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Something I Wish I Would Have Believed Sooner

Money is not the key to happiness

Louise Ray
3 min readApr 12, 2024
Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

My dad had a motto. After I had my first son, he decided to share that with not only my husband but also myself. He said “ It is not the time you spend with your kids that will make them happy. It is what you can buy them that will”.

Now, hearing that at the young age of 21, I wanted to believe that. My dad worked all the time, but yet we didn’t get everything we wanted. We had to do chores to earn money and save. For Christmas, we usually got 1 thing that we really wanted and a few other things that were needed. Well, my older brother D and I at least. Once younger brother J came into the picture, whatever he wanted, he got.

I tried “spoiling” A when he was the only child. Then I found out I was pregnant with C, and that stopped. Well, my mom has ALWAYS spoiled A. She still spoils him.

I have always felt like I was letting my children down, because I can’t buy them everything they want. We don’t live in some big fancy house. I don’t drive a newer car. I felt almost embarrassed and like I was a disappointment to my children as well as my father. I don’t have tons of money saved up, or to blow.

What I realized they other day is that I don’t need a big fancy house, a brand new car to drive, or lots of money to…

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Louise Ray
Louise Ray

Written by Louise Ray

SAHM. Autism Boy mom. ⚠️ I will be writing about Serial Killers⚠️ I can be a huge bitch or super nice.

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