I mentioned in my daughter's blog that parents nowadays are very much willing to spend on their children education and enrichment. While I acknowledge the fact that this is a good thing, I do know that some of my friends perhaps pay too much attention to their children as compared to themselves.
The reason I say this is because I do have friends that send their kids to schools that require a pretty hefty sum of investment. Of course, it is alright to send your lovely kids to enrichment courses when you can afford. The issue is as parents, we also have to look after ourselves before we can think more for our children.
I am saying this because I have came to realize the importance of health. A year ago, I too wanted to spend most of my money on my daughter Jade. I buy her the toys she want, I bring her to places she likes and together with my wife, we spend most of our time and money on her. All this while though, we were not willing to spend money on ourselves. It was only later that I realize that if I do not take good care of myself, I will not be able to take care of my love ones on a long term basis.
Therefore I began to change. I started spending more money on myself - in buying personal development books, in attending seminars to enrich myself, and in taking really good care of my health.
I started taking care of myself by slimming down. Yes, I spent some money to slim down but it was all worth it. Why this is so important is because today if I cannot see beyond my years, I am not being responsible. I am not responsible not only for myself, but I am also not responsible towards my wife and my daughter, and towards my parents.
You must be wondering why?
Simple. If I do not take good care of my health, five to ten years down the road, I have a higher risk of developing chronic diseases, which will cost me extremely hefty sums to cure. This is definitely going to be a burden to my family and will cause unnecessary stress to them as I have witnessed many of my friends' family who were in such situations.
If I do not take care of myself by personal development, again five to ten years down the road, I will still be what I am now. Today, I have really learned to grow over the last year and I am sure when focus is put on improving myself in development and in health, I will definitely be able to provide more for my child or children in time to come.
Therefore, health is very important to me now. While many still cannot see beyond their current, I am very glad that I am aware that taking action right now means I do not have to pay for it down the road.
Back to the topic of sending kids to enrichment classes. I am not against the idea of doing so. In fact, my own daughter Jade is going to a couple of classes herself, with the condition that she enjoys them. What I would like others to understand is besides enriching your children, you should first enrich yourself and ensure that you are personally responsible for your health and wealth before you can be responsible for your love ones.
You're right, most parents especially moms neglected their own wellbeings altogether after they given birth. The priority shifted to the child, which is good but negligence on own's health is bad. After sending mine to enrichment class, nowadays I start to attend some of the Chinese Speech and Drama Class. Just some random interest I hook up on in the process.
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