Robyn M Speed
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Journal of the Wandering Mind
- Archives II

New Zealand is beautiful! 

The day after I arrived my Dad and I sat down and watched a rugby match. 

As I watched a member of the French team almost knock a team mate unconscious when they collided heads, I knew that the All Blacks would win! I shouldn't laugh, but you have to admit that almost knocking out your own team members is not a good way to play the game!!

Mind you, I also watched the All Blacks drop the ball when I expected them to be able to catch it!

In Singapore they follow Soccer, but I like Rugby! Body smashes, injuries, blood, and mud, yeeeehaaah! The sheer madness of picking up the ball and running at a line of burly men with even the slimmest hope of breaking through that line is just glorious--mad, but glorious!

Life is good when you can watch a Rugby match with you Dad!!
 

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Annual pilgrimage to New Zealand

The month of July will be spent in New Zealand, cooling off!

A month with family and friends, with cool weather and warm clothing, with soft beds and electric blankets, with a car and the subsequent independence.

A month in which to feel refreshed and recharged.

My children and I will bundle up in warm jackets and eat ice creams at the beach, we will drink hot chocolates in town, we will huddle round that heater at home, we will lie on the lounge floor in sleeping bags watching television, we will eat good old New Zealand bread, we will feast on fantastic New Zealand fish and chips, we will gorge on feijoas and kiwifruit,. We will....well, we will be in heaven!!!!!

People often look upon living in the tropics a a little slice of heaven. Well, hot weather is only fun when you are on holiday, but as a day to day thing, on and on, it makes you wilt. I love living in Singapore, but I also love living in New Zealand. 

Being happy where you live is just a choice.

Being happy wherever you are is just a choice.

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Hijacked by God?

I read about the hijacking of the plane in Australia this week. Apparently GOD told him to do it.

Mmmm, all sorts of questions and comments come to mind in response to THAT explanation!!

But then I thought about it again, about the God portrayed in our Bible and The Koran. It is a God who favors one side in a battle against the other, a God who encourages people to fight for what is deemed right, a God who smites.

Was this man a product of our own church education? Was he a product of the Sunday School lessons telling him to be good or he would go to hell? Had he been taught of a God who smites and sends people to hell?

 So, if God said to ‘smite’ the aircraft then why do we disbelieve him?

I’ll tell you why: because the truth is that God doesn’t smite anyone or anything, nor does He take sides in battles, nor does He encourage people to fight and war in the first place.

God is love and light.

War, fighting, hurting, killing, are not actions of love and light, they just happen to be a part of what we do to each other. We are often inhuman in our treatment towards each other.

Have you heard of the astral level? It is not a high level. It is a realm where spirits play. Sometimes those being/spirits who play in the astral level are mischievous like small children, sometimes they are a little nastier, sometimes they like to play pranks, sometime they like to claim that they are God and tell people to do things.

How can a person ever know if it is truly God who is talking to them? Simple: by the feeling of love and serenity and bliss that envelops them during such communication. And if God did ask them to do anything it would never be something that would cause hurt or pain to another, it would never be anything that interfered with another person’s free will, it would never be any instruction to cause destruction of anything or anyone.

No word of pain or hurt would ever utter forth from God.

Share you peace, share your love, share your caring, share you heart. Maybe God would ask these things of you. But hijack a plane? Hurt another? Not a chance.

God is love and light. There is nothing more to say.

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Terrorism Sucks!

Terrorist attacks serve to do two things:

• Kill innocent people

• Destroy jobs and take away livelihoods of innocent people

Morocco will be another Bali. It will be the local people whose jobs will be lost. It will be the local people who will have to find some other way to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads.

So, what did terrorism gain? Fear and poverty....once again for innocent people.

To take the life of an innocent person is never justified.

To take an innocent life and claim that it is in the name of God that you have taken a life is: bullshit!

God does not rejoice when one of His children takes the life of another of His children.

And none of us have the right to use fear to force another to do what we want them to do.

Peace through peace, for you will NEVER achieve true peace through the use of fear.

I will say what I have said before:

One planet
One people
One family

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We Should Celebrate the Diversity of Children and Adults 

You know what really annoys me? The insistence that a child’s academic achievement is all that is important. 

A grades A grades A grades!

I read an article last year that really stuck in my mind, and the gist of the article was ‘even though he only has his ‘O’ levels he has still done well in life’. Even though he only has his ‘O’ levels?!! It was as if they were saying even though he only has one arm and no legs, or even though he had half his brain removed, or even though his head is on backwards, he has still done well! (I bet the person who wrote the article was an ‘A’ level student, otherwise they would not have been so condescending).

How can we be so cruel to judge an A grade student as better than a B, C, or D student, or an ‘A’ level student superior to an ‘O’ level student? We look at A grades and ‘A’ levels and associated them with success, with perfection, and we look at B,C, and D grades and ‘O’ levels and think of them as less than perfect, as failures.

Yet…

How often do we take a look at a beautifully made piece of furniture and marvel at it?

How often do we admire a spectacular flower arrangement?

How often do we look at a painting, amazed that the artist created something so incredible?

How often do we look at a sculpture and wonder how the sculptor could take raw materials and transform it into such beauty?

Academic achievement is NOT the yardstick by which we should measure ourselves or our children. 

OUR ACTIONS are what we should measure ourselves and others by, and OUR PASSION.

A carpenter feels so at one with the wood that he instinctively knows how to shape it, how it fits together, how best to show its natural beauty.

A florist knows how shapes, colors and scents fit together and compliment each other.

An artist has an image in her mind of what she desires to set free upon the canvas, and her passion will guide her hands and help her to set free the image in her mind.

A sculptor, like an artist, knows in her mind what it is she desires to mold the clay into, and her passion will guide her fingers to find that shape within the clay, as if it has always been there, waiting to be exposed.

A potter is so in-tune with the clay that she instinctively knows how to shape it this way and that.

Every person has a natural talent that is in line with his or her life direction. A person who finds academic work easy will most likely end up working in business, perhaps as an accountant, or a lawyer, or some other white-collar work, and they will he happy in that work. A person who is interested in food, in the way flavors fit together, may end up working in a kitchen or perhaps take it a step further and become a chef. A person who likes to make things with their hands will likely get a job somewhere that allows them to continue that fascination.

If we deem A grade and ‘A’ levels to be the only grades that counts then what we are really saying is that we want all children to be academically inclined—like cloned academic Dolly sheep. The result of such a world would be a world without art, without novels, without movies, without plumbers, without mechanics, without houses, without fences, without restaurants.

We should celebrate the diversity of children and adults. We should celebrate the dreams that we hold and the passions that drive us.

You have no idea what it is like to discover that the burst of a caper’s saltiness combines perfectly with potato salad until you have combined them through your fascination for flavors, and discovered that it takes the potato salad to a whole new level. That is the passion that drives a person who works with food, or who is destined to work with food. That person may not be an A grade student, but who cares. The grade doesn’t make the potato salad.

An A grade didn’t fix your car.

An A grade didn’t mend your leaking pipes.

An A grade didn’t cook you the best meal you’ve ever eaten.

An A grade didn’t make that couch you fell in love with.

An A grade didn’t make that coffee table you just had to have.

A person did. A person with talent and passion for their work.

Don’t ever judge a person as a success or failure, as worthy or unworthy, based upon their grades. Judge them by their personality, their works, and by the way they live--be they child or adult.

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I Just Read...

I just read in this morning’s newspaper that a Pakistani woman leaped in front of a Karachi-bound train with her two daughters because her husband was angry at her for not giving birth to a boy. They died

Oh yes, we woman are such miraculous creatures that we can MAKE a boy a girl at will! WE also control the weather and the economy, and share prices worldwide fall and rise at OUR will!

Excuse me guys, but--if I remember my biology class correctly--YOU have the chromosome that dictates boy or girl. YOU are actually the one firing our unmarked bullets. OUR chromosomes are all X, YOURS are XY. And they say women can’t make up their minds! We are X and that’s it.

To blame a women for what sex child she gave birth to is as stupid as blaming a mountain for blocking the setting sun’s rays. Is it unfair of me to wonder whether such men deserve to be fathers? 

A child is a gift, be it boy or girl. I have one of each, a feat that was rejoiced by my family and friends, the majority of whom had two children of the same sex. My father was one of only two sons, and those two sons had three daughters between them and those daughters gave birth to son after son, until I achieve the miracle of producing a girl.

When I was pregnant, all I prayed for was a healthy child. I didn’t care whether it was a boy or a girl.

This is the year 2003, and however people lived in the past does not seem as important as how we choose to live in the present. It is not necessary for a daughter to completely leave her family and join with the husband’s family, for when two people marry they effectively JOIN those two families together. You don’t give your daughter away as if she was some possession, you give her to be loved and cherished by a man.  She passes from your care into his care, just as he is passed from the care of his parents into the care of his wife.

With people in certain nations almost obsessed with giving birth to sons you effectively give birth to bachelors. For if I knew you had demeaned any daughter of your own, or killed a newborn girl, I would never let my daughter marry your son. If you have not shown that you cherish all life, how can I believe that your son and your family will cherish my daughter if she marries your son? Would I take such a risk with my daughter’s happiness?

Some women have been told to go back to their abusive husbands and be a good wife. They have ended up dead. THAT is not protecting your daughter! THAT is not protecting your wife! THAT is utterly unacceptable.

Our duty as parents is to be there to protect our children. And when they grow up and leave home it is our duty to be there for them when and if they need us. And when they do need us it is our duty to respond and to protect them if they need protecting.

If that had been my daughter who leaped in front of a train with her two daughters, then I would have to say: I failed to protect my child.

To the husband? Three lives who came to you to be nurtured, three lives who came to help humankind, three lives who came to share love and laughter, are now gone.

A boy and a girl are equal. A boy and a girl are magnificent gifts, and our gift in return is to care for them and love them.

Our duty is to teach our children to cherish and respect all lives.

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We Could Do Nothing, Or...

I sit down here at the computer, and I honestly have no idea what to write. The Iraq war is a horror. People dying, blowing themselves up, suffering, grieving. And the SARS virus? Over a hundred infected here in Singapore, eight dead, and the spread continues.

I don’t know what I can say that will make any difference, and yet, isn’t a writer supposed to have an opinion? But an opinion will inevitably involve me taking sides in the war, and I think there are huge faults on both side, including huge/massive egos. And the SARS virus, how can I spout my opinion that this virus is partly a result of the decay within our humanity?

As caregivers of the planet we are miserable failures.

As caregivers of our brothers and sisters, our countrymen, our humankind, we have failed more miserably than we would ever dare to admit.

Can we fix the mess we have made? Sure, if we choose to. But how many people just leave it up to the politicians and then complain that the world is not as it should be?

It is not the change at the mountaintop that is required, it is the change at grass roots level. We can’t change the politicians and we can’t shrink their egos, but we can change ourselves.

How?

• We show goodwill towards other people, regardless of their social status, their wealth, their race, their language, their education, their clothes or their religion. We smile at them (you’d be amazed at how a smile can lift another person’s spirits), we treat them with kindness, we help them when the opportunity arises. We do not criticize people, nor condemn them.

• We stop blaming people for our own problems, and accept that we are fully responsible for the choices we make. We accept that the only person we can change is ourselves. We learn to accept other people for who they are.
• We stop harboring every single cent and every single possession as if our lives depended on it. We be prepared to share, as people, as neighbors, and later, as cities and nations.
• We place more value upon a human life than upon wealth and material possessions.

We have nations who are poor in resources and nations who are rich in resources. We should be prepared to take the abovementioned ‘local’ scale to the next level and have nation assisting nation in the name of global familyhood.

One planet
One people
One family

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Making up Our Own Mind

I admit to being a bit confused at the current state of world relations and frustrations.

Many peoples are angry that the American President is pushing for war against Iraq if it does not comply with rules laid down in its surrender when it lost the Gulf War.

This has made me wonder: if Hitler had not killed himself but had instead surrendered and lived, to go on and lead his country, how would the world (Europe in particular) have reacted if they thought he was creating weapons?

And if the Japanese Emperor or Mussolini had survived after their surrender, how would the world have reacted if they had, after a few years of peace, surreptitiously begun to make new weapons?

Or what if we did not know whether they were making weapons or not but just wanted to make sure that they weren’t—given that destroying all their weapons and agreeing to not make any more would have been a part of their surrender conditions?

Why would it matter if they were making weapons again?

Why should we be concerned?

If these things HAD happened we WOULD have been concerned, GREATLY concerned!

So, what was it that started the Gulf War? Was it Iraq invading Iran under the leadership of Saddam Hussein? Did America step in to help Iran?

There was a reason that the Gulf War happened.

So WHY do so many people look at what is happening now and think that America is just looking for a war? Did they not enter the Gulf War to help? Perhaps they should have just let Iraq invade Iran?

IRAQ was the cause of the Gulf War. IRAQ LOST the Gulf War. Suddam LOST.

Saddam did not like losing the Gulf War.

Is he someone we should be worried about?

Is his flaunting the conditions of Iraq’s surrender cause for concern? Or should he be allowed to do this and America NOT be allowed to say anything about it? Would we let Hitler away with it? Or Mussolini?

If ‘son of Sam’ had a metal pole and a file I his cell would we worry?

What I want people to think about are these issues:

• Why did the Gulf War happen?
• Why did America get involved?
• Who lost that war?
• Who has the greatest resentment about that war?
• What weapons did Iraq use; do they still have some; are the building more; should we be concerned?
• If a war ends with the surrender of one side, and terms of surrender are agreed to, should those conditions be seriously considered? Should the losing side HAVE to obey the terms of surrender that they agreed to? Why?
  

I do not believe that there is an anti-Moslem crusade going on. This ‘potential war’ is not a religious war, regardless of what anyone says. And to any Christian who thinks that was and killing is a fundamental aspect of Islam, it is not.  Guess who gets a substantial mention in The Koran: Moses! In fact, in The Koran both Moses and Jesus are recognized as Prophets of God! The Koran is, in many way, not too different form The Bible!

Screeching accusations of ‘religious war’ is all too easy, but it is not true. It does not matter what race or religion an aggressor is, an aggressor is an aggressor!

When fighting targets women and children, the elderly and the infirm, there is no honor in that fight.

Much attention has been focused on America being the aggressor, but I ask you to look at ALL the facts, ALL the causes and motivations before making any judgments.

Do not let another tell you what to believe. Decide for yourself through your own research.

And when I ask you will we form a World Government, a Government of the worlds’ leaders whose sole focus is: what is best for the world as a whole. A world government that puts the good of the planet and the good of humanity above monetary wealth. When?

...Of course, this is all just my view... 

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Oh For Heaven's Sake!

Okay, well, I would have liked to have broken the truth to you slowly, piece by piece, but, there is no more time left for such a luxury!

God does not take sides. God does not start wars. God does not ‘back one side against the other’. God does not battle with people who oppose Him. God does not favor war, for any divine reason, as a way to achieve His will.

Why not?

Take a moment and think. When God created everything, the universe with all it contains, what did He make it out of? Remember, in the beginning there was only God. God created everything out of Himself—because, remember, there was God and nothing but God. To explain it graphically, imagine that God was a lump of clay and He pulled off this little bit, rolled it into a ball and called it Earth, then He pulled off other little bits and rolled them into tiny balls and called them people (there’s so much more to it that this, but consider this the readers digest version of the readers digest version). So the planet and the people are all made of the same stuff, they are all made of God. But, the people ‘bits’ have forgotten their ultimate reality.

And THAT is why God does not take sides, because He IS ALL SIDES. He is every person in every argument. And with that truth in place you can comprehend that He would never back any side or ever choose war as a way to impose His will. He gave us all ‘free will’, which means we make our own choices and reap the consequences. The current world state is not because of anything God has done, it is because of what WE have done. When we treat other people badly and violently then that is what we will attract to ourselves. When we treat people with love and respect, then THAT is what we will attract to ourselves. In any situation there is a choice we can make that will be for our highest and best possible good, and then there is the choice that will not be the best for us. But, the choice is OURS to make. God does not impose His will on us.

Two people, or two nations, at war is like my left hand and my right hand waging war. If I chop off my right hand, what have I achieved? I have mutilated myself.

God’s will? It seems very obvious to me, despite the fact that MAN recorded most of the religious texts in the world—he also left much out, distorted much so that man gained power and position, mis-translated much according to language and misunderstood much of what he paraphrased—that the one thing that we SHOULD take from all religious texts is that God loves us, and God forgives us for everything.

Those who tell the world that they fight for God, to defend God, to do what’s right, please, understand that we are all a part of the ONE. You cannot defend yourself against yourself. You cannot save yourself by blowing yourself up.

Do not buy into anything anyone says about divine war for there is no such thing. War is about fear, pain, suffering, torment. There is no honor in burying your dead children!

There is a time for war and a time for peace? Well, if you say so. But I will never believe you. There is a time for peace and it is now now now now now. It is ALWAYS the time for PEACE.

God will kill you, smite you down, drop cities on you, condemn you to hell? Where did this mistruth ever stem from? If you had two sons who you loved with all your heart, but one of them hit the other in a moment of childish frustration, would you kill that son, would you drop a block of concrete on his head? Of course you wouldn’t.

As far as God being annoyed if we mistreat His followers, well, heck, we mistreat people regardless of who and what they follow. We should love and respect a person without conditions and not just because they claim to follow God. Some of the world’s current child abusers are Priests, ‘followers of God’. Man killed John the Baptist and crucified Jesus, and others we sent away to obscure places, away from the bulk of humanity. We don’t exactly have a good history of treating God’s followers kindly or lovingly. But God will continue to send teachers because His love is endless, and because as each day passes we are becoming more and more ready to know the truth.

Be open to the truth. Allow what you are told to resonate within you, and if it resonates well and harmoniously, embrace it, but if it does not feel right, then let it go. My truth and your truth may be poles apart, but maybe in ten years they will be the same. Do not just blindly believe all you are told. YOU make your choice of what to embrace, but do so out of love and not out of fear. You will never be punished by God for anything—but at Soul level you will always know what is best for you and what is not so good.

Keep in mind, always, that your actions and words affect the world. Your love and caring uplift all humanity, and your anger and fear pulls humanity down. Don’t think that you can say and do anything your feel like and not have an effect of humanity, on the world, on the universe. You DO make a difference. And, as such, you ARE responsible.

Oh, and while I’m at it: the ten commandments? Think of them as ‘ten suggestions’--for God, as you know, gave us free will—to live a better life, a happier, more contented life.

You may not agree with my truth, but I will not back away from it.

You may think some wars are just, but I will categorically deny that they are.

You may think there is nothing you can do, but I tell you that YOU make all the difference in the world.

You may think our differences are too great for us to ever love one another, but I tell you, you are wrong.

Say one prayer to whomever you pray to. One pray choosing peace on Earth and harmony amongst all people, ALL people. And we will have just that! Stand up, and for the sake of us all: choose peace and love.

Be not afraid.

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What Kind of World Have We Made for Our Children?

Take a good look at the world we have created to pass on to our children.

Bickering, fighting and killing seem to reign throughout the world.  Peace?  Well apparently we don’t want that for our children.  Apparently we feel that to create threat and fear is the best we can offer our children!

Don’t be so naïve as to believe everything you read in the paper or are told. I have no doubt that every leader who wants to rally support against a specific foe will distort the truth in whatever way he feels necessary in order to inflame passions sufficient for war. The truth is held back, or only partly shared, or spoken in such a way as to achieve a goal. Or religious texts are held up, and we are informed that it is the will of God that we attack, or that we must fight back to defend our God. Well, I’ve got news for those people: NEVER EVER HAS GOD WANTED YOU TO MURDER ANOTHER OF HIS CHILDREN!!!  NEVER EVER HAS GOD SAID THAT ONLY ONE RACE OF PEOPLE WERE HIS CHILDREN, FOR ALL PEOPLES ARE HIS CHILDREN!!!! God does not have favorites, he loves ALL people.

There are some people who hold up a religious book and spout their lies, and because the listeners do not KNOW the book, they believe what they are being told. Well, I have an answer for that: read the books yourself!!!  Read the Bible, read the Koran, read the Book of Mormon, read the Torah, read the Bhagavad Gita. Read all the religious books you can find.  You may find a common thread of truth, or you may see that the hand of man weaves through each ‘paraphrased’, ‘translated’ book. You will see the way the truth was manipulated in order to show that God favored one people over another (which he did NOT), or that women were lesser than men (which they are NOT), or that one people was evil and one pure and good (which is seldom the case).

So, don’t buy into the religious arguments. Keep in your heart that God loves ALL people regardless of color, language, or birthright. And when you read the newspapers keep in mind that we are all sons and daughter, mothers and father, aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents.

We all have hopes and dreams. None of us were born determined to wreak havoc on the Earth and on her peoples.  But, some people get so desperate to see a change that they look at the wrong methods.  I repeat the well known phrase: peace is not found at the end of a gun. And change is not achieved through threat and fear. In fact, you all know that when you go into a shop and the shop assistant tries to get you to buy something and starts pressuring you, that you just decide you don’t want what they are selling, no matter how good it is. Trying to pressure anyone into doing what YOU want them to do just doesn’t work. Even if you back them into a corner and they do what you want out of fear, they will be resentful, bitter and angry, and if the chance arises for vengeance they just might take it—and then they turn into YOU and YOU turn into them.

If you want your children to understand something, do you yell and scream at them, or do you sit down and discuss it with them, explain so that they can understand, help them make the right choice through giving them all the information? We might think we are all grown up and mature, but in reality we are no different to the children and in many ways the children are more grown up than we are.

If two nations on the brink of unrest could come together with a group of neutral counselors whose sole purpose was peaceful resolution, who had taken no sides and made no assumptions, could they not all sit down and work out the solution? Of course there would have to be give and take on both sides, you cannot expect that one side will get all it asks for and the other side get nothing. Peaceful resolution, and the sincere, gratitude and support from the rest of the world.

Do not blame other people or other nations for your own problems, seek a solution.

Weapons breed fear. And if you are sitting at home packing gunpowder into your bullet shells, I will naturally assume that you intend to use that gun.

When you send a man into battle (be he ten years old or twenty) you send a mother’s son. And let me assure you, the world knows no grief greater that the grief of a mother whose son has been killed, the world knows no greater torment than the torment of a mother whose son has been killed. It is a grief and a torment that she carries with her for the rest of her life. When both sides send men into battle to die they should keep their lies and propaganda to themselves, and look into the eyes of those boys and men, and think of what they are about to do.  For what?  For the sake of pride?  For ‘face’?  For water?  For a bit of land?  To prove that they are a man?  To show the world they’re tough?  To show the world how much power they can wield?  To make others look small?

The strongest men in our history have not been the leaders of wars, they have been the leaders of peace. The strongest greatest men in our history: Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammad, Mahatma Ghandi, and many others who I could list if I had the time.

True and lasting peace will only ever be attained through peaceful resolution. Let THIS be the legacy we leave our children. A world at peace—because it IS possible. It CAN be done. 

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More Precious Than Diamonds

Why is it that people find it so hard to realise what is truly important in life?

I read an article in the local Singapore newspaper about Singaporeans’ rising inability to conceive. Apparently one in five couples has difficulty conceiving a baby. One of the causes is that they leave starting a family until too late.  Why do they leave it so late? Because it is not on their list of important things to do, it comes after cash, credit, car, condo, country club membership. In all fairness it IS expensive to live in Singapore and the cost of housing is exorbitant (in comparison to in NZ—my homeland), and so the possibility of marrying young and starting a family soon after is a rare contemplation.

Children are often treated as an inevitable part of marriage—like a mortgage. Why, I ask you, are they not treated as treasures? Why are they not treated as a wonderful blessing?

I have a son (aged 13) and a daughter (aged 11) and they are astounding. No day is ever the same. I cherish them and am so grateful to have them in my life. When so many other people have been unable to conceive I see them as even greater treasures than ever. To watch them grow, blossom, develop, and succeed, to share a joke, to lie on their bed and listen to music, it is all such a privilege.

What makes me angry is people who mistreat their children, take them for granted, insult them, ignore them, treat them as chattels or servants.  Such people do not deserve the treasure of their children. When you bring a child into the world you are not bringing an insurance policy, a caregiver, a trophy, an ornament, you are bringing into the world a person who will grow and evolve in their own chosen directions. They are not a puppet to be manipulated. They have their own dreams and potentials, and it is up to the parents to help them achieve that potential and to bring to life those dreams. That is our role.

Whether our children grow up to become lawyers, doctors, street sweepers, office workers, artists, computer repairmen or chefs, does not matter. The only thing that matters is that they do what they are passionate about, that they follow THEIR passion--not ours.

Children need guidance, boundaries and discipline, but they also need to know that they are loved, and that there are consequences to all their actions. Give a child wise guidance and love and they will have what they need to make their own decisions in life. You have to trust them, if you ever want them to learn to trust themselves.

Children seldom appreciate your sacrifices and financial support because they have no comprehension about the difficulty of earning money. But they DO know how it feels to know they are loved, how it feels to have someone believe in them and encourage them. When they are hurt, or feeling sad, a parent’s love and reassurance can make all the difference. They will remember the TIME you spent with them, not how expensive the roof over their head was.

Do not make the mistake of believing that the material support you provide for your family is a clear demonstration of your love for them. A HUG is a clear demonstration. “I love you” is a clear demonstration. “I am SO proud of you” is a clear demonstration. Never take anything for granted. Some children feel unloved even into their teenage years—and their parents cannot understand how their child could not KNOW that they love them.

Do not have children because it is expected of you or because you are getting older and if you don’t have children now you never will. Have children because you truly want to bring a life into the world, and are committed to nurturing that life. Your children are a treasure. Teach them well. Love them. Be there for them.

Cherish your children. Always.

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© Robyn M Speed