Teenasia, our 2-year-old foster daughter, is a good talker.
While she came to us at 16 months with no words at all,
she makes up for that initial silence with a steady stream
of comments about the world around her. She can name body
parts and household objects, family members and favorite
foods. She has even started stringing words together:
“Wanna pretzel, Mom” or “I do it self.”
My favorite phrase of hers, however, is “gank you.”
Teenasia “ganks” us for everything. Breakfast
in the morning. A drink before bed. Zipping her zipper.
Blowing her nose. When her brothers hand her an out-of-reach
toy or help her hold a crayon, she often responds with
a hearty, “Gank you, Liam” or “Gank
you, Gacob.”
Both Liam and Jacob — 5 and 8 — are reasonably
polite kids and usually remember their manners, but Teenasia
has brought the art of thanking to a new level and often
remembers when they forget. At the risk of sounding annoyingly
braggy, I think Teenasia may be gifted at gratitude.
Teenasia’s “ganking” has made me think
about thankfulness more this Thanksgiving season. And
in thinking about thankfulness, I’ve come to a startling
discovery. Thankfulness, in its deepest form, is love.
Thankfulness is what makes us strong.
The other day, I was passing out pancakes to my ravenous
children. They inhaled them so quickly, I could hardly
finish pouring another round on the griddle before they
were ready for more. As I tossed two more pancakes onto
Liam’s plate, he suddenly looked at me and said,
“You always get your pancakes last, Mom. You give
us ours first. That’s generous.” As I blinked
my surprise, he added that “generous” was
a new word for him, and wasn’t I surprised he knew
it?
I was surprised he knew generous (or “gener-wuss”
as he said it) but I was more surprised he noticed I got
my pancakes last, and that he appreciated it.
Seeing gratitude in my children has made me think about
my own gratitude in my relationship with God. Liam’s
comments made me feel proud of him — a moment of,
“He gets it; he’s seeing me; he’s not
thinking the pancakes just materialized out of nowhere.”
Could it be God has a similar reaction when I pray in
a spirit of thanksgiving? I imagine God chuckling, “She
finally understands this is not coincidence or her own
doing, but rather my hand at work in her life.”
Thanking another person — or thanking God —
requires the thanker to spend a moment outside of himself
or herself. Gratitude is recognition of the other, and
we cannot recognize the other if we are too focused on
ourselves.
I don’t know if I demand more “pleases”
or “thank yous” out of my children than does
the average mother. I do know, however, that those words
were drilled into me at an early age and when I became
a parent myself, I passed on the tradition. It made sense
to me that if being a child means you get your cereal
poured for you, your shoes tied, and (if you’re
lucky) cookies baked and given to you warm and gooey with
a glass of cold milk, the least you can do is say “thanks.”
By teaching children to be thankful, we are giving them
a lifetime gift. The exact opposite of being a thankful
person is being a complainer, and as far as I can tell,
complainers have awful lives. For a complainer, nothing
is cooked well enough in restaurants or arranged conveniently
enough in stores. Everything about their jobs, families
and relationships is a difficult trial.
While we all have legitimate complaints at times, I wouldn’t
want one of my children to grow up with an attitude focused
on the negative. The best way to make sure my children
find joy in their adult lives is to teach them to be thankful
as children. Thankfulness, when learned young, becomes
a habit and a vantage point.
A spirit of thankfulness will make my children stronger.
They will be better able to look outside themselves and
serve those people who truly do not have as much to be
thankful for. They will have fuller relationships, because
they will be accustomed to looking for the gift —
not the flaw — in their neighbor.
In our family, only three of the five of us have mastered
the “th” sound. But that will not stop us
from giving thanks this year. Whether it’s Teenasia’s
“ganks” or Liam’s “sanks,”
we’re a pretty grateful bunch. And I’m thankful
for that.
(Scobey-Polacheck and her husband Bill have two sons,
Jacob and Liam, and a foster daughter, Teenasia. They
belong to SS. Peter and Paul and St. Monica parishes.
Scobey-Polacheck welcomes dialog regarding her column.
E-mail her at <ascobey@hotmail.com>.) |
