May 10
5
Outsourcing As A Way Of Life?
My wife and I like to walk through the local bookstore from time to time while the kids are at school and recently we came across a magazine with an article that caught our attention.
“Outsourcing how to ride a bike”
I had to read it and bought the magazine. My only thought was how silly the world was getting that something as simple as teaching your child how to ride a bicycle was being handed off to strangers. As you can imagine that train of thought leads into a discussion with my wife about the degradation of society and how the strength family unit was weakening. And of course, I was blaming exactly these kinds of things – outsourcing various aspects of raising children.
Was I wrong? I mean really? The more children are raised by strangers the weaker our family bonds are right?
Perhaps I was wrong. I finally read the article. I started with the preconceived ideas I shared above. As I read, I gained some interesting insights into other parents situations. Some were terrified that their child would fall and hurt themselves. Some would only have weekends and so their kids would take a very long time to learn.
But still, there is the loss of that magical bonding moment right? Your child finally gets it and you get to share in that triumph. How would you ever get that back?
Well, I read further. And the answer came quite clearly. A mother came to pick up her boy the first day, and upon seeing her, he triumphantly asked her to watch him while he showed her that he could ride down stairs. She got to be a part of that victory after all.
So perhaps there isn’t any problem with outsourcing some things; even if they seem close to the heart.
Did you catch the main benefit I slipped in there? The boy rode down stairs! I haven’t taught my boys to do that yet, though I suspect the two oldest are ready. The boy was not only taught to ride a bicycle, but he was taught advanced skills so that he can handle somewhat difficult situations.
Therein lies the key to outsourcing; having people with greater expertise perform the tasks you need done for you. No different than having your mechanic take care of your car. You don’t have the same expertise or perhaps the time to devout proper attention to your car and so you outsource that responsibility to a professional you feel can handle the job to your satisfaction and within your budget.
It really helped me to put outsourcing into a better perspective and appreciate how common it is and has been throughout history. It seems to me that we lost sight of it in the last century and are starting to “rediscover” it in this century.
