Last week I saved a drowning puppy, rescued a cat from a burning house, gave my entire salary to the homeless and  handed the shirt off my back over to a half naked stranger.

Yeah, ok, I didn’t do any of those things.  But if I did, I can tell you that I wouldn’t be all over the internet bragging about it and looking for a pat on the back.

I’m not sure where we got to the point that being a decent human being is such an abnormality that we feel the need to broadcast every not unkind thing that we do like it’s headline news.  Can we not just doing something good for the sake of doing something good?

You have more than others so you shared, or you helped someone out in a bind.  You should do that because you are programmed to, not because you crave attention and accolades.

Being a mom I certainly see the value in pointing out “good deeds” to my kids.  If they don’t learn empathy and decency from their parents how else are they going to figure that out?

But, along with that we also teach them modesty and humility, that being kind and generous is the rule not the exception.  I want them to be proud of themselves for helping others, of course I do, but I also want their motivation to not be selfish. I won’t update my Facebook status every time they act like decent human beings contributing to society.

That’s an awful lesson.

I will tell them I’m proud of them and share in their excitement when they tell grandma and grandpa about what they’ve done but they need to grow up believing that such behavior is normal and expected.

I challenge you, next time you do something nice for someone, unless it has a great story to go along with it, don’t spam every social media venue you are connected to with it.

Share it with your kids, your spouse, etc. and then just be humbled by the fact that you were the one in the position to help and not need help.

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An amazing collection of bright women who somehow manage to work, play, parent and survive and write blog posts all at the same time. We are the BLUNTmoms, always honest, always direct and surprising hilarious.

1 Comment

  1. BlissfullyMe Reply

    I have blocked several of my own friends on FB because of this. I don’t need an update every 3 minutes of their kids playing, eating, laughing and yes the occasional good deed. Those are things you share with family over the phone or in a real conversation in person.

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