Overheard

My job is not to toughen up my kids so they can be just as surly and brutish as some folks apparently believe the world is -

and has to stay.

My job is to raise kids who have the tools to make the world a better place for all of us.

May we raise children
who love the unloved things -
the dandelion, the worms and spiderlings.
Children who sense the rose needs the thorn
and run into rainswept days
the same way they turn towards the sun

And when they're grown
and someone has to speak for those
who have no voice
may they draw upon that wilder bond,
those days of tending tender things,
and be the ones.

-- Nicolette Sowder