Parental Wisdom® by Tina Nocera

Your children need your presence more than your presents. Jesse Jackson

When answering questions on the TV show Jeopardy, you must phrase your answers in the form of a question.

Assume the category was, “Things that matter,” the answer properly phrased would be “What are the things we really need.”

Our needs are simple. Our wants are much greater. I love to subscribe to this philosophy for buying gifts for children:

1. Something to wear
2. Something to read
3. Something they want
4. Something they need

Plus one more gift; something to give. As we celebrating our grandson’s first Christmas, we bought him:

1. A Santa outfit which you will see in the video
2. The classic Polar Express book
3. A toy selected by his parents
4. Money for his college fund

We made a donation to Doctors Without Borders in his name. As he gets older and understands more, we will let him select the charity of his choosing. I personally don’t know any needy children, but if we buy them too much, we will raise greedy children.

Now that my children are adults, I realize we could have bought them less. The children won’t remember all the gifts they opened on Christmas morning, but they will remember the things they need; the time you spend with them and traditions and memories you shared on this and every holiday.

Enjoy the fun we had and memories we are building.

Have a happy and healthy New Year!

Tina Nocera, Founder

Parental Wisdom®

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 29th, 2016 at 7:19 am and is filed under Memories, Money & Material Things, Philanthropy, Time, Traditions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.