In general, I think the best things that we can give our children is a sense of honesty, good moral judgement and the knowledge of their value as a person. Further, of all the things that we do and that we pass on, it is truly hard to say exactly what will be useful to them as time goes on.
My 1st wife taught our son to cook. While he is an amateur, he does have considerable skill and enjoys that in between other things that he does. He started out doing this as a matter of convenience, but eventually it turned into something for which he developed a passion.
When my daughter learned to drive, I made sure that she learned to work with a manual transmission (to this day, I’ve never owned a car with an automatic). She spent one summer working with the maintenance crew at her university and being the only girl among 6-8 boys. When she told me that one day they had to haul platforms and chairs to the other side of the campus for an outdoor graduation, she realized that she was the only student who knew how to drive the big truck with the manual transmission. The joy in her words and the look on her face were priceless.
The thought is that while we will never know how things will turn out until they do, that should in no way deter us from doing what we think is right. I believe that, by itself, it may be one definition of a gift…
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