Reply to Don't sacrifice everything for your children

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[quote=Anonymous]Specifically, what sacrifices?

The biggest sacrifices I have made as a parent were giving up some of my career trajectory (but not my entire career) to be more present in my kids' lives when they were young, and making some compromises about where we lived to make sure they got a good education. I don't regret either of these.

There are things I could not have because I was a parent, but I don't view them as sacrifices. Like I never viewed it as a sacrifice that I couldn't go on boozy couples vacations, because we had kids. I did that before I had kids. With kids I could go on family vacations that were fun in a different way, and I couldn't have done that without kids. Same with many aspects of family life -- I gave up a lot of my social life in order to spend time with my family. But it wasn't a sacrifice because I enjoy time with my family and it is a fulfilling in a different way. I gave up some of my energy and time for hobbies to spend time reading to, playing with, or teaching my kids. Again, there's a loss there but also a gain. Not a sacrifice IMO.

To me, becoming a mom was a very conscious choice made because I wanted to have the experiences of parenting. I knew I'd give up aspects of my life before and was okay with that -- you often have to give up one thing to have another. That's life. I mostly feel lucky that I was able to have the experience of parenting, and have these relationships with my kids who I love in a way I don't love anyone else.

One choice my DH and I made was to just have two kids and have them close together. We also would have been happy with one, I think. I see people with 3 or more kids and I know that's not for me because it really extends how many years of your life you devote to your children, plus sucks up more financial/time/energy resources. I knew I wanted balance so I chose to stop having kids so that I could keep more of those resources for myself without feeling like I was short changing my kids.[/quote]

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