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Memory Making Mom, by Jessica Smartt
I remember being asked in elementary school what some of my family’s Christmas traditions were, and at the time, I didn’t really understand the concept of traditions. My family certainly had some, but perhaps they weren’t quite concrete enough for my young mind to understand.
As I’m now a parent (and in the age of Pinterest and Instagram, no less), I feel the importance of creating strong family traditions. While I don’t think we need to do every single tradition that IG has to offer, I do think having a few really concrete traditions can help bring families closer together and create a sense of unity.
Memory Making Mom gives many more reasons to create family traditions and memories, and it also gives plenty of specific ideas. I already had pretty concrete birthday and holiday traditions before reading the book, so I was excited to find out that Smartt had many other non-holiday ideas to consider! Read on to find out 3 other ways to make a home more tradition- and memory-focused.
Traditions of Service
“Our kids will notice if we have open hearts to serve those who might need us. Often these are the Good Samaritan moments — the opportunities that pop up when we haven’t planned for them, when we are on our way somewhere else, but we see someone in need.”
In my heart, I would love for my family to have more traditions of service. In my actions, I’m not really doing anything to establish new service traditions. But I love that Smartt includes in her book that we CAN implement service traditions in our families. Giving service to others is one way we can encourage our kids to look outside themselves and be generous. We can also encourage our family members to serve each other!
One specific idea I liked from the book was to get a jar and put the names of friends, neighbors, or family members on papers or popsicle sticks to go inside the jar. Then, every day when saying family prayers together, select one or two names and specifically pray for them. I liked that this was something concrete that can be done each day, and it can help prayers feel more meaningful to the whole family!
Traditions of Work
“Kids and families need work. . . . Work traditions aren’t the same kind of fun as a family vacation to the Grand Canyon, but if a home is all festivities and adventures, it’s a lopsided picture. Family work should be a planned-for tradition.”
Kids learn to work at home, and we can do a lot to encourage good work ethic in our children! Part of establishing work traditions is making them consistent, and another part can be making them fun!
Some principles that Smartt suggests for creating work traditions for our families are to begin early (even toddlers can contribute in small ways!), take the amount of work you think your kids can do and then double it (think about all the hard work kids on farms are able to do, simply because it’s required of them!), and establish clear expectations around work (then follow through!).
She also talks about how there have been many times when her kids have been fighting or driving her crazy, and then she gave them a job to do and it resolved the issues —kids need work and kids need to feel like actual contributing members of the family. Yes, it’s easier to do much of the work ourselves, and we can surely do it better than our children, but trying is how they learn, which will be good for them AND us in the long run!
A few work traditions we have in our house are Saturday chores, nightly cleanup, and family laundry parties, and I want to look for more concrete ways to establish work traditions in our home!
Saturday Chores
Russ works all day on Saturdays, so the girls and I tidy the playroom and both their bedrooms in the morning, and afterward they get to watch TV until lunchtime (a great incentive for Ada). We’ve been doing this for a few months now, and because it’s become a “tradition” or expectation, Ada (6) works much more quickly and efficiently than she used to. She usually doesn’t complain too much anymore, either! It was a struggle at first, but the consistency has made it much better.
Nightly Cleanup
Every night after dinner, the girls get TV time until bedtime (Russ works nights, so our family time is in the mornings). However, all their toys and art supplies need to be put away before the TV gets turned on, so they are in the habit of cleaning everything up after dinner.
Family Laundry Parties
Every Thursday, I wash and dry all the laundry. Every Friday morning, the four of us gather in the hallway outside the laundry room for a “laundry party.” We do a few things to make it fun — 1. Turn on a colorful disco light, 2. Turn on music (the girls choose), and 3. Dump all the laundry on top of the girls. Then we spend about 20 minutes sorting the laundry and each folding/hanging our own things. I do both my laundry and Holly’s (3yo), but because she’s been around while we’ve been doing this the last year or so, even she has started to help with the sorting and some of the hanging! I really LOVE that Russ and Ada do their own stuff though, because it WAY cuts down on the amount of work I used to do folding all the laundry myself. Again, our consistency with this practice has made it easier over time, and although there is often still complaining, the process takes much less time than it used to, and Ada has gotten much better at hanging and folding skills!
Traditions of Rest
“When a human being is at his weakest and most vulnerable, the time is even more ripe for impact. Sicknesses, injuries, and illnesses offer opportunities we cannot find elsewhere to minister to our families. . . See these times as unique opportunities — for ministry, for service, and, yes, for memory-making.”
Another type of tradition that I didn’t really consider before reading Smartt’s book was traditions of REST. I had never before thought of having specific traditions around sickness, but in reading her thoughts about it, I was reminded of specific things I always got when I was sick as a child (like coca cola ice cubes when I was fevered and throwing up, or the chance to sleep on the floor in my parents’ room), as well as how recovery from baby delivery is actually one of my favorite things because it’s a time when I feel like so many people are helping to take care of me. Considering these memories and Smartt’s thoughts definitely made me want to be more intentional about the times when my kids are sick — I want them to have specific memories of how they were taken care of when they’re sick.
Other forms of rest that Smartt gives ideas for traditions are Sundays and vacations. She suggests finding 3 ways to make Sundays different and more restful from the other days (or pick any day of the week that works best for your family to be more restful!), as well as creating specific traditions for family travel to make the vacations even more meaningful and memorable.
When I set out to read this book, I thought it would be all about holiday traditions, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn there are so many other ways we can create traditions and memories with our families — all it takes is a little bit of thought and intentionality!
And that’s a wrap for the 2022 book club! See everything we read this year in this post, and then check out this post to see all the books we’re reading in 2023!