A productive lunch meeting
16/01/20 04:22
I had lunch yesterday with a couple of representatives of non-profit agencies in our community. Our church routinely works with other non-profits to deliver services to our community. One of the people at the lunch meeting is someone that I’ve known for 14 years and worked with frequently over that time. The other is new to our community, but represents an agency with whom we’ve worked for even longer. The reason for the meeting was to discuss low income housing and how we can work together on projects to help families moves into affordable homes. The meting was productive and we came up with some very good ideas.
As we ate our lunch, our conversation naturally drifted to our families and life in general. The others know that I will soon be moving on from the church I now serve and I spoke of the attraction of living closer to our grandchildren. Both of them are roughly the age of our children - at least they would consider themselves to be a generation younger than me. One of the others has children roughly the same ages as our grandchildren and spoke of the busy nature of balancing home and job and working out ways to make it all work. His job, like that of the other two of us, involves quite a few evening meetings. That means that he has to be careful with scheduling to make sure that he doesn’t plan too many evenings away from his family. Our lunch meeting helped him be home when he needed to be with his children. The other participant also has three children the eldest of whom will become a teenager in February.
It was so evident from our conversations that the challenges of parenting children right now are immense. Wrestling with career and a sincere dedication to family is a struggle. And children are growing up in a world that is very different from the one their parents encountered. One big difference involves the technological devices that we now take for granted. Both of them can remember when their families got the first personal computer in their homes. It was considered to be an adult tool and they weren’t allowed to use it very much. They, like our children, got their first hands on experience with computers in a school “computer lab.” That was a short-lived phase when operating a basic computer was considered to be a separate subject, before computers simply became classroom tools. Their children, however, came into a world surrounded by computers. There were computers working in the the delivery rooms into which they were born. They have no memory of a world without screens in early every room. Their parents have to make decisions about access to technology - which devices and how often and with what supervision.
The father of the soon-to-be teenage son worries about cyberbullying and the pressures that can come from social media. His son does not currently have a cell phone, but there are plenty of pressures on the parents to provide one and a few good reasons to do so. The small device is harder, however, makes it harder to control access and monitor use than less personal devices. Having a cell phone will necessitate new rules about when to put the device down and when it is inappropriate to use it.
We agreed that it is not possible to raise children in our community and keep them totally isolated from technology. The world in which I was raised no longer exists. Children need to be provided the tools to participate in their educations and the social world of their peers. Still, it can be frightening for parents. As one of my friends stated it, “Children learn from mistakes and you have to allow them to make mistakes so they can learn, but as they grow older the consequences of their mistakes become so huge - and some of those consequences are things that you cannot live with.”
I admire the courage and vision of my friends. It isn’t easy being a parent in the complex world of today.
As our conversation returned to the challenges of working with people in our community to provide affordable housing, we had those children on our minds. Our agencies serve people with very different political views. The increasing partisanship and the divides within our community make it a challenge to get people to cooperate even on projects where there is considerable agreement. It seems like everyone, including our children, is encouraged to take sides. And there is no small amount of bullying when it comes to trying to get individuals to switch sides. We all seem to be spending more and more time trying to keep people who have political disagreements from being disagreeable to one another. It is almost as if the people with whom we work don’t even want to associate with those with whom they disagree. The work of our agencies, however, is dependent upon people working together. I cited a few projects such as our firewood ministry and building a Habitat for Humanity house as opportunities for people to simply engage in physical work together. When you are one in a line of people raising a wall, your political party affiliation isn’t a factor. Everybody is needed to lift the heavy object into place. When you are feeding wood into a wood splitter and stacking the split wood, the machine is loud enough that you just work and there isn’t room for an argument. Nonetheless, those of us who serve others find ourselves wading into issues of public policy and advocacy just to do the work that is before us.
Despite the challenges we identified as we shared lunch together, I left our meeting with a renewed sense of hope about our community and its future. There are some really good, really faithful and really dedicated people working on making life better for others. The other two are raising caring and contributing children. Despite the problems of contemporary society, there are some really good people who have chose lives of service.
And sometimes I get to have lunch with them. There are perks to this job.
As we ate our lunch, our conversation naturally drifted to our families and life in general. The others know that I will soon be moving on from the church I now serve and I spoke of the attraction of living closer to our grandchildren. Both of them are roughly the age of our children - at least they would consider themselves to be a generation younger than me. One of the others has children roughly the same ages as our grandchildren and spoke of the busy nature of balancing home and job and working out ways to make it all work. His job, like that of the other two of us, involves quite a few evening meetings. That means that he has to be careful with scheduling to make sure that he doesn’t plan too many evenings away from his family. Our lunch meeting helped him be home when he needed to be with his children. The other participant also has three children the eldest of whom will become a teenager in February.
It was so evident from our conversations that the challenges of parenting children right now are immense. Wrestling with career and a sincere dedication to family is a struggle. And children are growing up in a world that is very different from the one their parents encountered. One big difference involves the technological devices that we now take for granted. Both of them can remember when their families got the first personal computer in their homes. It was considered to be an adult tool and they weren’t allowed to use it very much. They, like our children, got their first hands on experience with computers in a school “computer lab.” That was a short-lived phase when operating a basic computer was considered to be a separate subject, before computers simply became classroom tools. Their children, however, came into a world surrounded by computers. There were computers working in the the delivery rooms into which they were born. They have no memory of a world without screens in early every room. Their parents have to make decisions about access to technology - which devices and how often and with what supervision.
The father of the soon-to-be teenage son worries about cyberbullying and the pressures that can come from social media. His son does not currently have a cell phone, but there are plenty of pressures on the parents to provide one and a few good reasons to do so. The small device is harder, however, makes it harder to control access and monitor use than less personal devices. Having a cell phone will necessitate new rules about when to put the device down and when it is inappropriate to use it.
We agreed that it is not possible to raise children in our community and keep them totally isolated from technology. The world in which I was raised no longer exists. Children need to be provided the tools to participate in their educations and the social world of their peers. Still, it can be frightening for parents. As one of my friends stated it, “Children learn from mistakes and you have to allow them to make mistakes so they can learn, but as they grow older the consequences of their mistakes become so huge - and some of those consequences are things that you cannot live with.”
I admire the courage and vision of my friends. It isn’t easy being a parent in the complex world of today.
As our conversation returned to the challenges of working with people in our community to provide affordable housing, we had those children on our minds. Our agencies serve people with very different political views. The increasing partisanship and the divides within our community make it a challenge to get people to cooperate even on projects where there is considerable agreement. It seems like everyone, including our children, is encouraged to take sides. And there is no small amount of bullying when it comes to trying to get individuals to switch sides. We all seem to be spending more and more time trying to keep people who have political disagreements from being disagreeable to one another. It is almost as if the people with whom we work don’t even want to associate with those with whom they disagree. The work of our agencies, however, is dependent upon people working together. I cited a few projects such as our firewood ministry and building a Habitat for Humanity house as opportunities for people to simply engage in physical work together. When you are one in a line of people raising a wall, your political party affiliation isn’t a factor. Everybody is needed to lift the heavy object into place. When you are feeding wood into a wood splitter and stacking the split wood, the machine is loud enough that you just work and there isn’t room for an argument. Nonetheless, those of us who serve others find ourselves wading into issues of public policy and advocacy just to do the work that is before us.
Despite the challenges we identified as we shared lunch together, I left our meeting with a renewed sense of hope about our community and its future. There are some really good, really faithful and really dedicated people working on making life better for others. The other two are raising caring and contributing children. Despite the problems of contemporary society, there are some really good people who have chose lives of service.
And sometimes I get to have lunch with them. There are perks to this job.
