One of the things that was really important to me after starting my first business was continuing to eat dinner together every night as a family. During the early years it was a real challenge and we had to get very creative. We literally moved our kitchen table down to the office. We also ate out a lot—okay more than a lot. You know you haven’t cooked in a while when you yell, “come and eat,” and the kids all jump in the car. But to us it wasn’t nearly as important what or where we ate, as it was that we ate together.

Early on, my incredibly-ahead-of-her-time mother-in-law taught me one of the most valuable lessons on this subject: use paper plates. Linda used paper plates at almost every meal except Sunday dinner—and even then sometimes she would just whip out the Chinet. At first I thought this was a bit odd and frankly uneconomical, even a little indulgent, but after I had my own children I realized just how smart this woman was. I can’t begin to tell you how much of my sanity has been saved by paper plates. (And before I get letters about my wastefulness, please keep in mind we recycle, and all of the water I am saving by not running the dishwasher everyday!)

Seriously, paper plates are a mainstay at our house. I will never forget my then seven-year-old daughter Harlie coming home from having dinner at a friend’s house and reporting that “it was really strange… Lauren’s Mom ironed the napkins and then we had to eat off these hard plates. I didn’t like it.” I tried to explain that some people do things differently than we do and that is okay. But Harlie still couldn’t figure out why in the world you would spend so much time cooking dinner, ironing napkins, and then washing dishes. She was baffled that Lauren’s mom not only cooked so many different foods (think four-course meal), but that she also took the cuisine out of the pots and pans and served them in entirely different bowls. After years of seeing the spaghetti go straight from the stove top to the table at our house, this was simply beyond her comprehension.

Of course hearing this, I immediately started thinking that I was a terrible mom. However, immediately it was what Harlie said next that put things back into perspective for me. She said “All Lauren’s Mom did was work in the kitchen, and when we asked her to play Uno with us she couldn’t because she had all of those dishes to wash.” As quickly as my mind went down the path of unfit mother I realized that, in my child’s world, having time to play a card game together was far more important than what was being served and what it was being served on! It also dawned on me that for my daughter paper plates were (and are) just “normal.”

The point is adults should take lessons from children on adaptability. Kids are amazingly resilient and don’t have nearly as many expectations as we adults do.

Lisa Hammond
The Barefoot CEO ®