Home again, Home again... Jiggity Jig

Home from work... back to my "other"job (the one I don't get paid for). We are giving one of our employees a surprise baby shower tomorrow, and I was instructed by the "BOSS" of the shower to bring her personal favorites to the party for all of us to eat ( I AM the Rachel Ray of our restaurant). The shower is for one of our newer hires. A girl who cannot be more than 15 (just kidding, but they ALL seem so young to me). She is cute as can be... a single mother embarking on what I will refrain from telling her will be the hardest, yet most rewarding challenge of her life. The "baby daddy" ... I still can't get over that being a well known term these days.. is a Marine, and is out of state at this time. So we are throwing together a shower for this little girl who is fixin (another term that I DO like) to be a Mother. I could have never imagined being a mother at 21. I don't think that I ever even knew how babies were made until half the girls I grew up with were having sex. I was quite naive, and have NEVER regretted it for one moment. I remember when I was about 13, walking to the public pool with a friend of mine who was several years older than me. We walked through a tunnel underpass that had been recently built, and on the wall , someone had spray painted "Tom made Love to Mary here." I asked my friend what that meant.... and my 13 year old world imploded. She told me what it meant to have sex, and said that my parents had done this on their honeymoon. I whipped around on her, absolutely mortified, and announced that my father was not only a deacon, but an elder in our church, and that my father would NEVER, in a million years do that to my mother !! I turned back in the tunnel and went home, vowing to never speak to this girl again. After about two weeks of me not associating with my childhood friend; my Mother asked what was wrong. I decided to tell her the ugly lies that my "so called" friend had unbelievably tried to tell me. ...That was the end of my childhood. My mama so delicately told me that my friend was telling the truth, and my WHOLE world fell away. THAT IS HOW NAIVE I WAS !! And I want my own daughter to be the same way.It is a world that is rushed, it is a world that has ceased to "stop and smell the roses." It is a world of "HURRY, HURRY, HURRY." I think about that time in my life, and how I felt like an idiot for not knowing about sex. But do you know how many times since then, I have felt grateful and proud that my parents raised me to be a "KID" and not let me be swayed by society or peers... they let me be a kid... for as long as they could... and then gently led me into adolescence.I have always known that was one of the things that saved me from SO many wrong experiences and tribulations. If parents today did the same thing... it would be a greater world, a greater experience for our young people, and less of a contest of being the most popular or "well liked" by the boys. And let's all keep in mind that they ARE in fact BOYS!! This is not a bash on the girl at work... she IS A WOMAN, and has faced her predicament with responsibility...my hat is off to her, and she seems like she will be an incredible mother. I just want my little girl to continue to be as naive as she is, until as long as I can conscientiously let her be. There is absolutely NO reason to skip ANY part of your childhood, nor rush the adulthood that will haunt you all your life. Maybe I am delusional, maybe I am repressing my kids... But hey! They are MY kids, and I will do WHATEVER I want with them, and pray to God every night that I have made the right choice. Our kids are growing up WAY too quickly, and need to BE kids as long as they can. If they ONLY knew what the "REAL" world held for them... they would be begging us to let them go back and stay! Take extreme care of your kids, and extreme cautions in the way you raise them and watch over them. It isn't 1960 anymore... It is a whole new world, with a WHOLE new set of problems, decisions and choices. Help your kids make the right ones, or you will have to live the rest of your life; knowing that you should have stepped in (whether they want it or not.) Till next time... COTTON