On a personal level, I feel guilty that I'm a working mother and am not constantly around for my kids. I know I don't need to work, but I like to work and I do feel like a better mother when I work. But shouldn't I always be around for my kids when they are so young? I feel guilty that I don't live closer to immediate family and that we don't make it down to see the grandparents more often.
On a community level, I feel guilty about the students that are failing my class. I'm trying my hardest to make accommodations for all of them. But how much is my responsibility and at what point does the student need to take responsibility? Do they need more accommodations or tough love? I feel guilty for some of my students home lives or lack there of. I feel guilty that there are people living in town that don't have the securities that I have on a daily basis.
On a global level, I feel guilty that there are kids living in the world that don't know when their next meal will be. Parents (by no fault of their own) that simply don't have access to the resources to provide for their families. I feel guilty that there are 143 million orphaned and abandon children in the world (15 million of those because of AIDS).
I could go on... but perhaps it's not even guilt that I feel, maybe it's just responsibility. How much responsibility can one person take on? How much is enough? On one hand, if I take on too much responsibility I'll stretch myself too thin. Do I want to be involved in a million things but not give 100% to anyone of them? But on the other hand, I don't want to leave anyone or anything out. How do I find the perfect balance?
I feel an extra responsibility today to educate/inform you that it is World AIDS Orphans Day. World AIDS Orphans Day is a grassroots campaign to draw attention to and advocate on behalf of the millions of children orphaned by AIDS. The statics are completely overwhelming, please read up on the topic and what you can do by checking out this blog clicking here .
I can't get this quote by Rich Stearns, (President of World Vision, US) about AIDS Orphans out of my head: "I believe that this could very well be looked back on as the sin of our generation. I look at my parents and ask, where were they during the civil rights movement? I look at my grandparents and ask, what were they doing when the holocaust in Europe was occurring with regard to the Jews, and why didn't they speak up? And when we think of our great, great, great-grandparents, we think how could they have sat by and allowed slavery to exist? And I believe that our children and their children, 40 or 50 years from now, are going to ask me, what did you do while 40 million children became orphans in Africa?"
So what are you doing?
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