What We Leave & What We Take
On the inheritance of love
Charity Begins at Home
I can’t think of one lesson my grandmother taught me that has not been useful. I won’t say she’s always right, but I can say that her wisdom far surpasses mine. I’ve been sitting with that thought for a while and as I get older and parent more, I consider her words. Her teachings. There are pieces of her carried in me in how I live my life and how I parent my son.
Some days, I can hear my grandmother’s words so clear in my head that it’s like she’s speaking them to me.
“Charity begins at home and spreads abroad.”
A phrase she hammered her children and grandchildren with. I can remember someone, any one of us grandchildren getting in trouble, and as she counseled our parents on correcting our behavior she’d recite this phrase. I didn’t get it.
I didn’t know what it meant. It took years for me to understand that she meant our home is where our children first learn how to be good people. It’s our responsibility to teach it to them before they go out into the world. It starts at home then spreads abroad. And if charity did not begin at home, it was a reflection of the type of home the child grew up in and the type of parenting they received.
As a kid, I could not understand why that was so important. Who cares?
As I matured and understood her lived experience, a Black woman born in the forties and raising her children in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, I was fully able to grasp her meaning. This was protection pure and simple. She raised her kids with the idea that if they were good human beings, they’d be more protected in a society designed to quickly judge Black people. Her thinking was that if she trained her children to be nice and play nice, they’d stay off people’s radar and be less likely to receive some of the harsher treatment society reserved for “problem Black people.”
She didn’t voice this out loud a lot. It was an inference I had to discover over time. But I know that all of this was born out of love.
She loves her family.
She built her family brick by brick. Nine children who produced twenty-plus grandchildren who in turn produced twenty-plus great-grandchildren, and she has a special place in her heart for each one who carries lineage.
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Sweetie
Her nickname is Sweetie and it’s fitting, because despite her own strict upbringing, she is the kindest person any of us know. I jokingly refer to her as the neighborhood grandma sometimes, because any place she lives becomes a sanctuary.
It is a sanctuary for anyone looking for community. For family.
Anyone can sit at her table and get a hot plate.
And there’s that charity again.
It wasn’t enough for her to preach it to us. She modeled it for us.
It was still hard for me to grasp the way in which she gives so freely. Never regretting her decision to help others in need because she trusts God to provide. But she does it.
Her home isn’t just a sanctuary for outsiders looking for belonging. It is a sanctuary for us as well. It’s why she began raising me at five. It’s why her children always knew they could move back home at twenty-five. If her blood courses through your veins, her house is your home. And even if you leave, you can always come home.
You can always come home.
That’s one of my core parenting principles. It’s what I want my son to know.
You are safe here.
You are loved here.
You can always return.
If that relationship didn’t work out and you have nowhere to go, come home son.
If you made a mistake and you’re in a hole, come home son.
If you need to be reminded of who you are and where you come from, come home son.
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The House Rules
“Put on an undershirt.”
“Don’t be at that school acting up.”
“Don’t talk to strangers.”
“Always get your receipt.”
I can never count the numerous lessons my grandmother taught me that I’ve put to use.
And yes, she was strict sometimes. There were a lot of things she didn’t play about. Her house, although a sanctuary, was never going to look lived in. From the time her feet hit the floor before daybreak, she was cleaning nonstop. And when she sat down, she expected it to remain that way.
There were no blankets in the living room to cozy up with while watching TV. There were no living room forts. No one had permission to connect a gaming system to her living room television, and no one in that house was sleeping past nine. And if you stayed home from school, you’d better be on your death bed.
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One time she caught me laughing a little too hard while home sick.
“Since you’re laughing so much go ahead and take those curtains down so I can wash them.”
Needless to say, I went to school the next day.
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Where the Living Takes Place
It’s funny because I didn’t know which parts I’d leave and which parts I’d take until I became a parent. Before I became a mom, I operated pretty much the same. A pristine household that didn’t look lived in. Things needed to be in tip-top shape because you never knew when someone was going to pop by.
Then I had my son, and honestly my world got messy. The guiding principles remained, but my home’s structure differed from hers.
My son is very much a living room kid. On any given day you can find him coloring. Building a fort. Getting cozy on the couch with his tablet. Playing his Nintendo Switch on the television. Or doing a marble run all from the comfort of our living room.
Just the other day he dragged his basketball goal into the living room and practiced dunking for thirty minutes while I read a book.
Nothing is off limits in the living room — it’s where the living takes place.
And sometimes it looks exactly like that — lived in.
There’s a wicker basket by the couch with fleece blankets for when the living room is too chilly. There’s a folding TV tray tucked behind the couch for eating in the living room. There’s probably two or more pairs of my son’s shoes lined up beside the couch because he takes them off and never puts them back in his room.
There’s a tablet here, a laptop there, and a smart speaker that blasts music for our living room dance parties, and every bit of that is okay.
My kid is no stranger to sick days since he’s prone to catching every cold or virus known to man. And on those sick days, we cuddle up wherever is comfortable for him. The couch. His bed. My bed. Nothing is off limits.
He’s allowed to smile and laugh on those days. And even if he runs me insane, he still gets to stay home until I’m absolutely sure he’s okay.
More than that though, he can always take a day off and stay home just because. If he needs a break or a breather and so do I, we play hooky together. No illness needed.
Although he’s four, he’s allowed to be.
He’s allowed to ask for rest.
He’s allowed to decompress.
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Rooted in Love
Lead with love.
Charity begins at home.
Home is a safe haven.
You can always return home.
All things my grandmother taught me. And I apply them daily.
It’s the reason every child who comes to my home will be safe and loved as if they were my own. It’s the reason my four-year-old already holds the door for others. It’s the reason my son feels comfortable enough to express his emotions openly and live freely in our living room. It’s the reason my door will never be closed to him no matter how old he gets.
I’d like to think I kept her guiding principles yet implemented my own structure.
Leading with love for me includes a bit more softness. I hug my son more. We say “I love you” daily.
Our home is never without affection.
Which is probably why he’s always like a second shadow who still asks to be picked up at four years old and nearly fifty pounds.
“Charity begins at home and spreads abroad” still holds true in my home. We work tirelessly on treating one another with kindness. My son is allowed to express his emotions and allowed to let me know if something hurts his feelings.
And more importantly, I apologize to him.
Our home is a safe haven and provides sanctuary. Like my grandmother, I share hot meals with others. Kids are safe to be kids in my home — in my living room.
And above all else, I’m striving to let my kid know and understand that all that I have is always his.
As long as I have a home, he has one too.
I expanded the definition of her principles. I believe each generation does. We take what we need and stretch it and adapt it to make the parenting experience our own. Just like my grandmother was less strict than the mother who raised her, I am less strict than the grandmother who raised me.
No one is wrong and no one is right.
Each generation simply evolves, still rooted in love.
It’s the only thing that matters.
What are the lessons you carried from the people who raised you? And which ones did you reshape into something softer for yourself?
