Every semester I do observations and get to work with kids, I am amazed at how fast I fall in love with them.  I have only been with my 3rd graders for a week but they are already "mine".  The kids I have live a harder home life than I ever did.  They have to deal with broken families, not knowing where they will live, whether they will eat and what they will wear... not because they have too many clothes, but because they have only 2 or three outfits.   Some of these kids will only get a good meal twice a day, 5 days a week.  School is the safest place they have and their teacher is the only positive influence they have.   In the 5 days I have been there, I have heard way too many stories of broken homes, parents in jail, etc.  It completely breaks my heart.  I can't imagine having to deal with any of that now, much less when I was 8 or 9.

What is really sad to me is that they talk about their home life like it is completely normal.  They do not know what it is to live in a house that theirs.  Some of them will never know.  Many of their parents never went past the 8th grade and the ones that did did not make it to college.  These kids deal with many of the same pressures that adults live with.  The same ones that my parents and yours shouldered until they felt we were mature enough to handle.  These babies have to shoulder them long before they are emotionally ready.


 I just can't imagine.....