We all worry about helping our kids. Sometimes we worry we don’t know exactly how to help them. Sometimes we worry if we’re helping too much—or not enough. Sometimes we worry if we’ll have the means—financial or otherwise, to give them what they need.
This is “one of those beautiful experiences,” as we wrote in The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids, “that links us, in an unbroken chain, back thousands and thousands of years.” It’s one of those timeless parenting concerns that connects us to just about every mother and father who ever lived.
In the late 1800s, for instance, Marie Curie—who would go on to become the first woman to win a Nobel Prize—was growing up in a poor family in Russia-controlled Poland. Her mother died when she was 11, leaving her father alone to provide for their five children. His employment was precarious, moving from low-paying job to low-paying job, struggling to make ends meet. So as a teen, Marie began working as a governess for wealthy families far from home, sending back a portion of every paycheck to help support the family. Her father wrote to her, apologizing for the family’s financial situation and his inability to do more to help his children.
Marie wrote back:
“Above all, and beyond all, my beloved father must stop despairing about not being able to help us. It is inconceivable that my father could do more for us than he had done. We have a good education [and] character which is hardly the worst…Therefore my father shouldn’t be discouraged: we’ll make out all right, without doubt. As for me, I will be eternally grateful to my dear father for what he has done for me, because he has done so much.”
It’s a couple of the things we talk about here all the time: raise a reader and character is fate. No matter the time period, no matter the circumstances, again and again, it’s been these foundational traits—a love of learning and strength of character—that have shaped some of history’s greatest men and women.
So in those moments of overwhelm, when you worry if you’re doing enough for your children, fall back on what has served children throughout history. Above all, and beyond all, raise a reader and build their character. That will be enough. It has always been enough.
P.S. Check out The Daily Dad book (leatherbound edition here) if you want more actionable advice on how to instill a love of learning and wisdom in your kids.
In fact, the September chapter of the book is actually called “Raise a Reader” because it’s full of relatable stories and lessons about learning, curiosity, and cultivating a lifelong habit of reading in your children.
