Reply to Don't sacrifice everything for your children

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Your kids didn’t ask you to sacrifice everything. So why did you do it? That was your choice. And don’t be bitter about doing something no one asked you to do[/quote]

I am from the generation where a lot of women gave up their careers to be SAHM's and bitterly resented it and had no problem telling their kids that.  My mom had two master's degrees and gave up her teaching career, which she loved when she had three kids.  Later, she went back to work as a receptionist at my dad's dentists' office, because it provided more flexibility -- but she bitterly resented having a dumb job that didn't challenge her intellectually.  We were well aware of this and we felt really guilty.  It was all our fault for wanting piano lessons or whatever.  Granted, some of this was probably my mom's mental health issues and maybe there are some remarkably well adjusted women (and men) who can walk away from a rewarding, fulfilling career that they have dreamed about since they were little in order to drive car pool who don't resent it or take it out on their kids -= but it's unreasonable to think that everyone is going to be that selfless.  And if you say "Well, anyone who's not that selfless should  never have children", well, don't be surprised with the current population declines.

[b]It's also difficult as a woman to look at a situation where men still often give up remarkably little and still get to have kids and family fun on vacations, etc.  All of the joy and none of the sacrifice.[/b]

I'm also at the point where my kids are in their mid-twenties and it does feel a bit like they became who they were always going to be, and taking the [b]one who is profoundly anti-intellectual and never wants to go to grad school[/b] to [b]Kumon after school for years was probably a waste of time.[/b]  Buying clothes from Target so we could afford said Kumon also kind of chafes a bit.  I spent a lot on math tutors for kids who just kinda hate math, and honestly I [b]took them to church a lot and that didn't seem to stick either.[/b]  In some ways it feels like I didn't really have that much of an impact on them [/quote]

As the female breadwinner (now, we switched roles over the child rearing 18 years), I can’t relate to you and your ‘sacrifice’. I was never going to give up my career for my kids, and now that they are in college, I’m happy that I didn’t.

You you poured yourself into your kids and they didn’t turn out how you expected. Your examples sound controlling. You wanted them to turn out a certain way and they didn’t. You now see that as a failure. Are they the best versions of themselves? There’s success in that if they’ve figured it out.

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