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It’s not a biblical saying. And if it’s taken to mean that only the people closest to us have a claim on our care, it’s not even a Christian idea.
But “charity begins at home” becomes a thoroughly Christian proverb when it refers to the fact that home is the first, best place for learning to respond to others’ needs.
Our families are the incubators where many of our children’s attitudes and values are formed—for better or for worse. This means that if we want to raise kids who have a desire to serve, we have to cultivate an attitude of service within our homes. The family is the perfect place to learn this, because loving one another and serving one another is really the same thing.
To teach children that truth is not easy. Kids are naturally focused on their own needs and must be weaned away from self-centeredness. On the positive side, human beings are attracted to the ideal of self-giving. That’s because God created us to love and serve one another. You might say it’s in our spiritual genes. When we serve others in the right spirit, it feels good. It gives us purpose. It makes us disciples of Christ in deed and not just in word.
This desire lives in our children, too, even though it may seem like it’s dormant or hibernating. But parents do have to call it out.
First, You Model It. The first, most obvious way to encourage service is by example. Are we demonstrating a spirit of service toward the members of our family? Answering the question may require taking a deeper look into our spiritual lives to see if we embrace service rather than dread it. After all, it’s not only kids who experience deep-seated selfish tendencies. The first step to teaching a spirit of service is to recognize and fight the enemy within—our own laziness and apathy, our simple inattention to the needs of others.
For husbands and wives, service is a given. But ask yourself how well you serve your spouse. Marriages in which husbands and wives are looking how to lighten one another’s load are beautiful examples of the love of Christ.
Last night, I had to go to a meeting. My husband was exhausted, but he ran to the grocery store to pick up some items for the next day’s school lunches. His service to me over the years has carried me through many a hard moment. If I need to talk, we take a walk. If I need a break from the kids, he holds down the fort. I try to do the same for him.
Consider your at-home relationships. Is serving one another a big priority? What about service outside the home? Does your concern extend beyond your family in any visible way? How much time do you put into caring for others as compared with, say, watching T.V.? We can talk about service all we want, but that isn’t enough. Our kids need to see that we have a desire, placed in us by God, to love and help others.
Every day offers opportunities to demonstrate love in action. For example, a friend of mine noticed that a teenage neighbor had been locked out of the house and was sitting on his steps waiting for his parents to come home. She sent her six-year-old daughter over with pizza and a Coke. Besides expressing my friend’s spirit of service, that simple act of kindness was a teaching moment for little Clare.
Getting Direct. Cultivating service as a way of life means helping our kids to develop a natural “can I help you?” response. Is Mom struggling with the groceries? Does Dad need a tool as he tries to fix an appliance? How about helping out? One parent suggests, “It works especially well if Dad encourages the kids to help Mom, and Mom encourages the kids to help Dad.”
Sometimes, we have to call out our kids’ helping spirit by gently reminding them of the service they receive from us. One afternoon, one of my teenagers was trying his best to avoid a household task. I had spent much of the day driving this child around to his various activities. Without trying to induce a guilt trip, I pointed out that I hadn’t been able to do the task myself because I had spent hours in the car; now it was his turn to show appreciation by performing this act of service.
Such explanations are not magic- bullet solutions. Unless we offer them, though, our kids may take for granted what we do for them. If we persist, we can hope that they will eventually get the point.
We can also gently encourage our children to serve one another. What if Jimmy has come home late from soccer practice and has a ton of homework? Perhaps we could suggest that Megan do the dinner dishes, even if it’s not her turn. What if Mary loves mashed potatoes, and there’s only one serving left? Maybe her brother can give her the last serving. If a child is feeling under the weather, a sibling might offer to play a card game or get a drink. These little acts of kindness foster an attitude of love.
Chores are another way for children to learn about service. Everyone in a family needs to contribute to the common good of the home. If your child balks at chores, remind him or her how valuable their contribution is, how much it helps you, and how much it expresses their love to other members of the family.
Realistically, this little talk is probably not going to send your children scampering off to tackle the dusting in great high spirits. Much as I have always wanted my children to do chores cheerfully, this is most often the ideal rather than the reality. But over time, children can move from trying to escape chores, to tolerating them as a necessary evil, to accepting them as a practical way to love one another.
Love and Solidarity. A genuine spirit of service springs from virtues and attitudes that can’t be limited to chore lists. It wells up as the Holy Spirit leads us to care more deeply about other people and their joys and sufferings—the kind of solidarity that Jesus commended in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).
A simple way to build solidarity is to encourage our children to support one another. This can come in the form of attending each other’s sporting or school events, accompanying a sibling on a shopping trip, helping with a math problem, and in countless other ways. Love is creative!
Although we can require our children to perform chores, we can’t force them to serve lovingly. We can only hope that as they grow up in an environment where service is practiced and valued, they will want to serve. As they mature, they will be more able to set aside their own needs in order to meet the needs of others.
The learning curve does not always ascend. There are days when I am delighted with my kids’ desire to serve, and others when I wonder what I am doing wrong or neglecting to teach them. Then I remember how I still sometimes struggle with putting others’ needs before my own. It’s a lifelong lesson. But if we’re serious about learning it, Jesus gives us all—parents and children alike—the grace we need to keep growing day by day.
Patricia Mitchell is the editor of The Word Among Us Press. She and her husband have four children.