What We Praise, We Plant

A Lesson at My Doorstep

My nephew recently visited with his wife and their two young children. What struck me most was how attentively they cared for the little ones. They were always close by and fully present, and you could plainly see how much the children adored them in return.

The children were beautiful, and I told them so. Their mother quietly took me aside and explained that she and her husband had made a conscious choice as parents not to emphasise their children's appearance. They preferred to praise their effort, their kindness and their achievements.

I got the message immediately. And I said to myself: most of us make the very opposite choice, often without realising we are choosing at all.

I remembered a little girl I once saw, seven years old or thereabouts, on her way to an end-of-year party. Her face was covered in heavy makeup, no doubt applied by her parents, with lipstick on her lips and beads in her hair. She looked less like a child going to celebrate the end of a school year and more like a miniature adult dressed for display.

Two homes, two sets of choices, and one question that has stayed with me since: what are we teaching our children to value?

What a Value System Really Is

A value system is the set of beliefs that tells a people what matters most. It decides what we reward, what we excuse, and what we are ashamed of. Long before a child can read a constitution, he has already learned his society's values from what the adults around him praise.

That is why that quiet explanation struck me so deeply. When we praise a child's looks, we teach her that her worth lies in how she appears. When we praise her effort, her kindness or her honesty, we teach her that her worth lies in what she does and who she becomes. Whatever we praise, we plant.

Children grow up, and the values planted in them grow up too. They become our civil servants, our religious leaders, our politicians, our traders and our parents. A society's character is simply its children's upbringing, multiplied by millions and carried into adulthood.

How Our Values Show Up

Look closely and you will see the same pattern in almost every area of our shared life: we tend to celebrate appearance, status and results, and we pay far less attention to character and process.

At home. We dress our children like adults and parade them at parties. We praise the child who comes first, but rarely ask whether he learned anything. A child who tells the truth and gets punished for it quickly learns that honesty is expensive.

In school. Certificates matter more than competence. Some parents even pay for ways to help their children pass exams they did not prepare for. We are, in effect, training a generation to believe that the paper is the prize and the shortcut is the skill.

In the workplace. Titles, connections and "who you know" often open doors that merit cannot. Punctuality is treated as optional, and excellence is sometimes resented rather than rewarded. Many hardworking young people conclude that diligence alone will not take them far.

In public life. We ask how a man made his money far less often than we celebrate that he made it. Communities throw parties for sons who return with sudden wealth, and the same people who complain about corruption will defend a corrupt official if he is "our own". When society honours the outcome and ignores the means, it should not be surprised by what the means become.

In our places of worship. Even our faith has not been spared. Too often, prosperity is preached as proof of divine favour, and the giver of the biggest offering is honoured above the quiet, faithful member. Our faiths teach that the heart matters more than outward appearance, yet in many places we have reversed the order.

Culture Is Not Destiny

It is easy to blame all of this on "our culture", as though we were helpless passengers on a bus someone else is driving. But culture is not something that happens to us. It is the sum of millions of small choices made by ordinary people every day, in what we praise, what we tolerate and what we celebrate.

The family that visited me is proof of this. They did not need to become anyone else to raise their children differently. They simply decided, as parents, what they would emphasise, and they stuck to it. Any home can make that same decision tomorrow morning.

Nor should we throw away what is good in our upbringing. Respect for elders, a strong sense of extended family, generous hospitality and a deep spiritual awareness are real strengths. The task is not to abandon who we are, but to keep what is good and deliberately change what is harming us.

We are not victims of our values. We are their authors.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Changing a society's values sounds like a task for government, and government certainly has a part to play. But values are first formed at home, so the work begins with each of us.

1. Parents: praise effort, honesty and kindness more than looks, grades or possessions. Let our children be children.

2. Schools: reward real learning, refuse to tolerate exam malpractice, and teach character alongside content.

3. Employers: hire and promote on merit, and model punctuality and integrity from the top.

4. Communities: stop celebrating wealth whose source we cannot explain. Honour the honest teacher, nurse and artisan.

5. Religious leaders: preach character and stewardship as loudly as blessing and breakthrough.

I still think about that small moment with my nephew's wife. She was not being rude; she was protecting something precious in her children. Perhaps it is time we did the same for ours. If we begin to praise the right things in our homes today, we may yet build a society tomorrow that values the right things in its public life.

What we praise, we plant. Let us choose our seeds carefully.