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Heard a reference a few days ago about how people are
'outsourcing' their children. Sending the precious little ones to
daycare without them ever knowing the comforts and joys of having a parent at
home with them... cuddling, feeding, teaching them.... Training, laughing with
and singing to them, loving them as no daycare employee can love them.
Mom says she has to work to afford the
payments on her car, which she has to have to get to her job, which she has to
have to afford daycare for the offspring, not to mention the car and its
upkeep.
Is something wrong with this reasoning?
Is there anything right with this reasoning?
Well, I hear mom explaining in
frustration at my density, that her family needs a larger home to shelter the
children as they grow up, so she simply has no choice but to earn a living
alongside her husband. And not just larger, but newer... and more stylish, and
in a nicer neighborhood. And don't forget about the cost of all the nice
clothes and shoes, all the gasoline for the car...(both hers and dad's)... and
the lunches with co-workers, and the expensive car insurance.
Now... forward to another situation.
Outsourcing the kids to Sunday School and Catechism classes for their
religious education, while never mentioning at home the One they're
attending classes to hear about and sing about. Oh! You say I've gone to
meddling! Hey... I'm not sitting at this keyboard as any perfect example of
what a mom should be and do, although I did stay at home and raise my children
while babysitting for other working parents for eleven years. This eliminated
the need for a second vehicle and all its upkeep, while also giving my
children plenty of other kids and babies to play with.
It also gave a first-hand eyeful of
children who sorely missed their moms and dads, sometimes for twelve hours a
day! They'd come to my front door around seven a.m. then go home sleepy,
tired and frustrated with a parent in the same condition... just to be fed,
bathed and put to bed. That was five days a week. What about the weekends?
Well... mom and dad like to sleep in on those days, and if the kids went to
Sunday School or church at all it was usually without the parents anyway...
'cause the parents needed to rest up from the week.
Sounds like I've gone from meddling to
preaching, you think? Just feel that many parents need a consciousness-
raising notice, maybe... and some sincere encouragement to let the kids be
the focus of family-raising, and let God be the main focus of all of life...
taught by example and with loving attention at the side of mom and/or dad at
home... and preferably by both of them. Old fogey that I am, I was blessed
with being raised in relative poverty, with my mother and grandma teaching me
Bible verses and examples... singing with me, being careful that my little
ears and eyes saw only good things, and not anything like the trash thrown
from the TV screen these days in order to keep the kids quiet and/or
entertained. Enough then. If this lights a spark in anyone at all
or helps them see that what their kids really need is them... I'll be happy,
meddler that I am.
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