26 years in Child Development

         I've been thinking a lot about my "life" degree and what it means to the people around me lately and when I first started life with it.  If you want to be right, I do have a "life" degree in Child Development for 26 years but yet I went to college for it but that's not the point and I don't regret it at all. I love my degree! It leaves chances wide open for me but what I don't like about it is how most jobs put it on their unimportant scale. If you want to go more into it, they will put older, middle school and up, youth before the preschoolers, which is the area I love too death.
         Seeing how some people and jobs put children and childcare alone just makes me sad. How some people treat people like me with a college degree or experience or both like we know nothing. I'm not trying to say I know it all but it's true how we get treated and that of course goes for teachers too. I have seen and lived with both sides and it's hard to come to this realization that people think we are people who do nothing but take care of their children and get paid like we don't do anything at all.
          Sometimes, if not all the time, I think people should really look at college degrees and get the best, most caring people for jobs with children so they can grow and learn the right way. It is becoming to where anyone can just be a teacher now without a 4 to 5 years teaching degree. You can get a 2 year or less degree and be a teacher. Some jobs just "throw" childcare and the little ones to the side and act like they don't care. The people with the degree in related fields get no say because they are looked down as they know nothing.
          If I had to pick a "least of these" job/degree it would be child development or teaching because having classes in both, I know I have to speak up to be heard or people just won't care to ask what I know. I'm happy the have the "least of these" degree because deep down no matter if other people will get/understand me or ask me for advice, I am changing a child my way and that is all that matters in the long run. I don't need to be at the top of the ladder in this business. I just need to change at least  one child's life and I'll be happy. We might not be the rewarded with money but we are rewarded in LOVE AND RESPECT and that is what matters the most.
           It is funny that I say that because wasn't it Jesus that said "let the little children come to me". Jesus even thought that the children were important more then anything or anyone else. He told the crowd that they could learn things from these little ones and we can. They are more outgoing and outspoken then any of us adults ever will be. I just wish that the world would see that children were important to Jesus and God so they need to be important to us.
           They are our future. Sorry for the cheesy quote but it is true. Right now, we have a pretty bad future ahead of us because all we care about are is paperwork, getting everyone on the same page, and how our businesses look on the outside instead of what is on the inside. We need to focus more on our children or the world is lost as we know it.
           Just to let people know that don't know me at all or too well this is coming from a person who has babysat, been a teacher's aide for 4 years of high school, been a daycare/preschool teacher for 5 years, been a headstart teacher for 2 years, have 10 nieces and nephews, and is working now at a children's home. Not to mention been to Mexico, a Guatemalan orphanage, and two homeless shelters both of them in Texas. Just saying I have seen my share of children.