{"id":6084,"date":"2018-02-23T09:35:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T15:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tampaseo.expert\/focus\/?p=6084"},"modified":"2018-02-23T09:35:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T15:35:04","slug":"grandpa-say-personal-responsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tampaseo.expert\/focus\/2018\/02\/23\/grandpa-say-personal-responsibility\/","title":{"rendered":"What Would Grandpa Say About.. Personal Responsibility?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0By Jim Mettinbrink<\/strong><\/span>
\nOne of the gravest mistakes parents make is to make their children\u2019s life easy.\u00a0\u00a0Such\u00a0irresponsibility begins with the baby. Going to the store, toy or grocery, the child whines\u00a0he\u00a0wants\u00a0this\u00a0or\u00a0that, virtually everything. After enough whining, the parent gives in. Yes indeed the\u00a0seeds of entitlement have been successfully, although unwittingly, sown in the heart of the most\u00a0precious responsibility a person has on this earth. Although the first responsibility is instilling\u00a0faith in Jesus as the Savior, we\u2019ll save that for a later chat.\u00a0<\/span>
\nFor a person to be a proper mate, parent, citizen and worker, the sense of personal\u00a0responsibility must be instilled as a small child. In this age of wireless everything, the\u00a0buffet\u00a0of\u00a0fruitless video distractions, air-headed texting, Facebook,\u00a0and idle pleasures unlimited, the\u00a0teaching and practice of real honest responsibility escapes both parent and child. Some of us\u00a0recall the hippie Maynard Krebs in\u00a0\u201cGilligan\u2019s Island,\u201d\u00a0who\u00a0at the mere mention of doing\u00a0something, would panic and shout the foul four-letter word\u2013\u2013work<\/b>!\u00a0<\/span>
\nRecently my teenage grandson, obviously a result of a father-son chat, called to confirm that\u00a0as a teenager, I\u00a0had risen\u00a0at 5\u00a0a.m. every day to work.\u00a0When we finished, he was in disbelieving\u00a0silence, but for certain he has a renewed view of accepting personal responsibility.\u00a0<\/span>
\nAs country boys we loved to ride the tractor with\u00a0Grandpa when he cultivated the corn. We all\u00a0learned to drive the tractors at an early age. By age 13, I drove the caterpillar all day re-leveling\u00a0irrigated fields before being planted with\u00a0grain, coming home caked in dirt and sunburned.\u00a0Now back to 5\u00a0a.m. When I was 15 (early 1960s)\u00a0and\u00a0my brothers were 13\u00a0and\u00a012,\u00a0we had 40 milk\u00a0cows. Responsibility? Up at 5\u00a0a.m., we had two hours to milk cows, feed our dozen 4-H beef\u00a0calves, separate the cream from the milk, bucket feed the calves, be in the house by 7, eat\u00a0breakfast,\u00a0and be at school by 8. One hour to eat, clean up, get dressed, comb our ducktails,\u00a0and\u00a0get the locks in just the right place (for the girls), …oh and we had only one bathroom! And we\u00a0did it whether -20\u00b0\u00a0F or 95\u00b0\u00a0F, rain\u00a0or shine, blizzard or darkness of winter. No heated barn either.\u00a0<\/span>
\nWe were fortunate to have two milking machines, but…. when the temp dropped to about 20\u00a0degrees,\u00a0the machines did not work, so we milked by hand. After school from 4\u00a0p.m., for two\u00a0hours or more, we repeated the same routine. And that was just the daily routine\u2013\u201324\/7\/365!\u00a0<\/span>
\nDuring the school year, each Saturday was devoted to hauling hay and grain for the cows,\u00a0calves,\u00a0and 300 chickens. There were no luxury tractors (i.e., A.C.\/ heated cabs). At temps below\u00a020\u00b0\u00a0F, there was no loitering on the open-air tractor to get the hay \/ grain hauling finished. As\u00a0spring approached, one of us would disc the cornfields from 4 p.m.\u00a0to dark.\u00a0<\/span>
\nIn contrast my son was town reared. At a very early age, his task was putting his toys away. By\u00a0age seven he mowed a flat part of our yard,\u00a0and he had his own garden plot. At age\u00a012, he had\u00a0agreements with the neighbors to mow their yards and clear the snow in winter (arise in the dark\u00a0to finish that before school). By the time he was 17, he had worked in a childcare center, washed\u00a0dishes in a military mess hall, cleaned\u00a0stair wells\u00a0in multi-story buildings,\u00a0and worked at Subway.\u00a0He bought his own car, fuel,\u00a0and insurance,\u00a0and had a clear understanding of \u201cpersonal\u00a0responsibility.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>
\nSo what does God say about personal responsibility? \u201cIf anyone will not work, neither shall he\u00a0eat\u201d (2 Thessalonians 3:10).\u00a0\u201cHe who is slothful in his work is a brother to him who is a great\u00a0destroyer\u201d (Proverbs 18:9). If we fail to teach personal responsibility to our children at an early\u00a0age,\u00a0how will they fulfill\u00a01 Timothy\u00a05:4, 8?\u00a0<\/span>
\nYou can imagine my angst when the neighbor teen was sitting on the curb sulking,\u00a0\u201cI hate\u00a0mowing the yard,\u201d\u00a0and an hour later, still ruminating his daunting hardship, when he could have\u00a0finished the job twice. What a waste! Maynard, where are you?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0By Jim Mettinbrink One of the gravest mistakes parents make is to make their children\u2019s life easy.\u00a0\u00a0Such\u00a0irresponsibility begins with the baby. Going to the store, toy or grocery, the child whines\u00a0he\u00a0wants\u00a0this\u00a0or\u00a0that, virtually everything. After enough whining, the parent gives in. Yes indeed the\u00a0seeds of entitlement have been successfully, although unwittingly, sown in the heart of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[58,1374,1375,1353,1334],"class_list":["post-6084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-think-excerpts","tag-children","tag-jim-mettinbirnk","tag-june-2013","tag-responsibility","tag-what-would-grandpa-say","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Would Grandpa Say About.. Personal Responsibility? - Focus Press<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tampaseo.expert\/focus\/2018\/02\/23\/grandpa-say-personal-responsibility\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Would Grandpa Say About.. Personal Responsibility? - Focus Press\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0By Jim Mettinbrink One of the gravest mistakes parents make is to make their children\u2019s life easy.\u00a0\u00a0Such\u00a0irresponsibility begins with the baby. Going to the store, toy or grocery, the child whines\u00a0he\u00a0wants\u00a0this\u00a0or\u00a0that, virtually everything. After enough whining, the parent gives in. 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