Remember: Life is long
Strangely as our population begins to collapse people are still running out to get vacetomies and abortions and I wonder if they’ve considered the long term ramifications for themselves let alone the planet. As a parent of 10 kids, 4 bio and 6 adopted, along with at least 7 grandkids so far I see people my age, 60s, with no children and I really wonder what happened.
If you’re young and you’re wondering, should I have children, let me give you just one reason:
This cute little teacup above was a gift I gave my mom when I was about 18. I’d read about other cultures that gave gifts on birthdays to the people who gave birth. Most years on my birthday I get my mom a gift for giving birth to me because it makes us both very happy.
This teacup has a longer story. When I was 39 my dad passed away and my mom came to live with us along with the teacup. My children got to experience the teacup on all kinds of birthdays. Having grown up with a house in Northern California that burned down and we lost everything I didn’t have a lot of “stuff” memories. A few years later our house in Southern California flooded and we lost everything stored in the garage and most of the downstairs items. Stuff became even less important. Many, many years later our home in Houston flooded and well, I’m not a stuff person.
In a funny turn of events my mom married our adorable neighbor Ed BUT the teacup stayed at our house to delight other children, mostly girls on their birthday. Even that came to an end when we decided to get rid of almost everything, buy an RV and a tiny home. My daughter Jessica asked for this teacup to continue a tradition.
Today that teacup, on my 61st birthday, showed up at my house with a delicious cup of coffee! It certainly seems like such a small thing!
Family can be awesome and difficult at various moments but no one can share these deep touch stone moments with you. If you’re lucky enough to live a long time, there is no replacement for a good family. There is no replacement for children by your beside when you’re dying and no replacement for siblings that have shared your experiences good and bad.
Family is the true meaning of success. Don’t spend your time looking at broken famlies who make things more difficult but the families that aren’t perfect but love each other and work things out and maintain their relationships.
There’s a distinct difference between old people who couldn’t have children and those who never wanted children, between those who maintained healthy relationships with their children and those who just continue to be selfish no matter how old they are.
The saddest group of all is the old ladies with cats who never had children because they believed the lie that there were to many people on the planet, that children would hold them back, that children were to expensive, and many other negative things about children that aren’t true.
Life is long, choose wisely while you’re young