4/5/2006: Amusement ride in poverty

[BigV]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

"Who gets the life?"

I'll guess the tone and inflection here and suggest that the answer should be someone other than the questioner. Someone who has to ask that question is looking for the answer "Me, I hope." implying that the one with the primary kid care responsibilities doesn't get "the life". I would contend that the questioner doesn't get "it", as my life is filled (in all the good ways) with my kids.

I would ask that question, but in a way that permits sharing of the life, not either/or.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by BigV

I'll guess the tone and inflection here and suggest that the answer should be someone other than the questioner.

Well part of the backstory here is that I have two kids...and I believe UT still doesn't have any. This is a topic that's been batted around here before.

Let me say clearly: I don't regret having had kids at all...even though the situation considereing what happened in *my* life about a decade after they were born has made things....interesting to say the least.

But anyone who hasn't had to juggle their own needs against their kids' and wondered where the balance is just isn't paying attention. But I (and Bronwyn too, at least at the time) understood perfectly where UT was coming from.

I will add that both the nature and amount of kids' needs shifts dramatically as they get older. Also that I beleive an ability to insist that your own needs (quiet, intimacy, respect, even sleep) sometimes take priority over your kids desires is necessary to raising polite, considerate offspring.

Another aspect to this story is that the last of my retirement savings just went largely to putting daughter #1 through college while I was unemployed. #2 starts at Pitt in August...good thing I found a job or she wouldn't be getting any help from me; not because I would have been unwilling but because I would have been unable. At times like these when I recall my own parents telling me I'd better get scholarships, because they had little to contribute (Dad was a clergyman), that "who gets the life" question does resonate a bit. -)

[xoxoxoBruce]

I gave up the idea of kids when my mother wished I have some just like me.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I gave up the idea of kids when my mother wished I have some just like me.

I still have video of the older daughter at about age four wearing t-shirt that says, simply: "Grandmom's Revenge". :-)