A 12-year-old girl, who chose to get up early and make breakfast for her family all by herself, touched her mom’s heart and inspired thousands of netizens to encourage her giving spirit.
Crystal Crawford, 39, is an indie author and homeschooling mom of four from Florida. On the Sunday morning of Oct. 22, Mrs. Crawford woke to the cozy sounds and smells of breakfast cooking. Her daughter, Aurora, was making pancakes—something she'd been planning all week.
“I was pretty impressed, actually, that she was thoughtful and wanted to do that for the family, and that she thought to ask to make sure I didn’t already have any other plan for breakfast,” Mrs. Crawford told The Epoch Times. “I wanted to give her time to finish and to figure it out herself because I knew that it would make her feel proud to have done it without my help.
“We raise our kids to put God first and to value others, to treat others well. One of the things that Aurora has really internalized is that love and kindness for others. ... It makes me proud of her that she’s the type of person who looks for opportunities to do nice things for other people.”
Aurora ran into some trouble in the kitchen, but she solved the problems by herself.
“I know how to make eggs, and I thought making pancakes should be fun,” Aurora said. “I chose to heat up too high, and I forgot to grease the pan. I greased it after just the first two pancakes to try and help the other one.”
After the rest of the Crawford family woke up and enjoyed Aurora’s breakfast, Mrs. Crawford’s post began amassing attention.
“I wanted to remember the moment because I know she won’t be this age forever ... I never expected it to go viral,” she told The Epoch Times. “Some people were talking to me, complimenting my parenting, but other people have been just wanting to encourage Aurora. I sat down and went through some of the comments with her and read them to her because I wanted her to see what people were saying.”
Aurora, who loves to bake, is excited to cook more in the future. She is even keen to try out a pancake recipe offered by one netizen from their great-grandmother.
Mrs. Crawford insists that while it can be hard to let your children make mistakes, it’s important that kids have the space to try new things. “If you can do it on smaller scales, like allowing them to burn a pancake and let it stick, it still teaches them how to think through things,” she said.
“As a writer, all of my books have a note of hope in them, but in my posts, I don’t want to give the impression that life is perfect, so I do share moments that are a little more difficult,” she said. “I think maybe if people shared more of their real-life moments in a vulnerable way ... maybe there could be more of that, people encouraging each other.”
