I've been telling myself this for years and what happened? My daughter graduated from high school and I kept right on working seven days a week like she would be around forever.
Can I get a do-over? CTL-Z? Command-Z Undo? Mulligan? Anything that turns back the clock.
For most of us there's little way out of working all the time. After all, the kids need computers and cell phones. I said it, they NEED them. I wish they didn't but they're valuable for them and for us. They don't need them as much as they need food, clothes and shelter but they still need them.
They also need a lot of other things. They WANT more than they need but they can't have everything. Where would they put it? So we work to be able to buy them as much as we can. The work, the money, and what we buy them never seems to be enough - for them or for us. So we keep working to buy them whatever we can afford.
What they really need more than anything is to spend time with us, their parents, while they're still young enough to like us. And while we still like them. Think I'm kidding? You don't have a teenager yet. :-)
All kidding aside, I knew the time would come when they'd grow up and we'd see less and less of them. I just didn't count on it being so painful when it happened.
Take my advice, and this pearl of wisdom from the Polish Proverb, "You have a lifetime to work, but children are only young once."
