Hospitality is the art of offering a “generous and cordial reception of guests” according to Webster’s dictionary. Another definition of hospitality, according to Webster’s, is “offering a pleasant or sustaining environment”. Hospitable can also allude to being open and receptive.
Making our homes a place of generosity, cordial reception is a wonderful goal. Perhaps the best way to start this is to do so with our closest family members – our spouses and our children.
I feel my husband is worthy of my respect. Do you respect your husband? Do you respect the way he handles the children or are you always stepping in? Do you find fault with your husband frequently?
Can you start by making your home a place of hospitality for your husband? Can you be cordial and generous with him? How could you make your home a place of greater comfort for him?
Perhaps he needs some downtime when he walks in the door instead of being jumped on by children. What could you do to facilitate that?
Are you hospitable to your children? Are most of your words to them commands or demands or nagging or yelling?
Children under the age of 7 learn by imitation; they learn how to treat other people by watching how you treat your husband, how he treats you, and how you treat them.
That being said, treating a child kindly is not enough to make them always treat you back respectfully. They are learning! Remember to have appropriate expectations for their ages and to respect the fact that they are indeed learning.
Is your home place of comfort? Are there things of beauty, things that bring joy into your eyes in your home? These do not have to be expensive things; an old table worn by good meals, a single flower in a small vase are all wonderful. What do you have of beauty?
Is your home a warm and nourishing place where time slows down?
Finally, what are you doing to be hospitable to yourself? Are you expecting too much of yourself? What is nourishing you these days? Crafting, writing, having time to sit down and read all can be nourishing. Do you have wonderful, close friends to love and share with?
Simple times,
Carrie
The Parenting Passageway 
i had to chuckle at this. Since my husband and I both work, it’s pretty much “make your own hospitality” in my house…except for our daughter. We try very hard to make sure the environment won’t tweak her out…luckily, it is better for our moods too
This pregnancy has me really retreating into myself…poor hubby… LOL
This is a really nice post. It keeps popping up in my mind, so I keep coming back to reading it online. It feels to me like part of a family mission statement in the making. Like part of the foundation for positive and gentle parenting/living. It sets the scene and the mood for us to be the parents we wish to be and work towards being. It’s a reflection of our inner work and allows it foster even more inner growth and change. I am really working on this: on making my home a place that nourishes my family’s soul. I spend so much time here anyway! 🙂
Also, on the topic of beauty, I often read in online Waldorf forums this desire for all things Waldorf and for that aesthetic to radiate the home. This aesthetic is beautiful, but when I see so many blogs where people’s homes look like a Waldorf toy catalog, I wonder how authentic that is to the people who live there. I think it is important, as you said Carrie, to see the beauty in the table worn by good meals, that the beauty has personal meaning, that it comes from inside, that it is maybe even homemade or from the ancestors, or from nature, or from whatever source has meaning for you and beauty. It just seems to me that people attracted to Waldorf tend to feel overwhelmed with the Waldorf-inspired objects that they do not have, rather than on creating an authentic, nourishing and warming home. Enough of my soapbox!
Elizabeth, this is beautiful….Thank you so much for sharing!
Blessings,
Carrie
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