A Kids Life

When I was a child, it was common for only one parent to work whilst the other ran the home and dealt with the welfare of the children, which worked for me as I could read and write before I went to school aged 4 years and 9 months. Work would mean 9 to 5.30 or a 40-hour week, with Saturday and Sunday off. Saturday would be spent on hobbies, chores, or watching TV and Sundays were truly a day of rest, barely any shops were open, pubs closed at 12noon and reopened at 7pm, even television went off air for a few hours on Sunday afternoon, public holidays would have the same restrictions. Summer holidays whilst generally very basic for working folk, really were an opportunity to escape from work and take a break, which for me was to go for a week or two to a caravan on the Kent coast.

Today both parents generally work full time with mothers returning to work when a child is barely finished breast-feeding (perhaps this is why one in four children start school without being toilet trained and many children are unable to speak or understand what is said to them). Working hours tend to be flexible for employers with many expecting their staff to work beyond their contracted hours further pestering them after they have left work with text messages and emails. Saturdays are spent catching up on essential housework and shopping which often spills over into Sundays and let’s not forget those working in retail who may have to put in a full shift on Saturdays and Sundays. As for public holiday’s it seems that only Easter Sunday and Christmas Day are holding out!  Summer holidays are no longer a time to switch off from work as often emails and text messages follow employees all over the globe: There is never an opportunity to truly escape!

To me this doesn’t look like progress it is more like regression; do we really benefit from living our lives this way?  Yes, maybe we can afford more than a wet week in a caravan in Leysdown for our holidays, or an old banger of a car that annually required a ton of work to get it through the MOT - which was my personal experience - but are we, today’s adults happier than adults were when we were kids? Maybe improvements in standard of living and healthcare mean that we can live longer, but can we actually take advantage of that longer life, or do we have to invest that time in working longer just to keep a roof over our heads for when we eventually retire? Some may say we are a long time dead and should use what life we have in striving for more, better, and bigger of whatever it is we enjoy.

Our Pastor last Sunday (29^th September) unintentionally added fuel to this blog that has been brewing for a little while in my head with the sermon he gave based upon Jeremiah 29 (you can listen to it here->Return from Exile). One of the things he spoke about and physically demonstrated in his unique style, is that as Christians we know we spend eternity in the presence of God, eternity, forever and ever with no end. So why do we spend the infinitesimal time we have in this life chasing after the things of Mammon? We should be using this time as preparation for the eternal life that awaits us. This spoke directly to me about humanity’s incessant strive for progress to which we commit more and more of our time, which gives us more time in our lives, which we spend in the pursuit of more progress, which gives us more time, ad infinitum….get my point? 

The foster parents who brought me up seemed to be less stressed, less overworked, and with more time – especially on the weekends – to enjoy doing the things that they enjoyed doing. They only lived into their mid-60’s but for people who were desperately poor they never seemed to complain about the life they had, because they were free to live it. Jesus says in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  Which is counterbalanced by his words in Matthew 6:20 h, “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” So, we must strike a balance between living an abundant or full life whilst preparing for the life ahead. Unfortunately, my foster parents didn’t do the latter, but they had a lot to teach me about the former. Perhaps I should start to listen to that lesson at least!