It takes a struggle to learn who you are
by Erma Bombeck

Erma always knew just the right way to say it

    This was supposed to have been the most wonderful period of my life.

    My grown kids are struggling for survival. All the advice I gave them and they ignored is coming back to haunt them. They are getting an opportunity to experience firsthand that man does not live by allowance alone.
    So how come I feel so lousy?

    All the time they were growing up, their father and I regaled them with wonderful stories about how broke and deprived we were. We told them how their father scrubbed post office floors at night to buy my engagement ring. We told them how we took eight years to pay off a secondhand shag rug and how we were married for five years before we owned a car.

    Every time they asked for help, we told them we couldn't possibly deny them the poverty they so richly deserved because it builds character. We didn't want them to miss a single day of the struggle in their pursuit of the American dream. The rhetoric was easy.

    Sitting by and watching is the hard part. I hate it.

    I don't want them to sell velvet pictures from door to door.
    I don't want them to buy gasoline $2 at a time.
    I don't want them to eat cold tacos from a doggy bag for breakfast.
    I don't want them to sell their bicycles and records to pay the rent.
    I don't want them to sleep cold and wear old.

    I want what I have no right to want. I want them to begin where we are ending without asking or even knowing the price it took to get there.
    Instead, I must sit like a spectator and watch the struggle they so desperately need. For they are finding out things about themselves they have to know to live out the rest of their lives.

    It takes every bit of restraint I have to watch, say nothing and remember that
    someone did it for me.

    When I stand before God at the end of my life, I hope that I wouldn't have a bit of talent left
    and could say "I used everything you gave me." Erma Bombeck

    <bgsound src="midis/teachyourchildren.mid">
    You are listening to "Teach Your Children"
    Recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash (& sometimes Young)


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