St. Conleth's Parish Newbridge - Newbridge Parish

Cherishing Childhood
Our childhood is what makes
us who we are, and it’s also
what sustains us when we enter into
the sometimes crushing reality of
adulthood. This world isn’t easy to live
in. The monsters you once thought
hid under the bed don’t hide anymore,
they walk the streets, and they are
every bit as frightening as when you
lay huddled beneath the bedcovers at
night after a bad dream.
When you grow up, you enter into a
world of jobs and mortgages, a world
of endless responsibility; a world that
can gobble you right up if you let it.
You learn that bad things do happen
and that they happen every second of
every day. As you grow up you begin to
learn about the past, and the depravity
of your own species through the ages.
The boogie man comes knocking at
your front door with a gun and a smile,
and life stops being fair and becomes
ugly.
It’s easy to get lost in the big bad
world, which is why your childhood is
so important. It lets you exist in a time
where things are simpler, where you see
the world through a keyhole and the
grass is green right where you stand.
You get to exist in a place where all the
fairy tales are real, when you might still
get your Hogwarts letter, where life is
made of wonder and you don’t scare
so easily.
But once you grow up the simple
truth is that life can be hard, brutally
hard, and you need somewhere to go,
memories to sustain you when it feels
like you’re being suffocated under the
life you’ve made for yourself. You need
to be able to remember back to the days
when you felt you could be anything
in the world,
from a princess to
Pokémon Master.
You have to be
able to remember
when the world
was an idea, when
the doors were
opening instead of
closing and when
every crack and
crevice was full of
magic.
But sadly there
are many people
who had their
childhood taken
from them, whose lives have always
been complicated. These people
deserve to be given a chance to salvage
their own childhood, and they can’t
do it on their own. Those of us who
had a happy childhood have to help
them, have to allow them to enter
into our world. Force them to watch
every single Harry Potter movie and
make them read the books you read
when you were a kid. Bring them
to the beach and make them build a
sandcastle, give them the memories
they never got to make.
The gift of a childhood is the greatest
gift you can give another person,
because within it lies the pathway to
everything else, the basic understanding
of love and the simplistic goodness
that we all need to fall back on. We
could all use a little childish logic now
and then, giving things because it’s
right, not because you want to look
good, doing things without expecting
anything in return.
Maybe your childhood wasn’t perfect,
By Emma Tobin
maybe your life has never stopped
being complicated. Maybe your
parents taught you things you wish
you didn’t know. Regardless of the lot
you were dealt as a child - as an adult,
as a parent you have to be the one to
teach your children what you wish
you had been taught, and you must
always be mindful of the millions of
children in the world today who have
no childhood because their world is
consumed by war and poverty. Their
world is broken, shattered, along with
every dream they ever dared to dream.
English poet John Betjeman said,
"Childhood is measured out by sounds
and smells and sights, before the dark
hour of reason grows."
Cherish your children and give them
a childhood worth remembering,
because it’s the foundation that holds
them up.
Children and young people reading
this – you too must cherish and do
your best to enjoy your childhood –
you owe it to your adult self!
Classes
available:
Singing,
Dancing &
Drama for age
4 up to adults.
Summer Camp 15 th – 27 th July,
10.00am – 3pm, Mon – Fri both weeks
ending with 2 shows.
Now teaching classes in Newbridge, Kildare & Naas.
For more details contact Leah on 0878809177 or
email: leahmoranstageschool@yahoo.ie
MEADE
MEMORIALS
Newbridge
Showroom Newbridge Ind. Est.
•Large Selection of Headstones
• Additional Inscriptions
• Headstone Cleaning, Plaques, Etc.
• Unique Handmade Memorials
• All Cemeteries Covered
Professional Stonemasons
045 434823 Alan 086 8949078
7
Drug Free Treatment for:
Lower Respiratory
Asthma * Bronchitis
Emphysema * Common Cold/Flu
Persistent Cough * COPD
Persistent Cough * COPD
Upper Respiratory
Hayfever * Sinusitis
Allergies * Tonsillitis
Lower Eyre St, Newbridge, Co Kildare, 045 434911
www.salttherapyireland.ie