I was chatting with a woman the other day about our daughters leaving home in a couple of years to head off to university. She was asking me what extra activities my daughter was doing above and beyond her high school studies. I indicated that she was concentrating on one sport, that she had a part time job, and she enjoyed spending time with her friends and her boy friend. When the opportunity arises and she has time, she will volunteer for a cause that she believes in. I laughed as I listed everything that she had going on in her life; in my mind I thought my daughter was a busy girl!
Interestingly enough there is a whole other view on that subject. This particular mother started giving me lists of organizations and people that my daughter and I needed to contact to get involved in. My 16 year old needed to rack up those volunteer hours in order to receive the “volunteer achievement” award and then another award if you added so many more hours to the original expectation. Another bonus, she told me, was that the more groups the girls joined and “activities” they added to their lives now, would increase their chances for acceptance into the universities of their choice.
I was suddenly overwhelmed with the paradigm this woman had laid before me. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and I was almost drawn into convincing my daughter to play the political game of spinning volunteer work into a complicated strategy to earn a degree. I quickly brought myself back to reality as my integrity turned around and slapped me in the face. It seemed really wrong to me that I would ask my daughter to go to a nursing home to read to the elderly so that she could add one more extracurricular activity to her resume. Since when was volunteering a scape goat for an education? When did we decide that helping people was a venue for career acceleration? How did we become such a self serving society?
It’s time for our children to learn what is important in life. We need to advocate kindness for the sake of kindness, work for the sake of work, and bring back the concept of achieving goals and caring for people the old fashion way and for the right reasons. I left our conversation thanking her for the info and wishing her and her daughter well. I then sent my daughter a text to see if she had time to go to a movie with me.
Diana - I agree with you 100%. I am a volunteer coordinator for a non-profit hospice in a college town. I get many calls from university students who tell me that they need a certain amount of hours in order to compete a class, etc. I also get calls from parents who, like you mentioned, are interested in their kids getting as many volunteer hours as they can to beef up thier college applications and resumes. You would be surprised at the number of adults who volunteer for any thing but alturistic reaasons. I find it appauling, but a sign of the times where selfishness rules.
ReplyDeleteGood luck to your daughter and thank-you for your insightful comments!
Thank you for your comments!! diana
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Mindfulness Meditation Kingston & New Malden, UK. Join our weekly meditation meeting at 18:30 every Thursday. The purpose of this group is, as the Buddha said, to seek out "wise and beneficial friends" who support us and our Meditation practice. As well as enhancing our spiritual growth significantly Meditating with others can bring a tremendous amount of healing to everyone who attends.
ReplyDeleteMindfulness Meditation Kingston & New Malden