Shepard's Wisdom.....

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Should I Work or Take Care of my Kids?

Let's take a moment to reflect on our childhood. Do you remember what you liked, what you disliked, what made you sad and most importantly what made you happy? Don't look too closely at the bad memories, let us focus rather on what made us laugh. Let's go deeper into our memory, where we only felt vibrations, waves, where our eyes did not perceive yet what would become our world...

What guided us then? Obviously our human instinct, but what would it have been without our mother's arms? Without the sound of our parents' voice?
Their invitation to discover and choose the colors of our life?

Today I am an adult, I often go back and wander in the streets of my childhood. I love to relive the scents, I love to listen to my neighbours from the past. Because all this brings me back to myself, brings me back to inner peace. And this peace, I would like to transfer it onto you, I don't want to keep it in me.

So now, let's go forward, to our future.

We will grow old, will become poorer or richer, maybe we will be old young people or young old people depending on our genes, depending on our ambition. At one point, too often not chosen by us, we will look back and analyse what we did during our short stay on earth.

Think about your victories, your failures, your broken dreams as well as your happy days; think about the enthusiasm you shared to make your life better.

But this enthusiasm which put our life on track during all those years will leave a vaccuum, an empty space if no one continues our mission once we are gone, and whom better than our children to pursue this project which we took from our parents to give it to them; so that nothing dies tomorrow...

So, of course, when we have chosen that our present has a future beyond ourselves, we need to accommodate our needs with our desires to successfully transfer the "power" to our children. Our daily life leaves us with few choices: Working for a living and sometimes, sadly, for a lot of us, working for survival. Life leaves us with little time for the essentials, but often this only happens because we let others define what is essential to us.

Working or raising our kids, everywhere in the world, this question breaks movements, chains up parents even though the answer is so simple: raise your kids, help them grow so that they are the ones who will write TOMORROW in golden ink. Give them the joy of life when they first smile at you, when they first scream in joy.

The first years are crucial because this is when a child needs limits and an understanding as to where he stands, but he mostly needs two parents and this is where the real concession really kicks in....the true moment of a life together.

Time is not simply made of seconds or minutes that pass by and it is our duty to master time. If you already have children, you already know the pride of having been successful. Their first report card, their first touch down and most importantly, their first recognition of your being a good parent, their first "this is mom, this is dad". Look for it, ask around you and tell me what's better than this...and make your choice.

But above all, do not let guilt drive you, never regret anything, whatever you choose because your choice must correspond to your deep deep soul, it must correspond to what you wish to have on top of evertyhing: to have a child or not, but if you choose to have one then work on the child 200% because it will be him or her who will reward you first.

To ponder this subject further, here are a few notes I have taken when in the field...this is a little bit of what's at the bottom of my heart:

"He opened his child's eyes, stood up and looked at the place he was occupying in his mother's belly; his child's citadel had not changed.
He closed his eyes, reassurred to know he was still there.
He sucked in on his pacifier to feel good again, "lapinicciu" (baby rabbit) in his arms, his best friend....His baby talk was of another color, drew another shore, maybe far away, who knows....but his smilae had all the savors of the world, the universality of the moment, the universality of the children's time."

"When she talks about children, her eyes betray her, betray this deep deep wish, this strong desire, to be called Mama. She doesn't care when, she does not care about all those other questions: Mama oh! Ma, this is her noble reward. And I know she will be the most beautiful of all mothers."

"Luna (the moon)
The other day I saw the moon cry in a child's drawing....why do we tell children that the moon is sad?
When I was a child I awlays drew the moon with a large smile or sparkling eyes.
Are we showing them the hidden face? And how can they guess it is sad?
Maybe they transfer on those sketches, on this far away and unknown face, their repressed sadness, their needs, their unachieved dreams, as if their sky of their nights were pale and sad.
I love to hear children laugh because they make us bigger and they give us back what they receive: love.
But behind those laughs is sometimes hidden a negative face, a construction site we cannot leave, the tears of a fire of despair, misunderstanding, negation or a missing tenderness.
Look for this tear and bring it back to the bottom of his heart, burry it in love so that it can never live again.
Let joy come out, bring it out. Let screams come out, the unstoppable race of a free child.
Give them the time to be sad...later. They will be sad in due time, for a lost love, when the sky is gray, without any help they will identify those moments, those sad moments.
But those moments will only be a passage, they won't weigh anything on the balance of their life; they will dissipate like fog in the wind but if we help them win they won't even see the fog. They will only see a summer sun.
The other day I saw a moon cry in a child's drawing, I stopped and cried with her."

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©Martin Vadella, Speron Inc, MyPrivateCoach d/b/a 2005.
Life Coaching at My Private Coach
Martin is a Shepard of Life met in Corsica by MyPrivateCoach CEO and Founder Valerie Orsoni-Vauthey. His impressive insights make him a valuable contributor to MyPrivateCoach's article collection. He can be contacted at info@myprivatecoach.com.
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