Humility

A thought has been niggling at my mind lately and I keep seeing the triggers for this thought popping up around me.  There is a certain pride that some people take in educating their children. I know I take pride in it.  I love the chance to choose the right program for each of my children.  I relish thumbing through curriculum catalogs as I consider each child, and each child's interests, strengths and occasionally even weaknesses. I feel joy in knowing that I am doing the best thing for my daughter who is advanced in her studies, but very much emotionally her age.  I am happy to report that I have followed my children's leads in their desires to learn.  All of this feels great to contemplate.  Yet, then there is that little thought at the back of my mind.  Its been there for a while, but its finally become loud enough to listen to.  And it makes me feel ashamed, and worried.

You see, we started that fantastic Latin program, which includes learning prayers.  I made the remark a couple of times about how I wanted the kids to learn the table blessing so that we could say it each night.  I made jokes about people who sing a table blessing, as they all hold hands and how it used to make me uncomfortable as a kid.  I like the table blessing the kids learned, and I like how it sounds when their sweet voices repeat it.  I like the translation of it.  But recently, I realized that my child has been praying this prayer to show off her Latin.  Pride has rushed in like a wave and taken over a spot that shouldn't be full of pride.  Prayer should never be about pride, and I'm teaching my children pride instead of humility.

What drives this home is an encounter I had with another child.  I took 2 years of Spanish in high school and 2 courses in college.  I can ask you where the bathroom is, and I can repeat the "hi, how are you?"  "I am fine (or so-so, or bad), and you?"  bit.  In my education, I picked up a different accent (I'd wager because all of my instructors experienced Spanish in Spain and not Latin America).  It surprised me then when in a playful greeting exchange, the child I was speaking with corrected me rudely and told me that I was wrong in how I pronounced something.  I smiled and let it drop since it wasn't a big deal.  

I thought about her assurance in her correctness, and about how she took the opportunity to show off her own education in this matter.  I was reminded that my own daughter did this just a couple of days ago when she begged to pray at her cousin's birthday celebration, and did so, in Latin.  I realized I have taught my children to do the exact thing that I found uncomfortable to be a part of as a child.  I also realized that in my desire to teach my children to value their education, I haven't taught them to value kindness and humility--not showing off what they know, not making people uncomfortable with their actions and words--above that education.  It's humbling to see this failure and to know that it is directly because of my own pride and my own actions.