I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s in a family of four children, with two parents who were married and doing everything they knew how to do to survive. We were poor—not in the romanticized way people sometimes talk about—but in the very real, everyday sense. Money was always tight. There was a mortgage to pay. Medical bills piled up because two of us were sick often. Both of my parents worked full time, exhausted but determined. They didn’t have much, but they gave everything they had.
At nine years old, I started working.
Not because anyone forced me to—but because I could see the strain. I cut grass. I raked leaves. I did whatever odd jobs I could find to earn a few dollars to help cover things kids usually don’t think about. By the time I was old enough, I worked summers as an intern so I could buy my own school supplies and clothes. At twelve, I got a job at a local ice cream shop.
Twelve.
That should give everyone pause.
It was frightening. I was still a child, but I was standing behind a counter dealing with adults—some kind, many not. The owner’s adult son made sexual comments that I didn’t understand at the time because I was naïve and unprotected. Customers could be cruel. Some were aggressive. There were moments when we were robbed or arguments escalated so badly that I left the store shaken and afraid for my safety.
But I worked anyway.
At sixteen, I moved on to a local Bojangles and saved every dollar I could. I helped my parents. I helped my grandparents. Somewhere during those years, a quiet vow formed inside me and I told myself that when I have children, they won’t go through this. They won’t struggle like I did.
That promise shaped much of my adult life.
I attended college, but I left, it didn’t feel right at the time. Then life moved forward quickly. I married. I had children. I worked full time. And eventually, I understood something I hadn’t fully grasped before, education mattered. So, I went back. I worked full time and went to school full time until I earned my degree.
God blessed me beyond anything I could have imagined.
I became a very high earner, at one point making nearly half a million dollars a year. I had the mindset, the discipline, and the drive. But with that blessing came something I didn’t anticipate, entitlement, not just around me, but within my own home.
My family took advantage of me. Not because they were evil but because I allowed it. I don't even think they realized it. I wasn't obvious at first. I was busy, making decisions on the fly and not thinking things through. But then it became glaringly clear what was happening.
My husband retired and didn’t work for three years. My children didn’t want to work at all. They grew up without any sense of urgency, responsibility, or appreciation for the daily pressures I carried to provide for them. I don’t believe I married the person God had intended for me. We’ve struggled for years, leaving and coming back, fighting over money, intimacy, work, parenting, and the weight of unmet expectations.
Now my children are adults—mid 20’s—and neither has ever held a job.
I find myself fighting battles I never expected to fight. My son struggles with deep laziness. My daughter carries a strong sense of pride and argues about everything. They don’t thank me for what I’ve done. They complain about what I haven’t. And I stand here, looking back over decades, asking myself where I went wrong.
Here is the truth I’ve had to face. I didn’t hold them back. But I didn’t push them forward either.
I believed sheltering them was love. I believed protecting them from hardship would spare them pain. I believed if they never felt the pressure I felt as a child, they would thrive.
But that isn’t how life works.
You can love your children without excluding them from the world. You can love them by teaching them that life requires endurance. That there are things they will have to adjust to. Things they will have to earn. Discomfort they will have to tolerate.
We are meant to work.
We are meant to carry responsibility.
We are meant to grow through resistance.
Work is not punishment—it is formation. Responsibility shapes character. Struggle teaches gratitude. And when children are sheltered too long, something dangerous happens. It breeds resentment. It breeds entitlement. It creates an unrealistic sense of reality where effort is optional and provision is expected.
Sheltering too much doesn’t protect a child, it leaves them unprepared.
I see now that by trying to spare my children from pain, I also spared them from growth. I took away opportunities for humility, perseverance, and appreciation. I thought love meant removing obstacles. But love also means preparing someone to face them.
This realization is painful but it is necessary. If you are a parent reading this, hear me clearly:
· Teaching your children to work is not cruelty.
· Letting them struggle appropriately is not neglect.
· Setting expectations is not unloving.
It is wisdom.
Life will demand things from them whether you prepare them or not. And if they’ve never learned how to endure inconvenience, rejection, or responsibility inside the safety of your guidance, they will face those lessons later, alone, angry, and unprepared.
I wish I had done things differently. I wish I had required more earlier. I wish I had trusted that hardship, when guided by love, does not destroy, it strengthens.
But regret does not have to be the end of the story.
For me, this season is about truth, repentance, and recalibration. It’s about learning that love must be balanced with discipline, grace with structure, and provision with expectation. And it’s about trusting that even now, God can redeem what I misunderstood.
Because growth doesn’t end at childhood. And neither does grace.
