I can't claim ownership to this topic but I sure can relate to and elaborate on it.  One Sunday, while in church, our pastor said, "Instead of trying to give our kids more of what we didn't get, we need to give them more of what we got."  How true are these words.

Now-a-days it seems as though excess abounds.  We need this, we need that. Worse, we work our fingers to the bone to get those close to us the things that we did not have.  Quite frankly, most of the stuff that we see around us today, we didn't have as a children because most of it just didn't exist.  But, kids have to have the cell phone, the car, the clothes, the new this and the new that.  And it continues and continues and compounds.  Out the door go the values that we were raised with.  Excess is followed by disobedience, disrespect and downright indifference towards the rights and needs of others. 

What our pastor was referring to was that we need to stop this insanity and go back to a little of the old fashion values and beliefs that we were raised with - treat others the way we want to be treated, it is more important to give than receive, spare the rod spoil the child, it is better to work for something than to have it given to you, etc.  We don't have to give our children everything.  By giving them everything we are really taking away their future.  Instead of raising a generation of leaders, we may find ourselves raising a group underachievers, waiting around for entitlements.  Maybe its time we take a step back and look at this from a new perspective.  I'm guilty as well.