"We Are the World, We are the Children"

As I sit glued to the television watching Micheal Jackson videos (may he rest in peace). My thoughts and prayers go out to the entire Jackson family. He will truly be missed and we will never forget his awesome talent that he shared with the world. As I watch the videos from his childhood, I wonder if his life would have taken a different turn if he had a normal one.

I said that to say to all parents that read my blog, to let your children be children for as long as they can. Let them run and play with dolls and trucks, watch endless cartoons, laugh at the goofiest things and enjoy their youth. My 16 year old still gets a kick out of watching Sponge Bob. He knows every cartoon channel on cable television. I often look at him and ask, when are you going to grow up? Then I have to stop myself, take a long look and say to myself "let that kid be a kid". It's funny because some adults still haven't grown out of watching cartoons and that's okay. I'm simply saying enjoy your children while they are young.

I watched the movie "The Jackson's: An American Dream" and weep at the fact that Michael and his brothers did not have a chance to just hang out, play basketball, skate or swim with their friends. Michael seemed sad most of the time unless he was on stage. As a result he spent most of his adulthood trying to recapture what he missed as a child. This blog has just one simple message: Don't let your children grow up too fast.

Jon and Kate? No wait..............!

I know that Jon and Kate Gosslin from the reality TV show Jon and Kate Plus 8 have been all in the media. I have been trying to avoid blogging about it because of that reason. I have such strong feelings about the whole situation, I just had to go ahead and get it out of my system. That's what a blog spot is for, right?

First of all I feel sad for the children, simply because they did not ask to be brought into this world, they did not ask for their lives to be made public for the past 5 years. I only hope that 15 years from now, the children can look back at this and smile upon there experience and not resent the experience altogether. To top it off, they have to go through a public divorce as if a family dealing with divorce privately is not hard enough as it is. I pray that they make it through this tough time and it does not affect them in the long run.

I do realize that couples go through hard times that sometimes end in divorce and I guess I got too caught up in the whole show as I usuallly do. I just feel like I know the Gosslins and I have grown to like them and I really don't want them to split up. At his point all we can do is pray that the parents remain civil for the children's sake, which they seem to be doing and I pray that the children continue to be happy and healthy, physically and emotionally.

Who said "It takes a village to raise a child"?

For those of you who said Hillary Rodham-Clinton said it first, AEAEAEA..........wrong! Although she did write a book with that very title. "It takes a village to raise a child" is an old African proverb which is one of my favorite proverbs. I think it holds true for a lot of families. But sometimes I think we loose sight of that in this day and time. How many times have we seen children misbehaving and we turn a deaf ear to it? I am not talking about some random child in the grocery store that's using the railing as a monkey bar or in a clothing store, using the clothes racks as a park jungle gym (that really gets on my nerves). I am talking about a close friend or a family member's child that is misbehaving in our presence and we say nothing. When my second oldest Son graduated from high school, I thanked my village for being there and supporting my husband and I in the rearing of our children. I truly could not have done it without the help of my Mother, Father, Sisters, Brother, Cousins, Aunts and In-Laws. They all play a huge part in the success of my children (which are a great bunch of human beings by the way). So all of you take a bow! I could only hope that I make the same impact on their children's lives. Neither of those people had a problem chastising my child in or out of my presents and neither did I. In fact I welcomed it. Often times a family member disciplined them, I followed up on it later on. If they had not done it, I would have felt like they didn't care. Well, let me get off of that soap box. Before I go, I want to leave you with something that I have thinking about all day and posed the question to my 16 and 18 year old. Can you teach responsibility? or is that something that's just in you? Just something that makes you say, hmmmmm........Until next time. Peace and Blessing !

Train Up a Child.........

Proverbs 22:6 reads:

"Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." What does this mean? For me it means that whatever we teach our children when they are young, they will either practice what they were taught or if they stray away from what they were taught they will always come back to it. Example: I have four sons and when they were little I use to tuck them in for the night, kiss them on the forehead and sing this little good night song that goes a little something like this. Good night.........sleep tight..........don't let the bed bugs bite (they would repeat it after each line). My sons are now 24, 22, 18 and 16. When ever we say good night to one another, they still break out in song. We enjoy that song just as we did when they were younger. We must remember as we raise our children that what we instill in them when they are young will stick with them for the rest of their lives.