You don't know how good you've got it

You don’t know how good you’ve got it

November 9, 2015

Remember when your grandparents (maybe your parents too, or a great aunt, or the old guy down the street) used to say, “You don't know how good you've got it,” and you shrugged your shoulders and ignored them? I find myself thinking that same phrase a lot lately. A lot.

My kids don't seem to have any idea how easy our lives really are in comparison to most people in the world today and throughout the course of history. They have no idea (and I don't really either) about what it means to be seriously hungry, to have no home, to be fleeing war or persecution. They don't even know what it's like to go without the little luxuries of playing organized sports and getting far too many toys at Christmas and feeling safe to walk down the street to the park.

We have it good. Really damn good. But you'd never know it by how much time we spend always looking for more.

I had a long talk with my kids this morning. I shared with them some stories from my own childhood, some stories that I've encountered while teaching the adoption course, some stories that I've heard through the media lately. I shared about the kinds of things that other people – other kids – have to live through, and we talked about being grateful for what they have.

We also talked about gratitude for what we have becoming compassion for those who don't have enough, about giving of what we have so that others could have enough as well.

It was a reminder to me (one I seem to need frequently) that the example I set for my kids is characterized too much by dissatisfaction and not enough by gratitude. It was a reminder, yet again, that I need to appreciate how good I've got it.

My grandma would be grudgingly proud.

Luke Hill is a stay-at-home father of three boys, aged 10, eight, and four. He has fathered, fostered, adopted, or provided a temporary home for kids anywhere between birth and university. He has taught college courses, adoption seminars, camp groups, Sunday School classes, rugby teams, not to mention his own homeschooled kids.