love is like money

That's the message that was waiting for me today when I flipped my Kids Thot-a-Day Calendar, the one I've been using almost every year since I was in 4th grade.

I've written about this calendar before—twice, actually.

The first time is in one of my earliest posts {ah, memories}, and it includes some of the real zingers from this supposedly encouraging and—I should stress this—made to be encouraging for children calendar.

The second time is focused on one of the truly encouraging and helpful daily sayings.

Most of the sayings in my Kids Thot-a-Day are just that: truly encouraging and helpful. If they weren't, I wouldn't keep using it, seeing as I'm not a glutton for emotional punishment.

I'm more a glutton for taking care of my inner child, and that's why I use this calendar that I've had since I was little—it makes me feel connected to that little girl and what life was like growing up in that house on the Mississippi River bluff.

But really, if every day had a saying like today's—

Well, it'd be like taking my inner child to see a bunch of puppies. Puppies who had little bows in their hair because they'd just gone to the groomer. Puppies who were all named after flowers and puppies who wanted nothing more in life than to cuddle with you while you read in bed.

It'd be like showing those puppies to my inner child and then kicking the puppies in front of her.

That's what it would be like if every Kids Thot-a-Day was like today's gem: Love is like money. You have to earn it.

Who says that to a child? To anyone, really, since we're all a mix of grown-up and childlike?

Is my Kids Thot-a-Day trying to teach children—by mixing in "puppy kicking" sayings like this—that not everything is wonderful all the time? That we can't all cuddle with puppies every day?

Are they hoping to prepare children for the realities of earning money?

Was this calendar put together in an era when all anyone ever said to children was: "Children should be seen and not heard"?

Did the proofreader mess up, and today's saying should say: "Love isn't like money. You don't have to earn it"?

What do you think my Kids Thot-a-Day was going for here?