Attitude of Gratitude

This week, Mothership, our Brit mum based in the US explains how being thankful with her family has been met with ingratitude…

When I was little and first went to school I was completely baffled by the practice of saying prayers before school dinners. I came from a family of die-hard atheists and nobody had filled me in on the concept of God. On my first full day I arrived home and reported that we had spent a few minutes singing

“Thank you for the food we eat, thank you for the world so sweet” etc. before lunch.

My parents exchanged a quick look and asked me whom I thought I was thanking.

“Why, the dinner ladies, of course!” I replied indignantly.

I was furious when they fell about laughing and that pretty much summed up my childhood religious education.

I came in later years to reject my parents’ idea of absolute nothingness. The world seems just too amazing to have no underlying organising force, whatever it may be called. I don’t have a particular religion I adhere to – none of them fit exactly. I suppose you could describe my spiritual position in the words of my favourite bumper sticker

“My Karma ran over your Dogma.”

I wonder if it’s shallow to believe in bumper stickers, or just very postmodern?

One of the things that I love about the USA is the general culture of open, verbal gratitude. When we first came I was tempted to dismiss all the “Thank you for sharing” and “I’m really grateful to X for Y” as an extension of “Have a nice day’ which can seem automatic and insincere. But slowly, surely, it started to seep in and curmudgeonly old me finally realised that I liked it. Gosh Darn! I felt much better about things when I remembered all I had to be thankful for too. It’s refreshing to be surrounded by people who are resolutely positive, no matter how grim things are.

Our Dogmaless Church of Karma has no specific rites or rituals beyond the yearly field trip to the Episcopalian nativity service so I can weep when the little ones sing Away in a Manger. We did try a Native American rain dance during the terrible wildfires last year, which didn’t exactly work, but we enjoyed the whooping and chanting nonetheless. One of Four’s friends comes from a very traditional Christian family and after spending a few meals with them she came back asking about us saying grace before a meal.

I thought it might be a nice idea to try a version of that. To take a minute as a family to stop and consider how lucky we really are? We didn’t have to name names (God, Universe, you know who you are) but it would be a great opportunity to show, well, what great opportunities we have each and every day.

I started out only being able to say that I was thankful that it wasn’t raining which is not really much of a stretch here in Southern California – we get 10 wet days per year max – but as the weeks went by I warmed to my theme and got quite good at it! Unfortunately the rest of the family’s enthusiasm has waned slightly, but I’m not going to let it deter me:

Me: What is everyone thankful for today?

Four: Nothing.

Me: Oh, come on, must be something!

Four: Nothing.

Me: What about ice cream for pudding?

Four: Ok, but ONLY that.

Me: One, are you grateful for anything today?

One: Dada!

Me: That’s nice! What about Mama?

One: Dada!

Me: Mama?

One. No. (distant sound of heart shattering in shoes)

Me: Husband?

Husband: mumble mumble mumble

Me: Pardon?

Husband: hmrhh

Me: (smile through gritted teeth) Don’t you think we should set an example?

Husband: VERYNICESUPPERNICEKIDSNICEHOUSE. Ok?! Happy?!

Me: Lovely! Now my turn. I’m grateful for drive-thru coffee shops and the drive-thru pharmacy so I don’t have to get the children out the car for my drugs. I love the city for their policy of commingled recylables! I’m so happy for seeing the baby whale in the harbour, for the spring blossoms even though it’s early March, for our new cat settling in, for having no fillings at the dentist last time, for..

Four: Can you stop talking now? I need to finish my supper.

Me: Oh, are you hungry?

Four: No, not really, I just want to hurry up and be thankful for my ice cream.

I’m very grateful for having a clever daughter although it wasn’t strictly necessary to include quite so much cheekiness. But thanks anyway!

Amen.

Mothership is a former pop star, singer, composer, and writer from London who was abducted by aliens (a German one who promised chocolates and a cleaning lady) and brought to southern California to live in a small town by the sea with her son ‘One’ and daughter ‘Four’. Keep up with her escapades on her blog, Motherhood: The Final Frontier