{"id":1485,"date":"2013-12-30T07:46:46","date_gmt":"2013-12-30T13:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/?p=1485"},"modified":"2020-04-02T09:16:32","modified_gmt":"2020-04-02T15:16:32","slug":"giving-is-about-the-recipient-not-the-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/?p=1485","title":{"rendered":"Giving Is About The Recipient, Not The Gift."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The holidays always make me think of my grandparents. There should be no surprise there, I am sure the same is true for many. The thing that stands out for me is how selfless they were for their children and grandchildren. I realize there are many wonderful grandparents making children happy each and every day, but my grandparents had a profound effect on me. They brought the notion of giving of themselves to a whole new level. They epitomized Shel Silverstein\u2019s amazing children\u2019s book, The Giving Tree<\/em>. The more of themselves they gave to us, the happier they were.<\/p>\n

My grandparents worked harder than most and saved their money, but not to buy themselves a \u201cMcMansion\u201d or the hottest new car being displayed on the showroom floor. They didn’t have fancy, oversized watches or silly \u201cbling\u201d. Possessions in these categories meant very little to them. They were more concerned with things in the home to make it more welcoming, rather than flashier. A great set of new wooden spoons for her to cook with was a treat for my grandmother.<\/p>\n

There are many parents and grandparents who hover over their children and grandchildren each day believing they are providing the proper message to the kids (while still missing the point) as they pick them up from school in their Range Rovers and Louboutin shoes. By no means am I judging; I drive a convertible Mercedes and check the time on my Girard Perregaux watch, which cost more than my grandparents paid for their East Boston house, which was a huge financial risk for them to purchase. The issue is not the fact that we have more than they did; it\u2019s making sure that we don\u2019t substitute giving high-priced items to our kids in place of truly giving of ourselves, which is what they need much more than any possession.<\/p>\n

I have been guilty in the past of not properly explaining to my kids that many of the advantages they have are not common, and they should also not be valued above what truly matters. When my daughter was in second grade, we received a call from her very concerned teacher about a \u201cfabricated\u201d story she told the class during an activity called \u201cnews time\u201d when the kids talked about something that happened in their lives. It was my daughter\u2019s turn, and she told a whopper. The teacher phoned to say my daughter had told a tall tale when she should have been talking about a real life story. Of course, we too became concerned, and asked her what our daughter had said.<\/p>\n

The teacher started to recant the story, \u201cV said you went to the Celtics game on Friday night, and that she and her brother were on the court \u2018high-fiving\u2019 the players. Then, they went up to the seats and watched the game, and at the end of half time they were able to go into the Celtics\u2019 locker room and she was able to take a player\u2019s jersey from his locker.\u201d The teacher went on to retell the whole story, concluding by stating, \u201cAnd to make maters worse, she told all the kids that after the game she got to shoot baskets on the parquet… Mr. Imbriano, news time is not about fictitious stories, so you can understand my concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was rendered speechless for an extended length of time.  On the other end of the phone I heard, \u201cMr. Imbriano?\u201d I said to my daughter\u2019s teacher, \u201cI\u2019m sorry; it\u2019s not V\u2019s fault, it\u2019s mine.\u201d The teacher was a little confused, and then I hit her with it, \u201cEverything she told you and the kids is 100% true; all those events happened Friday night.\u201d The teacher felt awful for having scolded my daughter for fabricating the story, and I got slapped with a dose of reality as well:  I wasn\u2019t doing a proper job of explaining what is out of the norm and helping to keep her feet on the ground. My grandparents would have definitely provided clarity with anything I received that was \u201cover the top\u201d and how to put it in perspective.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a bad thing to have wonderful opportunities or cool things to play with. As parents and grandparents, we have to make sure kids understand the distinction between what really matters and what is simply window dressing. We have to make sure our giving is more about the kids and less about the gift. I recently heard the head of the kids\u2019 school, Dr. Mary Halpin Carter, speak about the importance of grandparents in a child\u2019s life. She included the following quote by developmental psychologist<\/a>, Urie Bronfenbrenner:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to develop normally, a child requires progressively more complex joint activity with one or more adults who have an irrational emotional relationship with the child. Somebody\u2019s got to be crazy about that kid. That\u2019s number one. First, last and always.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As soon as I heard that quote, I instantly understood that was exactly what my grandparents had consistently done for me. It wasn\u2019t about their needs or possessions. It wasn\u2019t about the gifts they gave me. It was always about being irrationally in love with me and doing everything they could to give of themselves to me. Let\u2019s continue to give more to our kids than our parents and grandparents could provide to us, but let\u2019s emulate my grandparents in making sure we are giving more of ourselves<\/em> than anything else.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The holidays always make me think of my grandparents. There should be no surprise there, I am sure the same is true for many. The thing that stands out for me is how selfless they were for their children and grandchildren. I realize there are many wonderful grandparents making children happy each and every day, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[191],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-1485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-be-present","tag-grandparents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1485"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1887,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions\/1887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}