Daily Quotes: Alan & Marilyn Bergman

Dedicated to a noble profession - accounting - that only recently has been spending sufficient time getting rid of its bad apples:

For too many mornings
The curtains were drawn
It's time they were opened
To welcome the dawn
A voice deep inside
Is getting stronger
I can't keep it quiet any longer.
No matter what happens
It can't be the same anymore.

The Price of Children

Normally I would not post something to this blog that was this long or that I did not know who wrote it. But this was sent to me in an E-mail and I believe it needs wider distribution. If the person who wrote it will contact me I will gladly give attribution or if they prefer not to have it in the public domain I will reference where it can be obtained. But meanwhile I hope you all will enjoy.

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.

But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

$8,896.66 a year
$741.38 a month, or
$171.08 a week.

That's a mere $24.24 a day!

Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is don't have children if you want to be "rich" Actually, it is just the opposite. What do you get for your $160,140?

· Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
· Glimpses of God every day.
· Giggles under the covers every night.
· More love than your heart can hold.
· Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
· Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
· A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
· A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites
· Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter why with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to:
· finger-paint,
· carve pumpkins,
· play hide-and-seek,
· catch lightning bugs, and
· never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:
· keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
· watching Saturday morning cartoons,
· going to Disney movies, and
· wishing on stars.
· You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay or Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:
· retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
· taking the training wheels off a bike,
· removing a splinter,
· filling a wading pool,
· coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the:
· first step,
· first word,
· first bra,
· first date, and
· first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, So. . . one day they will like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price.

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren!!!!!!!

Daily Quotes: Albert Einstein

Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.

Daily Quotes: Theodore Roosevelt

To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

Daily Quotes: Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren

In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.

Daily Quotes: Learned Hand

We may win when we lose, if we have done what we can; for by so doing we have made real at least some part of that finished product in whose fabrication we are most concerned: ourselves.

Daily Quotes: The Talmud

If you add to the truth, you subtract from it.