The following poem was sent to me by its author, who said my column on what we owe our children “rekindled thoughts I penned some years ago, while in the process of childrearing. Couldn’t resist passing it along to you in agreement that the most treasured gifts we give our children are intangibles that they must eventually mold and develop for themselves.”

I think this poem is absolutely wonderful, and asked her permission to share it here.  

Yourself
I gave you life,
Not living.
I gave you goodness,
Not giving.
I gave you joy,
Not ecstasy.
I gave you peace,
Not tranquillity.
I gave you desire,
Not passion.
I gave you kindling,
Not fire.
I gave you love,
Not rapture.
I gave you  the universe,
To capture.
I gave you compassion.
Not sympathy.
I gave you understanding,
Not empathy.
I gave you hope,
Not confidence.
I gave you trust,
Manifested through providence.
I gave you happiness,
Not elation.
You are my child,
not my creation.
***
Jane-Ann Heitmueller

“Just needing a little feedback and thought you might be a good one to ask,” the email began. “I’m wondering how much you think a parent owes a child. I have no children of my own, but I have many friends with kids, and it seems to me the children think their parents owe them everything, saying, ‘I didn’t ask to be born.’ It’s like they believe this means their parents should do everything for them rather than doing it their selves.”

She said her friends make plans to do something without the children, but the kids make them feel so guilty they end up giving in and taking them along.

“So I’m wondering,” she asks, “has this become the norm?”

Much as I hate to say it, I think the answer is yes. At least among working moms.

I can’t speak for all working moms, but of those I know well, even the most career-loving and poverty-fighting among us have at one time or another experienced such tremendous guilt over the time others have our children that it’s reduced us to tears. And to overcompensation.

So consumed by guilt are we over what we perceive ourselves (and our kids) to be missing that we try to make up for it by overcompensating to ridiculous degrees. Birthday parties become competitions of excess. Every gift mentioned in our child’s letter to Santa is purchased. Coworkers are hustled to buy cookies and candy bars and overpriced wrapping paper so our children can win tacky trinkets for meeting some ridiculous goal.

It’s like many of us–myself included–have difficulty seeing beyond the perfect childhoods we want our children to have long enough to consider the adults these kids will someday become.

I wonder if, by spending so much time agonizing over their childhoods, we’re cheating our children out of the opportunity to learn some of the most valuable lessons they’ll need.

We do owe much to our children. For instance, we owe it to them to support and believe in their dreams. If our child chooses a dream that seems unrealistic to us, we should still try to find reasonable ways to help them pursue it.

We owe it to our children to teach them how to make decisions by not making every choice for them. We owe them the lessons they’ll learn from having made bad or hasty decisions.

We owe them the opportunity to be treated unfairly, to learn which battles are worth fighting, and to know you’re there in their court if they decide that you’re needed.

We owe our children the chance to make do with less than they’d hoped for. We owe them suggestions for how they can scramble and improvise, without doing it for them.

We owe our children the opportunity to see us try harder, to not accept bad behavior from our partners, friends, and even employers. We need to look at every decision we make through our children’s eyes and make our own choices based on what we’d want our children to do if they were in our position.

We owe them the opportunity to see us working to make the best of the absolute worst situations.

We owe our children a constant sense of security, of knowing we’re there, that we love and accept and respect them, even if we don’t always understand or agree.

We owe it to our children to feed their creativity and curiosity, to learn how to ask questions, and when to question authority. We owe it to them to not expect handouts, to be the one who acts instead of the one who complains. 

We owe them parents who are good examples. We owe them the absolute best of ourselves. 

The thing is, we don’t owe it to them because they didn’t ask to be born, but because they were born. 

And because being a parent is a debt we’re lucky to owe.

In last Sunday’s column, I proposed a number of laws (mostly in jest) that I’d like to see enacted and invited readers to submit suggestions of their own.

So if there are any politicians shopping around for a cause to champion, I offer the following.

David Miller thinks there ought to be a law requiring people to move their vehicle after pumping gas BEFORE going into the store to buy drinks, snacks, or use the restroom, while leaving the pump blocked for the next customer.

Miller also thinks there ought to be a law requiring Ohio drivers to drive around West Virginia unless they are able to drive in the right-hand lane.

He also thinks there should be a law requiring the female-to-male restroom ratio in public facilities to be at least 2-to-1, and says that while this may seem like a concession to women, he hates waiting for female drivers from Ohio to return and move their car at the pump just so he can buy gas and then later catch up to her down the road, driving in the left lane.

Miller would like there to be a law that prevents product manufacturers from changing their packaging so that everything looks just the same, except it actually contains less product.

And there ought to be a law that stops products from being made that become invisible to males once placed in the refrigerator.

I especially second that last. And, well, I also second the stuff about the Ohio drivers. (Before the hate mail starts, please note it was Miller who threw the first punch this time around.)

(An aside:  We recently gave our Toyota Matrix to my oldest niece, who lives in Ohio. As she headed for home, the Matrix ran fine right up until they were closing in on the Ohio border, then it died. I suspect suicide.)

Chris McVey of Cross Lanes thinks there ought to be a law that if a store has 50 checkout lanes, they should be required to have more than 10 percent of them open at a time. And he says while they’re at it, they should require an overhead digital counter at the express lanes to keep count of items checked out and assess an additional fee of 25% on each item over the posted limit. That fee would then be applied to the order of the next person in line to compensate them for their time.

McVey would also like to see a law that makes doctors reimburse patients for their time when they schedule 20 patients for the same 9 A.M. appointment time, but it takes hours (or a rapidly approaching tee time, whichever comes first) to be seen by the doc.

After I proposed a law requiring that, once a television show is canceled, the network show a final episode in which all story lines are concluded in a logical manner, Amy Brenan emailed to tell me “there’s an episode of 30 Rock where Kenneth (the NBC page) brings the Night Court cast back together so that Christine and Harry could get married, because it bugged him so much over the years.”

Said Brenan, “I guess you’re not the only one who wonders about that stuff.”

Barbie Dallman says she’d be happy if the authorities just enforced the laws they already had on the books. “Like when the neighbors put their garbage out two days before pick-up day, then animals string trash all over the street. They should get a ticket, or at the very least be required to pick up the mess!”

And Pam Braden thinks there should be a law that clearly defines how the BCS determines the No. 1 college football team in the country–based on who wins, not a dumb poll of coaches and media types.

Braden also thinks there ought to be a law that no more stupid reality TV shows can be created that will ultimately tear families apart.

But it was Braden’s final suggestions that made her my favorite. She proposed that newspaper columnists be rewarded. She didn’t specify what kind of reward, but cash works for me.  

It seems as though we’re forever hearing about laws being passed or proposed that mandate something For Our Own Good.

The banning of trans fat. Directives on how long flights can be delayed. Helmet laws. Smoking laws. Laws concerning more realistic proportions for Barbie’s bustline.

It got me to thinking — if the government is determined to micromanage even further, I’d like to offer the following propositions for them to consider:

For instance, I think there should be a law limiting movie theaters to showing no more than two coming attractions prior to the start of a film. I’m there to see a certain movie, not bits and pieces of every movie coming out in the next six to 12 months. And those coming attractions shouldn’t be run at a volume so high that patrons are forced to use Milk Duds as earplugs.

And while I’m at it, ticket prices should be reduced in an amount equivalent to the number of commercials we’re forced to sit through prior to the start of the film.

If our government is going to be über-powerful, it should do useful things, like instituting mandates that restrict bad weather to three consecutive days and limit snowstorms to weekends. They should also prohibit forecasters from attempting witty banter or saying “the white stuff.”

I think we need a law making it illegal for textbooks that students must carry home on a regular basis to weigh more than the student. Chronic back pain should not start in grade school. 

Another thing: I think people who wear so much cologne that a visible haze can be seen surrounding their body should be legally restricted from the same public places as those who smoke.

And in the interest of fairness, I think there should be a law prohibiting politicians and executives from enjoying health-care benefits that differ from their employees’. (No tongue in cheek here.)

While we’re at it, I think we need legislation that requires, once a television show has been canceled, a final episode in which all story lines are concluded in a logical manner. Ever since grade school, I’ve lain awake some nights wondering if Barney and Thelma Lou ever tied the knot on “The Andy Griffith Show.”

I believe there should be limits put on cell phones so they won’t work if a person is moving more than 10 mph. And as a favor to parents, cell phones should shut off automatically after a daily maximum of 20 text messages has been reached. And last, of course, cell phones should be by law be rendered inoperable in theaters, halls and auditoriums.

Maybe the government could put together an ad hoc committee to study the viability of requiring retractable cords on shopping carts so that upon being released, carts would automatically snap back into the lot’s cart corral.

And I believe that companies based in America, or that do the majority of their business in America, should have customer service centers that are also based in America.

What laws would you like to see enacted, ones that would make America a cleaner, safer and calmer place? We can never have too many laws, you know. For Our Own Good. Send them to karinfuller@cnpapers.com.

If I were to complain about being powerless, a lot of you would understand I don’t need a pep talk from Oprah, but one from AEP.

I’m all about pre-Christmas snows, especially the ones that don’t start until well after my evening commute. Even better are the ones that hit on a weekend, since there’s no stressing about getting to work on time while wrangling with two-hour school delays.

So when the rumblings began about the snow storm coming our way, my husband and I did the West Virginia equivalent of a seasoned Floridian who has just heard that a hurricane approacheth—nothing.

While our coastal cousins are warned of the need to board windows and batten hatches, our forecasters send us rushing to Krogers for eggs and milk.

But like many StormTeam disbelievers, we scoffed at the predictions and chose to ride out the storm without benefit of freshly stocked larders.

It was nearing midnight Friday and Geoff and I were deeply involved in a movie where the main character was facing down a squad of emergency responders while wearing nothing but his not­so-tighty not-so whiteys when our power went off.

Annoying, we thought, especially considering the phone was out, too. But it was no big deal. We’re in South Charleston, after all. Land of three-times-weekly trash pickup. Surely a place this civilized would have power and phones restored by morning.

By morning all we had was more company in our bed. Nothing promotes closeness like no heat.

And nothing promotes creativity more than desperation. Which is what happens when those accustomed to hot coffee are faced with cold turkey.

Our home has a gas fireplace, but having moved there after decades of all electric, I’d been too frightened of the dangers of gas to try it. Even on nights when I longed for the ambiance of a fire, I didn’t dare give it a shot. Still, with the power out and the house growing colder, it wasn’t the chill that sent me after the matches, but my gnawing need for caffeine.

That the house got warmer from my water-boiling apparatus was merely a pleasant side effect.

Being snowbound without power on Saturday was nice, once the fire was lit and the demon quieted by his dose of caffeine. My husband, daughter and I played board games while our meal of potatoes, carrots and meatballs cooked campfire-style in foil pouches. Later, we read and napped, then played in the snow, anticipating the power would come on any time.

When night came, we looked out on the streets below us—the well-lit streets below us. The ones with those silly Christmas lights I’d once so admired, the ones that were now senselessly wasting precious electricity we’d have given our daughter’s eyeteeth to have. (For the record, those teeth kinda need to come out anyway.)

By Sunday morning, we no longer had to look up the power company’s phone number in the Yellow Pages. It was committed to memory. And we no longer needed to listen through the recorded message to hear which buttons to press to hear the latest power restore time prediction.

By Sunday afternoon, it was no longer amusing to go into a room and catch ourselves mindlessly flipping a switch.

And by Sunday night, we were phoning friends, looking for one who had both power and space. Celeste and I bailed, staying with our friend Shannon while Geoff chose to brave the night alone in our cold, dark house.

Come Monday, I took my disheveled, frizzy-haired self in to work, where I listened jealously as coworkers told of having their power restored in mere minutes or hours, or of having stayed in a hotel.

Alas, by five o’clock, our lights were still out. Since my parents had power, I fought traffic all the way out to Red House, then lugged my stuff in and eventually got situated at their computer, preparing to work on my column.

Which is, of course, when the telephone rang.

My husband was calling to say he’d seen the light. That there was power to the people. That we were re-volted. No longer de-lighted.

So I pulled the plug. And headed for home.