by Renee Morgan

Created on: July 28, 2008   Last Updated: March 01, 2009

In most instant moms are the key to a healthy family. Until about 10 years or so, there was very little concern for the health of either parent.

The mother is usually the family caretaker and if she is unhealthy, she cannot keep her family healthy. My mother became ill and died because of the health problems that went un-noticed and/or unaffordable. The fortunate part was that she had start teaching me before she became sick. This made me able to be the mother stand-in for four children at 12 years old. I was also aware that because of my mother illness, I had to stay healthy for my siblings in order for them to stay healthy physical and mentally.

Children tend to follow suite with their surroundings. If an inactive, unhealthy household surrounds them, then they tend to fall in suite. This type of surrounding will make them unhealthy physical, because the child will not be physical active and this will hurt the child mentally. The child will feel if the mother is unhealthy then they are unhealthy also, and this is only in their minds. The child will think that he must stay close to home just in case mom needs him.

As I mentioned in earlier articles, children are smarter then we think, but they can read actions the wrong way. One example that come to mind is a case where I had taken in a little boy from the streets (I will call him John). John had begun to hang around the house with my children. Then I notice that he would want to spend the night frequently. I thought that maybe he was an only child and just like being around my boys. I later found out that his mom was sickly and suffered with depression. John other siblings were older and kind of handled it a little better, but John thought that if his mom got sick after he was born then she must have passed the sickness to him. The mothers' depressions lead him to believe that she did not love or want him. I kept John around my home, until he was able to understand what was going on with his mom.

This is a good reason why mothers need to be healthy. If I had not been there for John, then what would have become of him? However, the real question is why did I have to be there for John? Why is it that we as a nation, cannot take better care of our mothers? Why do a mother with children, have to push doctor visits to the side, because of cost? This then cause these children to become statistics of the nation.

I do have to say that we are becoming better at the care of our mothers and fathers of this nation

Learn more about this author, Renee Morgan.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.