Today I had time to sit, chat with friends and reflect on life, love and the pursuit of amazing children while my own were off playing in a "Chuck E. Cheese like" environment.
I have decided we are either going to become Amish (except that whole "no air conditioning thing" really stinks, no pun intended...), move to a commune and raise South American chickens, while my girls wear long flowy skirts and Birkenstocks, with "The Tutor", or just hide behind burqas. Because frankly, I really hate the fact that I have seemingly been more "of" the world than just "in" it lately.
My kids seem to have followed suit (imagine that). Today at this "kid emporium", I happily paid for my kids to have 3 fun filled hours of climbing, bouncing, jumping, running and sliding so I could sit and enjoy the ladies I was with. I decided to forgo the optional "black light mini golf" (I am NOT making this up) and buying the magic gold tokens that allow your child to spend $5.00 on games that shoot out tickets, when redeemed, gets them $0.23 of junk. Can you believe my perfect children had the audacity to actually "whine" several times about the lack of said tokens?
My kids actually believed that they were being deprived of something just because other children had tokens instead of feeling blessed and privileged to be there in the first place where they could climb, bounce, jump, run, slide and eat a crappy lunch with unlimited drink refills for a mere $24.95 plus tax.
Granted, I used my allowance (both Mr. Clean and I have an allowance limit, so don't get your feathers ruffled about me being an oppressed housewife) for this outing, but I could have bought half a weeks groceries with that money and gone to the park for free. Did I mention it was a beautiful 76 degrees with low humidity today?
I obviously have been teaching my "beloved begats" the art of entitlement instead of humility and contentment. It is time for a change.
And about the way they have been eating of late, I will save that for another entry...
1 comment:
Being surrounded by excess and indulgence fosters such a discontentment. You are not alone in this struggle. Our society pushes even the littlest child to be consumers. What other reason is there for putting Dora on little girl's tennis shoes?
We have to choose not to be seduced. Thank God we can teach our children while they are young.
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