The Importance of Tradition

We live in a culture that’s changing at such a rapid pace that emotionally, I’m not sure we are keeping up.  More and more, it’s a throw-away society.  For example, I found out my stereo receiver, which I just bought a few years ago, is, according to my friend, already “old school” technology.  Geeez. 

 

What has this got to do with parenting you ask?  I am constantly amazed at how important creating and keeping family traditions are to our kids.  This morning I was having coffee with a friend at McDonalds.  I noticed a dad having breakfast with his son.  It occurred to me that if that dad has breakfast with his son on any kind of a regular basis, he is creating a powerful tradition that will be more meaningful and helpful to that young boy than that father could possibly realize.

 

Our kids long for and need consistency in their lives.  It’s an insecure, unreliable world in which we live.  So anything we can do as busy moms and dads to create traditions, memories that our unique to our children’s experience, well that’s powerful stuff.

 

Over 15 years ago I started a tradition where on Christmas Eve, I would make a tunnel out of cardboard boxes that meandered through the house and ended up in front of the Christmas tree.  On Christmas morning the boys would wake up and couldn’t go downstairs to open presents until I gave the all-clear signal.  They had to go through the tunnel to get to the tree.  It seemed like a fun idea initially.  But being a guy, every year the tunnel has to somehow “outdo” last year’s monstrosity.  This year the tunnel started out of the upstairs bathroom window, down a box-covered  extension ladder, into the back of my oldest son’s Avalanche, around the car, through the garage, past trap-doors and “decoy” tunnels that lead to nowhere, down the back hall, nothing but net…to the Christmas tree.  Close to 200 boxes and several hours after the start of the project, the tunnel is complete.  Now understand that I have one son out of college, one in college and the youngest is a junior in high school.  It’s not like the tunnel is a kid-project any more.  But none of my sons want to give up the tunnel creating event.  Why?  It’s a tradition at our house.  It’s something that we share together as a family that nobody else (that we know of) does.  Therefore it’s a powerful communicator of my love to my sons, that they are special and that we have something special we share between us.  It’s a tradition.

 

So what traditions can you start?  It doesn’t have to be as complex as building a Christmas even box tunnel.  It can be as simple as Saturday morning breakfast with your child at McDonalds.  Don’t discount the importance of making memories, anchored in love through simple traditions you keep with your kids.