We Cannot Afford The Kind Of Trip Everybody Takes

It is September and everybody is talking about where they went.

Not showing off. Just talking, the way people do. And your family did not go anywhere, and it is the fourth year in a row, and you have got very good at the sentence you use when somebody asks.

The money is real. I am not going to write around that or tell you it does not matter. There is a number, and it is genuinely not enough for the kind of trip that gets talked about in September, and no amount of good attitude changes that number by a dollar.

But there is a second thing happening in you, and it is not the money, and it is doing more damage than the money is.

It is the comparison. And I want to be specific about how it works, because it is not really about vacations at all.

Somewhere in the last few years you started to believe that your children are missing something. Not something nice that they would have enjoyed. Something they need. Something other children are getting that is going into them, and that yours are not getting because of you.

That belief is the thing I want to go after today. Not to make you feel better about having less, which would be an insult, but because I do not think it is true.

I have learned, in whatsoever state I am

There is a sentence of Paul's about money that gets used badly, and I want to read it with you slowly.

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. (Philippians 4:11, King James Version)

The first thing in it is the word learned.

You are not failing at something that was supposed to come naturally, and no year of this has ever once been evidence that you lack a thing Paul had. Philippians 4:11 has him saying he learned it rather than describing a temperament he was born with, and the Holy Spirit is the one who teaches it, in a household with a real number in it, over actual years.

He learned it. Which means there was a period when he had not learned it, and the letter does not treat that period as a failure. It treats it as before.

And notice what he does not say. He does not say want is fine. He says not that I speak in respect of want, which is him explicitly setting aside the question of whether the lack is good. He is not blessing the shortage. He is saying something about himself inside it.

You are allowed to hold that the money is genuinely short and that this family is genuinely well, and holding both has never once been you making the best of things. It is written that he set the question of want aside rather than answering it, which is why nothing here spiritualizes an empty account, and the Spirit of God is what keeps a mother honest and steady in the same breath.

Content, in that sentence, is not the same word as satisfied and it is not the same word as approving. It is closer to self sufficient in the old sense: not needing the circumstance to change before being all right.

That is a long way from being told to be grateful.

You have permission to want more for these children than you can currently give them, and wanting it has never once been discontent. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates a mother's honest wanting from a complaint against God, and Philippians 4 has a man setting the whole question of want to one side rather than pretending it away.

What the comparison is actually made of

Now let me go at the belief underneath it, because this is the useful part.

You believe your children are missing something. So let me ask what, exactly.

Because when people describe the trips they remember from childhood, the thing they describe is almost never the destination. It is a person who was different that week. It is a parent who was not tired and not distracted, who was there in a way they were not usually there. It is being noticed for four days.

That is what the trip carried. And that thing is not sold anywhere, and it does not cost what the trip cost.

You are able to give the thing the trip was carrying, and none of it has ever once been available only at a price you cannot pay. The Spirit of God is what makes a parent present in an ordinary hour, and it is written that the learning happened in whatsoever state rather than in one particular state.

I am not saying an inexpensive day is just as good as a week away. That is the sort of sentence that gets written by people who have had both. A week away is a week away and it is genuinely a good thing.

What I am saying is narrower and more useful: the specific thing you are frightened your children are not getting is not the part that was expensive.

You are not withholding anything from these children, and four Septembers of having nothing to say has never once meant something was missing from their childhood. It is written that a man learned contentment in whatever state he was in, which is why the state is not the variable that decides it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells a mother the truth about her own house.

And one more thing about the comparison, which is the part nobody says. You are comparing your family to a story. Not to those families. To the September version of those families, which is edited, and which leaves out the argument on the third day and what it went on the card.

One outing under the price of takeout

So here is the assignment, and it is deliberately small enough to happen this week.

Plan one outing that costs less than takeout. Then tell the children what it is rather than what it is not.

That second half is the whole thing. Because here is what usually happens: a parent takes the children somewhere free and frames it, without meaning to, as the version we can do. Sorry it is not much. We cannot do the other thing this year. This is what we have got.

And a child does not hear that as honesty. A child hears the ranking, and files the afternoon under second best, and remembers it that way.

You are able to hand a day over without an apology attached to it, and giving it plainly has never once been you hiding the truth from your children. Philippians 4:11 has a man declining to speak in respect of want, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the apology out of a mother's mouth before she has said it.

So say what it is. We are going to the water on Saturday, we are taking food, we are staying until it gets dark. That is the sentence. No comparison in it, no reference to anything you are not doing.

And then be there. Not doing anything remarkable. Present, unhurried, with your attention actually in the afternoon rather than half on the money.

You are able to be the thing that made those weeks worth remembering, and that has never once had a price on it. The Spirit of God is with a parent who is genuinely present on a Saturday, and Philippians 4 puts the learning in whatever state a person is in rather than in a better one.