To moms everywhere!
A teacher wrote this on the blackboard and told the class to copy it into their scribblers, or to modernize it, on their laptops: “Teach us to serve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not ask for any reward.”
Then the teacher said, “I can’t tell you who wrote it, but it must have been someone who was willing to keep on working for others without ever getting tired and without thinking of getting any pay for doing it.”
A hand shot up as she finished, and a young lad of nine said, “Please miss, that must have been my mother.”
Right on, young lad of nine!
The Price of Children:
According to a recent study by government “experts” the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 years is somewhere around $232,219, not including university tuition. That’s only about a dollar an hour. Financiers would likely tell you not to have children if you want to be rich.
But here’s just some of what you get for your buck:
* Naming rights.
* Giggles under the covers at night.
* Discovering the first word they recognize when reading bedtime stories.
* Hugs in the morning, hugs at noon and hugs at dinnertime.
* A renewal of wonder, if we join them gazing into the world of whales, gophers, spiders, robins’ eggs, green worms, kittens and puppies, an endless panoply of wonder at the world we may have forgotten.
* Never having to stop finger painting, reading comics, playing hide-and-seek, watching cartoons and wishing on a star.
* You get a front row seat to the first step, the first word, the first date, first car, first love. Your family tree grows and, if you’re lucky, grandchildren, and great -grandchildren join you.
Along the trail you get an education in psychology, nursing, justice, communications, and human sexuality which no educational system can match. And they’re matched with an endless supply of stories which surpass any comedy show you can name.
Who but your child could encapsulate history so: In the Olympics the Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits and threw the java! And Solomon had 300 wives and 700 porcupines, and Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Amendments, while Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night.
And questions to challenge your verbal dexterity! Where do babies come from? How come the moon breaks up some nights? How come Auntie is happy when she says she sleeps like a baby? Ours wakes up half the night!
And best of all, those superior imaginations of theirs is all we need to learn once again to slow down. Let them teach us how to lay on the grass on our back on a summer day, watch the clouds, letting our imaginations wander the universe.
The promised dividends are immeasurable when we invest in some do-nothing time with them, leaving our adult worlds’ investments for awhile to grow and do their thing, for aren’t children the best investment we can ever make? And as we know, they are the future—which is coming at them hell-bent for election.
According to a fellow named Bob, to have a winning day . . . you must listen more than you talk; give more than you get; smile more than you frown; think more “we,” less “me”; agree more than you disagree; compliment more than you criticize; laugh more than you cry; clean up more than you mess up; be more positive than negative; accept more than you reject; help more than you hinder; work more than you whine; act more than react; accept more than you reject; walk the walk more than talk the talk; save more than you squander; and love like you’ve never loved before.
Shucks Bob, any mom could have told you that without your big book of learning. Moms get their knowledge living it, and that’s knowledge hard to beat in any league!
A tip of the hat to moms all over our one and only global village. I’ll bet there’d be a lot more love and care in, around, and for the village if we asked moms to run it for awhile!