Monday

It's Monday and yes I have the day off, but I can't help but wonder what would I be doing if I was at work. Whenever I am off, I miss it. Don't get me wrong I love my time off, but I wonder if the students that I work with are getting everything they need; food, shelter, love, guidance... It's hard to imagine some of them getting the attention they deserve.

As a child I never really new anything about not having, cause my parents made sure that we had what we needed always. I look at families now and wonder how is it they are surviving on little income and a small house with two parents and lots of kids. Then I think back when I was a kid and think, "We lived in a two bedroom house with all us kids at one time." I don't remember being crowded. I remember having fun because there were more siblings to bother, to play with, and just plain have fun.

I don't remember ever thinking that we were poor cause I remember Dad always said, "Your mom and me will give you what you need, but if there is something that you want, then you have to work for that." When I was little I didn't understand, but as I grew older I got it. Needs and wants are two totally different things. We need food, clothes, shelter and love. We got what we needed. If we wanted different things (IE, games, name brand clothes, toys etc.) well we just worked for them.

I look back on those times and it doesn't seem strange at all that at an early age I started working. Mowing lawns, picking cucumbers in a field, whatever it took to get some money in my pocket. It was great and as a kid you don't have complaints, you just have fun. It's different today. Kids today expect everything handed to them. Allot of kids don't know the value of money. How to get it, use it, keep it, etc.

I try to teach the students I work with about the value of a dollar. I try to teach them that things in life are not free even if there is a sign that says, "FREE". There is always something you have to do to earn everything you want.

I miss those days when I was a kid and had no worries. Well I did worry which superhero I was gonna pretend to be when I was playing outside by myself. LOL. But other than that I had fun. I sometimes wish we had the technology to time travel. I wanna see me as a kid and tell me to keep having fun, keep doing as your parents tell you, keep going to church and keep saying ma'am and sir. It helped me allot.

I thank my parents a great deal, even if I didn't say it allot, for everything they gave me as a kid and as an adult.