swords and it reminded me of the boys. I had to fight the impulse to buy a pair and send them back to the United States. I could have, very easily done so. I sent them Christmas cards after all, albeit belated because of my hours at work and no weekend post office ,but I digress.

I did so much for the boys and I thought I was being really good to them but I reinforced something their dad was adept at: selfishness. I never mentioned it before because I'm an adult and I shouldn't whine about forgotten birthdays, but then again I celebrated three birthdays with small gifts but kindnesses and not only was there no goodbye dinner, or card, or any of the things my good friends do, but no birthday card either. However to be clear, they also would have forgotten their dad's birthday and done absolutely nothing had I not been around to push them.

Kids are not exactly to blame for such things. They are kids after all and tend to forget about things like birthdays or little thank yous. Often, just being around them is reward enough because there is just something about children to us adults. However, whether you are a parent, relative, or family friend, I believe that it is possible to do children disservice by not teaching them to reciprocate. Just as the youngest of kids must be taught to share, they must also be taught to care.

I'll also add a caveat because kids are very good at saying thank you in the moment, because they are thinking about it and it's easy. True care has scope beyond a moment, and impulse. Very few children are born knowing this.

Anyway, they know I have not forgotten them because words are free and the cost of a stamp is negligible, but even that cannot go on forever un-reciprocated.