Before They Are Grown

On unfinished houses, full childhoods, and what truly matters.

As we push on through the month of March, very much still in the depths of winter and trying to ignore that niggling desire within to think of spring before it’s ready to arrive- I often find myself dreaming up house projects to tide me over until it’s time to plunge head-first into garden season.

As I do so, I look around and have to resist the disappointment that wells up when I see all of the things yet to be done. The rusty heat register in the bathroom, the horrible linoleum waiting for me to decide on which tile I’d like to replace it with (and to decide if I’m going to hire it out or do it myself), the addition we’ve always talked about- but still have yet to commit to.

So many things that, year after year, remain unchanged and waiting for the right time and the right budget. So many things that I thought we’d have done before the kids were grown.

And yet, here we are with an 18 year old, and an almost 16 and 15 year old. The realization that my oldest never knew these improvements while he was a child growing up in this home. I understand that in the grand scheme of things, they are but small things. But to the parent- who always just wants nothing more than to give the world to their kids- it feels like failure.

When children are small, it can be easy to feel as if they will always be little forever. You cannot fully appreciate it until it changes. There’s this sense that there will be time later to fix and improve, to create the childhood you imagine for them. Plans for the house, the property, and the life your are building can comfortably remain in the category of “someday” because someday feels patient and generous. The list of things you hope to do grows, but these things live in the background of family life, waiting for that elusive season when surely there will be more time and money and energy.

But the years move forward whether those projects happen or not. None of the plans I made were ever intentionally abandoned. Life just simply continued to march on forward. There were animals to raise and care for, meals to be cooked, school lessons to teach, work to be done. Days filled themselves up with the work of living and the years passed quietly by whether the house changed or not.

When I think about those unfinished- or yet to be started- projects, it brings a subtle ache. The house is still small, those projects are still waiting, those improvements I once imagined giving my children were never fully realized. It is easy in moments like that to feel as though I’ve let them down.

But time has a way of revealing what truly matters. As the years have passed and my children have grown, I’ve started to look back and notice something besides the rusty heat register and scruffy floors. Instead of focusing on what we did not manage to fix or build, I find myself reflecting on what filled the space instead. Their days were full of long hours outside, screen-free, the kind of unstructured time that stretches from morning to afternoon to evening without anyone asking what comes next. They built forts, played in the woods, invented games, built an entire town out of a giant dirt spot in springtime until it got overrun by summer’s weeds. Their imaginations had room to grow because nothing was constantly interrupting them. They watched animals be born, cared for them, tended the sick ones, witnessed death. Life and death, over and over again. Rejoicing in the wins, crying in the losses.

Our family spent countless evenings gathered around the table together. Not rushed meals eaten between this activity or that activity- but meals enjoyed without the pressure of having to be anywhere but right there at our table together. Conversation wandered in different directions. Stories told and retold. The rhythm of our days allowed for those ordinary moments to accumulate over time, building something that did not look particularly monumental from the outside.

The kids also grew up in a home where work and life were intertwined rather than separated. They have witnessed animals that were bred, born, grown, harvested, and processed- all right here on our small farm. They’ve seen gardens planned, planted, and tended. They saw what it looked like to build a life slowly, through ordinary effort day after day. They participated in that work themselves, learning that meaningful things are often created through patience as opposed to speed.

And through all of it, they had something that has become increasingly rare in modern childhood: time with their parents.

We were home together more often than not. We worked together, ate together, solved problems together. Much of that time did not feel remarkable in the moment- it simply felt like ordinary life. But those ordinary days are what shape a whole childhood.

When I look at it that way, the unfinished projects begin to take on a new light. Yes, the house could have been bigger. The kitchen floor could have been nicer. There are improvements I wish we had managed to make. But those improvements would not have come without a cost. More hours away from home in order to earn the money. More time spent seeking upgrades instead of inhabiting the life we already had. In many ways, the things that never happened were unknowingly being replaced by something else.

Children rarely remember square footage- they remember how a home felt. They remember the smell of their favorite supper cooking and the sounds of the animals outside the window. They remember the freedom of afternoons that weren’t over scheduled and the secure presence of parents who were there more often than not. These things build something far more durable than an upgraded room or a finished renovation.

Parents today carry an enormous pressure to provide the best clothes, the biggest house, the nicest cars for their children. The right opportunities, the right experiences. It is easy to believe that if we fall short in those areas, we have somehow failed them. But children are not primarily shaped by the polish of their surroundings. They are shaped by the texture of their days, by the ordinary moments of life that unfurl around them.

As my children move toward adulthood, I am beginning to see that the life we built, imperfect as it may have been, gave them something deeply valuable. It did not give them a flawless home or a perfectly finished house. But it gave them a full childhood, rich with precious time, imagination, shared work, and family presence. And in the end, those things matter far more than any improvement we once hoped to make.