So here I am near the end of my Christmas / New Year Break. I logged into my blog and realized there are several from 2011 that I didn’t post. So without further ado, here is a blog that I should’ve published back in February of 2011.

A few months ago I did an interview I did with LifeTeen.com about what it was like to be raised in a family with foster children. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on my childhood and how it has shaped who I am today. Here’s the question that really got me:

Greg Iwinski: Now that you have two daughters of your own and you start a new branch of the Smith family, what lessons from having foster siblings do you think you will bring into raising your own kids?

ME: That’s a good question. I don’t think I have answer for that one yet. I guess just talking about all this now reveals how counter-cultural my childhood was. The rest of the world moved along just fine without knowing about our humble lives in the mountains. We were disconnected from the glamorous things of the world—trends, music, celebrity culture, professional sports, wealth, whatever. Whatever I saw on TV about what it was like to be young and have a family – my life looked nothinglike that. We were off the grid, but that doesn’t mean what happened there didn’t matter.

The Smith family in 1984

Somewhere along the way society has become consumed with appearances, and that has confused what it means to be a “happy family.” You know, the parents drive nice cars, they have a sweet house in a cool neighborhood where all the lawns are perfect… the kids are all hip and dress nice and have cool stuff. Fancy vacations. The whole deal. How uncool would life be if all we tried to do as a family was impress others? There’s no soul in that. I want my children to know that its okay to be counter cultural. And there’s nothing more counter cultural than loving like Christ loved.

I should say that my answer didn’t come out quite so composed on my first try. It was an email interview, which means I had time to reflect on the questions and then put together thoughtful answers. It was supposed to only take me thirty minutes, and it took me well over two hours. Because this was the first time that I had to consider my upbringing and then consider how I would raise my own children.

I’ve found myself marveling at the life my parents created for themselves and for us kids. This is what has stuck with me about Mom and Dad:

  • Be Creative. They bought an old house with lots of land and they decided they wanted to start a farm. Then came the animals, the large garden, and the fish bait business. Dad even split his own fence posts from trees that he harvested from the woods.  How resourceful is that? Beyond the six of us little kids, they brought in teenage foster children too. We never had enough money to do all that with comfort, but we still did it. My parents were resourceful and creative.
  • Be Fearless. What did my dad do? He met the girl of his dreams and they started a whole new life together. There was no hesitation here. They knew what they wanted and they did it. Dad didn’t know all he needed to know to become a farmer, and that was okay. He made his decision and he did it. My parents had little interest in sticking around their homes in the northeast to see what their friends from college were doing with their careers.
  • Be Faithful. Mom and Dad called our farm New Life Farm because it was a new beginning for them, for us little kids, and for the foster children that we brought into our home. Our farm had a logo too—a dove. It was stunning. Dad even painted it onto the side of our home. (Again, I have to interrupt here. Do you know what would happen to me if I painted a logo on the side of my home today? I wouldn’t make it till sunset without our HOA having an emergency meeting.)

A big part of life is figuring out your place in the world. Why am I here? Do I matter? What makes me unique? When you are young, these questions define your life in a very obvious way. As you grown into adulthood, these questions may not be in the forefront of your mind each day, but they reside deep within each of us. I believe that most of us make decisions in life with hopes of finding answers to these questions.

Inevitably, we compare ourselves to others to get some context for who we are. If I were to be completely honest with myself, I get jealous of people who have inherited opportunities from their family: admission to an Ivy League school, the family business, the vacation home, the brownstone in NYC, the vintage Ferrari.  They have so many resources from which to draw as they create their own story on this Earth.

I have none of that, and I’m beginning to see that that’s okay. I do have a heritage of creativity, gall, and faith. Absolute individuality. I need to live and breathe this heritage. This defined my childhood and it should define my adulthood.