I’m sure Sarah Palin more than anyone of us understands how the little things can get past good parents. It is generally considered to be in a child’s best interest to be raised in a home with a mother and father because of what both parents will bring to the child’s life. Raising a family is a full-time job. As the mother of four children that range in age from 37 t 17, you cannot have it all at the same time. Sarah Palin has an enormous full-time job raising her family that need and deserve her attention and the head of a state. 

 

This doesn’t mean mom can’t work or operate a business and do a good job caring for her family. I have worked, gone to school and operated a business while taking care of my family. It’s the little things I couldn’t get to. My family didn’t suffer much and in a snap shop things looked picture perfect.

 

Parents can’t be two places at the same time. As former latchkey child and later an unattended teen/pregnant teenager/drug/alcohol user/high-school drop out, it was the little things and lack of supervision that derailed me. I didn’t drink, smoke pot or get pregnant at school.

 

I wrote an entrepreneur training program that scored more points than the grant writers from Cal State LA. School of Business when I was pregnant with my 17 year old. He attended a meeting with me where I spoke to a panel on the specifics of the training program. I nursed all of my children and was prepared to nurse him during that presentation on demand. We didn’t own a baby bottle. It’s the little things. The baby slept during the entire presentation. Out of four children his nap was the only nap I can remember.

 

My youngest daughter, who is on the Deans List at our local university, sent me a text message lovingly recalling a canopy bed I decorated for her out of discarded tissue paper when she was a small girl and we were dirt poor in rural Louisiana.

 

The absolute happiest times of my day was watching my three youngest children get off the bus at the end of the day and come running home to a warm home and my open arms. It’s the little things I will always remember like my son complementing me on the perfectly brown top on the hot buttered cornbread.

 

Being able to speak to my oldest daughter about parenting my grandsons and not have to put her off is not a little thing to my daughter and it’s not a little thing to me. There have been times I’ve been with clients or even working when my daughter has called and I have always been able to get right back to her. The little things add up.

 

My oldest son started training in the family business when he was 14 years old. I told him that I didn’t have money saved for college or life insurance. I told my son that the business we have been building for over thirty years is now worth half-a-million dollars, my legacy to them, but if you ask my youngest son it’s my rice and beans.

 

Nancy Holloway-Prince, http://worlddome.com