finding balance

I struggle between wanting to give my children everything and wanting them to learn the value of work.  I want them to know that life isn't free but sometimes just want to give them something special "just because".

I recently read the book, "Glass Castle" that depicted the amazing life of a family who lived on nothing.  Among other things, they ate moldy bread and canned ham with maggots and food from other people's trash.  They lived in a shack and as children the loved going to school because it meant they would be warm and dry and have at least one meal that day.   They considered everyday items like shoes, clothes, baths and food as luxuries.  My emotions were so conflicted between feeling sorry for them and having a great admiration for them that I would put the book down not knowing if their life, or my life was better?  While I realize that my life with its warm home and bountiful food to eat is probably more desirable, I wonder if the plentiful lifestyle is detrimental to my children's upbringing.  Are they learning anything from being given everything?  Do they understand that although they may not like the taste of their chicken enchilada dinner, that somewhere a child will go without dinner tonight?  That ice cream is a luxury and not a necessity?

I was particularly struck by my internal struggle when in the book, the parents have no presents for their children for Christmas so the father took each child aside and gave them each a chance to pick and name their very own star from the sky.  I compare that to our own Christmas, with presents overflowing from beneath the tree and stockings stuffed with sweets and gifts.  Our children were so excited to see the presents on Christmas morning and loved their new bicycles and toys and clothes.  Then a few days later we gathered with our friends at a fun function to find out that our children were the only children in our group of friends that did not get Nintendo DS's from Christmas.  How do I explain that Santa Claus gave them DS's but not us?  How do I explain to them that we are the "poor" ones in our group, when in fact we are not "poor" at all, but do not have quite as much as others?  I tried to explain that each family is different, that we all live with different budgets and different lifestyles, but to this day (two months later) I daily hear the complaint that they do not have these hand-held video games that everyone else seems to have.  How do I help them be happy with what they have, instead of yearning for what they do not?

How do I help MYSELF be happy with what I have instead of looking at others in envy?

I find solace in the fact that I even ask the question.  The day that my life becomes extreme and I give in to one side or the other is when I should start to worry.  I suppose that is what life is about, finding balance in all things.