How do you define your family culture?
One of my daughters was a volleyball player for a while. This was a new sport (for all of us) and there was a steep learning curve.
Once I asked a star player on her team how long she had been playing.
She couldn’t remember.
“We always had a net set up in our backyard,” she told me. “And we have lots of family tournaments.”
No wonder she was so good at it. Volleyball was part of her family culture.
On a shelf in my home is a family journal. We’ve had it about 10 years and call it our “happy book.”
It began as a place to make lists of things that make our family happy. Sometimes I handed it to someone at dinner and then they shared their writing. It is now a collection of silly songs, jokes, vacation memories, and story starts.
It wasn’t a big deal. Just part of our family culture.
Today, I have daughters who are strong writers. They probably can’t tell you “how” they became strong writers or “how long” they have been writing. It is just something they worked on a little bit at a time in their day to day lives living with our family.
We consciously (and unconsciously) give our children opportunities to excel by the family culture we create for them. This is most often born out of our own passions and things we most enjoy. I would love my children to be great athletes, but looking back, I discover I have been more consistently concerned with raising writers. That’s mostly where my heart lives.
Anything I can do to weave writing into the day, I am all in. It’s the culture I have chosen to create.
I know you’re there too. We don’t always do it perfectly, but we keep after it.
I appreciate the opportunity Write On! Workshops has given me to communicate with like-minded parents.
It’s a great journey.
Best,
Carrie
