PRIORITIES

Today I took care of my granddaughter who has been sick. When thinking about what to post for the day when I got home, I found this photo of her sitting on the carpet at her home with her piggy bank and her "money face". She loves to put money in her piggy bank and is always counting it out and knows that it takes money to buy things. But, unfortunately (or maybe it is fortunate) she doesn't know how much money it takes to keep things functioning.

When my son-in-law got home today he informed me that he received his "pink slip" today with a nice letter from the principal of his school giving him a letter of recommendation. This picture seemed more than apropos after I learned this news. What are our leaders thinking???

It saddens me to think that they are dropping the ball on our children. They are laying off devoted teachers and crowding our children into classrooms without aides. They are putting stress on families who will not be able to survive on one income. This is the future of our nation and we are giving up on them because of a budget crisis. My suggestion would be to cut from the TOP down, not the bottom up. How many legislators have children in public schools where there is a shortage of teachers? How many legislators have health insurance for their entire families? My son-in-law will not be able to afford health insurance. Not unless he acquires another job at what? For sure there won't be any teaching jobs out there!

He studied long and hard after already attaining a degree in Psychology and working in that field for many years. Teaching was his second profession for which he sacrificed time with his wife to attend night classes and took money out of his pocket to pay for his tuition. Teaching was supposed to be one of the jobs that there was a real need. He was told many times that men are highly sought after to teach because they provide good role models for young children that come from broken families. Men teachers were few and far between. But, this dedicated person will now be thrown into a pool of other dedicated teachers across our nation. A pool that is saturated.

Will people like my daughter and son-in-law be able to save in the upcoming months? I highly doubt it. They will do everything they can to hang on to what they have worked so hard for, I'm absolutely positive of that. But extra money laying around? Not an option. They have their priorities straight. I wish I could say the same for the leaders of our country. Shame on them!!