Hello, and welcome to payday. Children. People love them. People teach them. People learn from them. People use them. People abuse them. Some people spend years trying to have a child and others have children they don't deserve. Regardless of the life these little souls are given, they become adults.

I read a news item today about a woman who works in a Houston-area hospital as a surgical tech. She arrived at work the other day about 6:00 am as usual, hustled into the hospital and put in her shift. When she came out around 3:00 pm, she looked into her car with horror. She had "forgotten" that her 3-year-old son was buckled into his car seat in the back of the car. The poor little guy had gotten himself out of the car seat, made his way into the front seat to try to escape. He didn't make it. A closed up car can reach 150 degrees in 30 minutes. Forgotten?

I don't consciously remember anything until I was about 4 or 5 years old. Are we shaped by the events in our lives before that? I think we are born with certain traits and our childhood years definitely shape us. The child who has everything they could wish for versus the child who has everything he needs will have their unique sense of life as an adult. Then there is the child who doesn't have the bare essentials...different adult still. Some parents thought they were doing all the right things but ruined their children. Some parents spent their lives wishing they could do more for their children without realizing the wonderful things they were teaching their children.

Most of the people I call my friends had some kind of struggle as a child. We can learn from this.