i wonder

when i was a kid....

my parents taught me to be polite, to say please and thank you, to respect my elders, to follow the rules, to listen to my teachers, to work hard, to do my best...

i wanted to do well in school...  i listened in class... i paid attention...  i did my homework...  i followed directions...  i didn't need to be told twice...

i didn't want to get in trouble...  but when i did find myself in trouble, my parents did something about it... they didn't make idle threats...  i knew that if they said it, they meant it, end of story....  i know this because one day i spent the whole day washing baseboards...

i only got spanked one time, because i never wanted that to happen again, not just because it hurt, but because i didn't want my parents to be upset with me....

i wanted my parents to trust me....  i wanted my parents to be proud of me....

i wanted my teachers to trust me...  i wanted my teachers to be proud of me...

i knew i had to earn trust...  i knew that i had to earn pretty much everything... 

i wanted to spend as much time as i could outside, moving, playing...

i wanted to create... from scratch... with paper and crayons and scissors and glue...

i wanted to write stories and turn my stories into books that were written by hand and had pictures i had drawn and were bound together with yarn...

i read books...

i wrote letters to pen pals...

i wanted to be kind to people...  all people... even people i didn't know...

and i wonder, i really wonder,  if there are any kids out there today who are like this at all?