PARENTS

I have been reading my niece's blog. It is mainly about her life with husband Chris and the five children. They both work, yet they seem to be at every event a parent could be involved with. How they do it, I have no idea.

How does any parent do what they do? The sacrifices made monetary, emotional, physical, life style changing are enormous. Yet millions of parents do that every day. Many are single parents and do all this alone.

We only had one child and I worked until he was in his early teens. Many days I was run ragged. Even when I wasn't working I was running in umpteen directions. We bought him lessons for trumpet, and we did without date night. We worked the band concession stands in three states. Yes, he did high school in three states. We even marched beside the band as crowd control. We drove kids for church group, we taught Sunday School, we did what all parents do, our best. But we only had one child. How do parents make soccer games at two different ends of town?

I really admire the parents who have several children and make all the concerts, swim meets, plays, events. I admire them for their sacrifice of their own wishes and lives.

Why has this come up? This week my mother was 92. We have fought since the day I was born. I was not the sweet child my sister was. Nor cute and quiet like my brother. I always had to prove my point. My Mother was a young widow with three kids. She made the concerts, she drove us and our friends (in her 9 passenger station wagon) to out of town ball games. And she bought tickets and foods for the ones with no money. She even opened our home up every weekend for all my friends to party. She and my grandmother fed a pregnant classmate lunch every day to be sure she was healthy, this in the 50's. Most people shunned this young girl. She even proved my boyfriend wasn't a thief and a teacher was.

So Anna, you parented a whole slew of kids. Thank you.