I read a post on the World Vision blog and a couple of other mummy blogs answering the question, “what was the last thing your child needed?” and wanted to give my little response and thoughts on the question.
The last thing my children Needed was pretty much the basics… food and changing. Changing nappies for Baby Girl, changing clothes for LO.
Baby Girl did her morning poop and needed me to keep her clean and fresh. She’s such a good baby and doesn’t complain much when it comes to a dirty nappy. She’ll happily stay in the nappy for hours but obviously I’d smell her way before that time. However something as easy and simple as this could’ve been difficult if I didn’t have the right things to hand ie a nappy or wipes. Fair enough, it’s possible to change a baby without wipes – I could just use cotton balls and water but what if I didn’t even have those? In countries where clean water is hard to come by, keeping a baby clean can be a difficult task in itself.
For LO, the last thing he needed me for was making his breakfast – this morning he chose porridge. (Yesterday it was a slice of bread, an apple and a few frankfurters.) I put the porridge oats in a bowl, added milk, chuckedit into the microwave for one minute and it’s done. For some children, food may be limited so they wouldn’t even have a variety to choose from. Then the task of preparing and making the food (by the child or the parents) can also be a long and drawn-out process.
I’ve seen what Poorer Living is like. Back home in Vietnam my nan’s house contained the bare basics. Yes there was a bed, sofa, stove and TV but not much apart from that. The toilet was literally a whole in the ground with a ceramic foot stand on top which I slipped on from squatting in foamy slippers… never again! LOL The shower room was basically right next to the toilet (probably 2-3 metres away) which was just a hose that was attached to the water mains. I remember thinking at the time (I was about 12yrs old) that I did not want to go back to Vietnam again especially if it meant sacrificing my lovely way of living for what I thought was a hellhole. What made it worse was that our neighbour was wealthier so their house was bigger (two-storey house) with a proper kitchen, two bathrooms… and proper toilets!
I never had the bottle to ask to use their toilets but I was definitely thinking about it each time I had to use ‘the hole’.
Despite my nan’s uber-basic abode, I was just glad she had clean water. It wasn’t filtered so you couldn’t drink from the tap or anything like that (I’m sure no-one drinks water from the tap when they’re abroad anyway!) but it was good enough to boil and cook with and wash with. There are poorer living conditions out there. There are still places out there that don’t even have access to clean water which shocks me and bugs me. World Vision’s campaign for child sponsorship helps not just the child but also the community they live in.
Writing this post really made me think about how fortunate we are to live in a country where clean water is so easily accessible to a point where some of us even waste it. We can drink water from the tap if we wish to, have it within seconds of our reach and use as much of the stuff as want providing we can afford the bill that comes with it!
If you can sponsor a child that is fantastic news. With World Vision you get to see where your money goes. You can even visit your sponsored child and their family and write to them. If you can’t sponsor a child right now that’s not a problem either because sponsoring is only the half of it. The other half is to raise awareness to reach someone who can.
So if you’re a parent, my question to you is…
what’s the last thing your child needed?
…
NB. I was invited to take part in World Vision’s latest campaign to raise awareness for child sponsorship by writing a post. All words, opinions and photos are my own.
