I have spent over a thousand consecutive days thinking about, writing about, teaching about, and wrestling in my own heart with the concept I call “Up, Not Out.” I have seen the difficulty of transferring many of my ideas to the practice of other individual’s lives. I have spent hours talking with groups of parents only to have someone at the end make a comment about making sure children have a good childhood before they need to become adults, and realize they completely missed my point. But until recently I haven’t had any moments where I missed my point. I think I have come to such a moment.
For the last six months I have been studying the lives of influential people specifically born and raised in the state of Ohio. From the Wright Brothers to Ulysses S. Grant this state has produced some of our greatest and most innovative political and scientific leaders. But why? Why Ohio? This has been my mission, and I am not sure if I have succeeded in it. But I have certainly learned a thing or two, and one of my observations with regards to the collection of lives is the degree of labor, mission, and even hardship which each and every individual took on at a young age. These children were busy. They were active. They played, yes. But they also worked, contributed, and learned as though it were a job. They took growing up seriously and they did it from an early age.
One of the inherent dangers of my “Up, Not Out” message is the natural and important emphasis on not growing out of childhood. This emphasis can lead to an unintentional, even when observed and articulated, lifting up of childhood as a greater good. This glorification, when combined with our privileged culture of entitled children can further exacerbate a tendency in parents to shelter their children from the world. I have realized in the past weeks and months my own tendency in this direction, and am working to correct it.
The message of “Up, Not Out” is in part to refuse the process of growing out of our childhood, that wonderful portion of our humanity characterized by hope, dreams, play etc.
But it is equally a message, and an insistence upon our need to grow up, and our need to do so for a complete lifetime.
The danger in a world obsessed with defining growing up by leaving behind hope, dreams, and wonder is that one needs to continuously beat that drum, and that beat can make us lazy about actually growing up.
It is thus I am beginning to formulate how to implement a job description into my home which is true for every member. I believe it is true for all humanity. The job is to grow up on one hand, and to contribute on the other.
When we define growing up within the context of “Up, Not Out,” we can safely, and indeed must, expect our children and ourselves to daily grow up.
One of the favorite practices I discovered in my study of Ohioans comes from the family of astronaut, John Glenn. Every dinner was eaten together, and conversation consisted of a report back about everyone’s job. Dad’s job was a plumber, the kids’ job was to learn at school, and mom’s job was to take care of the house etc. Everyone had a job, and each was valued, important, and equally necessary to where the family was going. I hope to carry forward a similar practice by defining everyone’s job as the same. I am responsible each day to grow up, including my ability both to play like a child and face conflict like a man. I am responsible each day to contribute to my society, my family, and the Kingdom God is working with man to build. My children can be held accountable to the same criteria even now at their young ages. If they can talk and understand language they can begin to define themselves as an individual destined to grow up forever, an individual destined yes to keep and grow their wonder, dreams, hope etc., but an individual also destined to contribute. This is my aim. This is life lived “Up, Not Out.” I don’t want to miss it.
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