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Holding Onto Family Time

As a working Mam (most of us are), I understand how important it is to treasure my moments with Ian and Jacob as a family.  Luckily, we are fortunate in that I don't work on a Friday.  This was a decision based on childcare and although we sometimes find it difficult to bridge the gap where I am losing out financially, I wouldn't change this for the world.

My Fridays with Jacob, along with the rest of the weekend, is my precious quality time with my son.  We play with his toys, we take little walks, we dance and sing, scribble with crayons, read books and have lots of cuddles.  I don't want him to grow up too quickly, but I can't wait to play board games with him, draw proper pictures, teach him how to read and write amongst other things and help him find a thirst for always wanting to learn more.

What made me want to write a blog about this is something my sister-in-law said to me a couple of weeks ago.  She mentioned that some of the children she teaches don't know how to play Scrabble (they hadn't heard of the game before), and they didn't even know what dominoes or jigsaw puzzles were.  I found that incredibly sad.  When I was growing up, I had Junior Scrabble and my sister and I played this quite a lot.  It just seemed rather normal to play this as a family every now and again - probably the norm in most households 20 years ago and without us realising at the time, it probably helped with our spelling and vocabulary.

Some parents put all of the responsibility of teaching children solely on teachers in schools.  Whilst I want the people who teach my children to be capable of doing so, I also feel it is my duty as a mother, to teach my children too.  Do other parents not feel the same?  I get the feeling that for some (not all or many), children are a burden, which is a shame.  I think children can bring so much light into lives that can be bogged down worrying about work, debt and all the other stresses we have to deal with day-to-day.

Jacob has brought us so much happiness and puts a lot of every day worries into perspective.  The worries don't disappear, but he gives you the chance to be carefree and do the simple things that I remember doing as a child that made me so happy.

I think a lot of us have forgotten what family values are and what it means to have family time.  It doesn't have to be much, you don't have to go anywhere, or do anything in particular, but spending time with each other and paying attention to each other, would help in so many ways.  Playing a game of Scrabble on a rainy day, or doing a jigsaw.  Making your children feel special and so getting that back in return.  Whether you work or not, you should never be too busy for your family.

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