Hidden Room
A hidden room is probably every child's dream at some point. This mother made it come true for a very lucky young lady. Watching this video got me thinking about the many amazing parents I have known over the years and how all of them delivered their version of the hidden room for their kid. There is a common thread through the remarkable gestures of love, it exceeded what the child imagined was possible and showed them a magical side of their mother.
Kids remember these things forever because they define what is possible when you love someone unconditionally. It also brought to mind some wisdom J had once shared with me. She said she'd known girls to fall madly in love with a guy because he had given her a thoughtful (and in their mind expensive) gift because she'd never had her parents do that for her despite having the means. According to her, to parents need to set a higher bar for the men in their daughter's life to clear.
I do believe there is some truth to what J had observed. Depending on the circumstances of the family, the monetary value of the gift is a factor. Imagine a professionally successful couple making close to a million a year have a one child. For her sixteenth birthday, they get her a pair of earrings from a department store that looks extremely generic and costs less than what the two of them make in hour. The issue here is two-fold, there was no thought applied to the gift at all. Compared to the what these parents could very comfortably afford, the cost of the gift was signficantly low. The combination is likely to feel very disappointing to the recipient. Now if one of the parents had occassion to travel abroad for work and stayed an extra day so they could go to the weekly village market to find a hand-crafted piece of jewelry that the daughter would absolutely love for its uniqueness, that is a gift imbued with care and meaning.
The cost could the same as what they got from the department store. The later signals that the child has value beyond the ordinary, they are worth going the extra mile, thinking about even when life is busy and obligations abound. I think this is what J had in the mind when she talked about parents raising the bar for their daughters.
Kids remember these things forever because they define what is possible when you love someone unconditionally. It also brought to mind some wisdom J had once shared with me. She said she'd known girls to fall madly in love with a guy because he had given her a thoughtful (and in their mind expensive) gift because she'd never had her parents do that for her despite having the means. According to her, to parents need to set a higher bar for the men in their daughter's life to clear.
I do believe there is some truth to what J had observed. Depending on the circumstances of the family, the monetary value of the gift is a factor. Imagine a professionally successful couple making close to a million a year have a one child. For her sixteenth birthday, they get her a pair of earrings from a department store that looks extremely generic and costs less than what the two of them make in hour. The issue here is two-fold, there was no thought applied to the gift at all. Compared to the what these parents could very comfortably afford, the cost of the gift was signficantly low. The combination is likely to feel very disappointing to the recipient. Now if one of the parents had occassion to travel abroad for work and stayed an extra day so they could go to the weekly village market to find a hand-crafted piece of jewelry that the daughter would absolutely love for its uniqueness, that is a gift imbued with care and meaning.
The cost could the same as what they got from the department store. The later signals that the child has value beyond the ordinary, they are worth going the extra mile, thinking about even when life is busy and obligations abound. I think this is what J had in the mind when she talked about parents raising the bar for their daughters.