Do you know someone that is a “giver”?

They just give and give.

I thought about this the other day. I don’t think my husband and I, as parents, are any different than any other parent out there. We give when we want without hesitation.

We buy and give with love.

The same with helping someone. We help when we are asked to help, or we offer to do something for someone without them asking us. We are empathetic and want to be a good friend, a good parent, a good grandparent, or daughter or sister and even neighbor.

Many times, we volunteer our help, which involves our time, or even being a “ride along”, because we enjoy doing what we can and enjoy the company just as much. We offer to pick up something for someone when running an errand, as time is valuable.

We want our parents, our friends, our children to know we are there for them and we will always take care of them.

We may feel that we give and give, but what are we looking for in return? Not usually anything.

We give and give, though.

We sometimes give to the point that we may feel a bit of resentment for how much we have given or how much we have done for others.

In all honesty, that resentment is on us alone from giving because too many times the people we our offering our help to or giving to are not even asking for anything that we are giving.

Good grief, sometimes, I am like, “just stop, already.”

When I think of “givers” and those that were not so much, I think about my in-laws. Nothing bad, but they lived. They did the parenting thing, and they had grown kids. They were done. They raised their kids so anything past that point was on their kids to figure out on their own. They would offer advice here and there, but nothing was just “given”.

I didn’t really think about it at the time, but whenever one of us was moving into a different home, even if it was just a few miles from one home to the next house, they seemed to just leave for that weekend, that exact weekend that we would be moving. They would leave. They never offered to help in any way or form. They left it up to us to figure it out and we always did. If I had ever needed someone to watch my boys for an afternoon, my mother was many times my go-to, as I knew that my mother-in-law preferred to have one child at a time and she never wanted to be a “babysitter”, she was Grandma and that was made clear even before my husband and I was married, as we had many talks and heart to hearts, plus we were one of the last of my husband’s  family to start our family, so there were many other grandchildren way before ours, which we were able to observe the set example.

Although my mother-in-law may have had her wishes and her limits, she was also a very kind soul. Occasionally she would surprise me with clothes or boots after we had stopped at our favorite department store on our way for our grocery run. She was very aware of our strict budget at the time and knew how little things like that meant to a girl in college and working full time, married to a young guy trying to make a go of “someday”, buying his dad out of the farm. She was also the one that my husband called the few times to sit with me after I had a medical procedure, like wisdom teeth removal, she’d come without hesitation, even if I just slept the whole time that he was away to tend to his “farm” obligations. My in-laws had their limits, and nothing was just given. We knew their expectations and they were clear and respected, yet I don’t remember anything directly spoken of or written about them, we just knew.  I think about them and how they raised their family. There was not any coddling or favoritism from what I could see. At Christmas and for birthdays, everyone would get the same amount of money, or the same amount was spent on a gift. Birthdays were the same. I think about them and how they may not have been the most “giving” or forthcoming to offer their help, but if they were asked, especially my mother-in-law, she would be there in a heartbeat. She never overstepped nor was in the way.

I think many times of my in-laws’ example and think how there are so many things we do differently from them with our children and think maybe sometimes we might over-do. We over “give” and maybe sometimes overstep, and it makes me wonder if we would change to their type of “parenting of adults”, if our kids would be better off?  Would they just learn like we did how to manage the farm and to make a living by other means and not the farm alone, as we had?

Are we building successors?

I do look at our sons and do feel that they have proven to be self-sufficient and know if there is a will there is a way, even with one son just a year out of the Marines and one finishing up his last year in college. I am aware that we are also “givers” and everything we have worked for today and in the past has always been for them. Our goal has always been to make life easier for them than we had it, especially if they were to ever want to farm. A lot of hours, dirt, sweat, and passion went into our days and I include myself, although I was not active on the farm per se as I may not have been directly playing in the dirt, but I had three young toddlers, then boys that transitioned into teenagers, in turn there was sweating and admittedly, some swearing involved along with long hours of being a lone parent as my husband did so many odd jobs on the side of farming to succeed. It wasn’t an easy life.

We no longer are raising boys, we now have grown sons and although I would want to give them the world, as any parent would want to do, we also want them to be successful. There is always that fine line of setting your kids up to move forward and then that line of entitlement. When things are just “given”, they are not always appreciated as they should be.

As with anything, all comes with a price, whether it is “given” or not.

As with everything, it is best to just give it to Him as we know He has His ways of making everything work out like it is meant to be, even when sometimes, it might not be as we had planned it, we adjust, and we accept.

We conquer all through Him and only through Him.

We can continue to give but give with intent. Most of all, if we give it should be without resentment.

We can give our love, acceptance, encouragement, and guidance.