They Are Never To Big To Sit On My Lap

They are never too big to sit on your lap!

My daughter Sheila turned 40 last year. She's the mother of two beautiful children, the eldest is an 18 year old boy.

She's grown into a lovely woman. I don't know how this has happened so fast. (Her brother John is 3 years older than she.) I still dream of them as children, but now I mix them with my grandchildren in my dreams.

I remember my mother telling me that "children never grow up to a parent" and I think she meant that. When I was 50 years old, my mother would still refer to me as a "girl".

I never refer to my children as girls or boys. I feel that they are responsible adults and it would be wrong to think of them as "kids".

Maybe thinking of our children as "children" when they are grown is normal. I just don't feel that way. As an adult, I resented being called a "girl" by my mother. I felt she was saying that I was insignificant or immature. (It may have just been mom's way of feeling younger herself. I don't know.)

When my kids come to me with problems, I do everything I can to help them, except suggest solutions. I encourage them to work out their own solutions to issues. It's part of being an adult.

My own mother would bombard me with advice and her advice was more than a suggestion. Mom was quite forceful in her opinions of what I must do. I very seldom followed her instructions.

There is nothing I would refuse my children. But since they are no longer children, they have to make their own way in the world with the tools they have. They've done a very good job of it so far.

Your love for your children lasts forever, still they have to make their own way in life. I respect my children too much to doubt their decisions.