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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I once got to hold and try on 3 Super Bowl championship rings, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share lessons I learned teaching my son to mow.
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What I Learned Yesterday:
I don’t know how it happened but I now have a middle schooler in my house. My daughter will be making the transition to 6th grade next year and it just doesn’t seem possible. If you have kids, you know exactly how I feel. Our daughter was a really good baby and we were perfectly content with just one child. However, nearly 2 years later, Colby entered our lives. I can not imagine life without him. Now he’s going into 5th grade. In case you’re wondering if my math is off or I have something mixed up, I don’t Colby skipped a grade so he’s just one year behind Addison even though he’s 2 years younger.
My kids are pretty much like most kids. They wake up early on the weekends and sleep late on school days. They love playing Minecraft and having sleepovers with their friends. They hate cleaning their rooms. Bathing is an option.
Part of me wishes that my kids could stay this way forever. They’re fun to be around, they still think I’m pretty cool, and I don’t have to worry about them driving or dating anyone. However, part of me can’t wait for them to grow up. I can’t wait to see what they choose as a career, the person they’ll turn in to, the spouse they’ll choose, or the grandkids they’ll provide.
Naturally, I can’t have both of those things. They can’t both stay young and journey out on their own. Truthfully, they can’t stay young. The aging process begins the moment we are conceived.
We all have moments where we want to step out on our own, cross a threshold, and prove ourselves. We do this as toddlers as we learn new tasks, and countless times after that. As parents, we have to make the decision on whether or not our children are ready for those moments.
One of those moments I had as a kid was when I finally talked my grandpa into letting me mow the grass. I wanted to prove myself as a man and prove I could operate a dangerous machine with as much skill as my older brother. I saw it as a rite of passage.
Last summer my son also wanted to prove himself by mowing our lawn. He was 8 at the time and I felt like he was too small. So I did not let him do it. This year he started asking me about it before I even had the chance to get the mower out of the garage for the first time. He still seems small to me, but I decided that I’m give him a shot.
I started him out on the weed eater. We went through the controls and the safety procedures. I showed him how to use it, adjusted it to his arm length, and let him go. I stood right by him as he worked through getting comfortable with the machine. Honestly, it was big and awkward so he never really got “comfortable,” but he fought through it and figured out how to make the best of it. I soon felt comfortable leaving him to do it and I left to go mow the front yard.
As I finished up the front yard he was getting close to finishing the weed eating. He had missed a few spots, but otherwise did a great job. I was really please with the job he did, especially for his first time with the machine. He then wanted to know if he could use the big machine, the lawn mower.
We headed to the back yard. I had already mowed around the edges of the back yard so he wouldn’t have to try and turn it while being closed in by the fence. We took a few minutes and I walked him through the proper procedures. We talked about things like checking the gas tank, the safety release, avoiding the blades, and how to properly start it.
After we went through all the instructions he asked if he could start the mower and I told him, “yes.” I put one foot on the deck of the mower to stabilize it while he engaged the safety and pulled the rope. His first pull was not nearly strong enough. The engine barely cranked. I encouraged him to pull harder and try again. He pulled again and the engine turned over, but it was still not nearly hard enough.
Again I encouraged him to try harder and again he pulled the rope. The third pull was better than the other two but the engine still didn’t crank. He looked at the mower, got a look of determination in his eye and gave it all he had. This time the engine responded and the mower came to life.
His face lit up with a sense of accomplishment and cheered him on. I walked him through the next steps and he headed off down the yard. I was two steps behind him. When he got to the end of the yard he turned the mower and started down the next side of the yard. After another turn he was heading back to the far end of the yard. He was now getting the hang of it. Turning was the biggest challenge, but he soon learned how to put his weight into it and get the mower to respond.
I soon left him to finish the yard and I then weed eated the back yard. Before too long the grass was all cut, the sidewalks were swept, and we were back inside cooling off with cups of ice water. It had been harder work than he imagined it would, but he was happy with the results. He said he’d help me out next time too.
I learned that my boy is growing up fast and will be a man before I know it. My job is to help guide him there by giving him instruction, sharing wisdom from my experience, getting him off in the right direction, and then letting him go.
You know that old saying, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime?”
How about, “Teach your son to mow the grass and spend the next 9 summers enjoying the air conditioning while he gets out in the heat and does the yard work?” It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as the fish bit, but I guess I can work on it while Colby’s out mowing the grass.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in iTunes.
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