The Good 'ol Days

Today I spent some time doing dishes with my kids. I'm not talking about dishes with a dishwasher. No, I mean the real deal - with soap, water, and a sponge. Granted, this isn't rocket science, but it isn't something that I do often. That is partially do to the fact that my kids do the dishes most every night. Every once in awhile, when I am feeling particularly charitable or when I want it done quickly and well, I will jump in and help. But, for the most part, the kids take the reigns with the nightly dishes. My husband particularly appreciates this because that was his job for the first 13 years of our marriage. He would do the dishes every night that he was home because I always did the cooking. No, I didn't ask him to do it. Yes, I know I married a gem!

As I was standing there with a sink full of soapy water, washing dishes while the kids rinsed, dried, and put them away - I was transported back in time. When I was a kid, my family was not blessed with the luxury of a dishwasher. I remember a brief stint of having one that worked, but it was just that - brief. By and large, we washed and dried dishes the old fashioned way every night. Although at the time I hated it and wished that we could afford to purchase a working dishwasher, I look back with fond memories. My dad would often be the one doing the washing. The rest of us drew straws for our jobs. While we worked together, Dad would quiz us on our math facts and create long math problems for us to do in our heads. He would also spell words with us or ask us about other things that we had done that day. That was Dad's way of passing the time while we worked, and I remember the dishes often being more of a time of family bonding than the actual meals. Granted, it wasn't like this every night, and I surely didn't appreciate it at the time. But, I realize now how much of a benefit that was for me. I learned to work, and I learned that work didn't always have to be drudgery - that it could be a means to bring about a certain togetherness.

Along with the lack of a dishwasher, there was a period of time that we did not have a clothes dryer. We would take the baskets of freshly washed clothes out to the backyard and hang them on the clothesline to dry. Oh, how I hated that job! It was certainly no fun in the Arizona heat to hang a batch of clothes out to dry. Not only that, but I was humiliated. I didn't want anybody to know that my family couldn't afford to buy a dryer. On one particular occasion when I was in junior high, I had one of my friends over for an afternoon and my mom handed me a basket of wet clothes and asked me to go and hang them on the line. I was mortified! This friend belonged to a family who was very well off and she certainly never had to hang clothes to dry. But, as I apologized profusely for having to do this chore, she said something that has stuck with me to this day. She simply said "Don't apologize. This is fun." At the time I thought she was crazy. How could this be fun? But, once again, I was reminded that work didn't have to be awful. She may or may not have known that I had to do this because my family couldn't afford a dryer. But, it didn't matter. Somehow, these opportunities for work would be a blessing, whether or not I realized it at the time. I used my vast knowledge again when, as newlyweds, my husband and I had a washer but no dryer. We strung a clothesline in our spare bedroom, and it worked like a charm.

This is just a taste of my life as a child. There was no question that we were usually strapped for money. As I grew up and became more aware of that, I must shamefully admit that I wanted to keep it a secret from the world. I hated that I couldn't afford all of the right things that seemed necessary in order to fit in with my peers. But, honestly, looking back, I wouldn't change it even if I could. I feel like those experiences molded me in a way that could not have happened otherwise. Although my husband has a successful dental practice and we will likely not have to struggle financially (though we did for ten years of school), I sometimes wish that my kids could experience just a little of what that was like. I do believe it was character building. And, I am grateful now for every dish that I washed by hand while my dad quizzed me on math facts, every piece of clothing that I hung to dry in the hot sun, every time that I had to buy school clothes at a thrift store instead of at the mall, and the way in which it taught me about work, togetherness, and what is truly important in life.