I am the first to admit I know little about raising girls. In fact, what little I did know went out the window when I tried to put it into practice, and I realized I actually knew much less than I had known before I learned that I didn’t know very much. But I have learned a very important lesson about raising girls, from careful observation of our front sidewalk. I’ll share it with you, and perhaps it will help you save a few bucks when it comes to pouring sidewalks and raising girls. Here is how the story goes, and the lesson traveling along right behind it.
A number of years ago Suzi and I made our yearly trip to the central African nation of Malawi to continue our ministry with the Malawi Project. (Take a look at the site at www.malawiproject.org) We were scheduled to be gone for about three months, and two of our good friends, John and Di, decided they would break up our old sidewalk and, with the help of some of our friends from church, surprise us with a brand new, winding, sidewalk along the front of our house. They would also redo the flowerbeds, and replace them with new, beautiful, perennials that would require little maintenance. Don’t you wish you had friends like that?
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| Designed by our friends |
Over the course of several very hot weekends the group worked and worked to complete the job before our return. They succeeded, and we were so surprised when we reached a home that did not even look like our home. It was a page from a landscaping magazine.
Now what does this have to do with raising daughters? Well, you see, over the next months I watched proudly as our visitors came up the weaving walkway, and arrived at our front door. I would open the door and inquire as to how they liked the new walk and the flowerbeds. Everyone agreed that it was a spectacular work of art and a walk that almost anyone would like to own for themselves. Even the neighbors who often walked by in the evening commented on the new appearance. Everyone was impressed and wanted to walk on this new walk. Well, at least everyone except one. That one was one of our daughters (you know which one you are). She would never use the walk. She would cut through the yard and up to the house. Snow, ice, rain, fresh grass clippings, and all. Out of the car, through the yard and up to the door, never using the finely curved walkway. Never knowing the joy of making her way up the concrete, winding way beside the perennial flowers. Never knowing the pleasure of experiencing what all of those people had suffered through heat, mosquitoes, sun, and dirt to create. Just out of the car, through the grass, and up to the house.
Now you may think I encouraged her to use the walk. No way, I have learned my lesson on trying to “encourage” girls to see and do it my way. I get quieter all the time when it comes to disagreements with the women in my household. A few days ago I resolved the situation once and for all relative to the concrete walkway and a daughter who comes up through the yard, missing the walkway. I completed a new series of stone steps just for her. They will be her own special walkway. I have watched for some time and I think I have a stone step right where she puts each foot down on her way to the front door. I think I’ll make a little sign and put it out by the drive announcing this walk is just for her. The next time she comes to visit I can proudly direct her to the new walkway that has been created just for her. Now that is the way to deal with girls, don’t you think? When you and they don’t see eye to eye on how to walk up to the house, you just make them their own sidewalk!
