
Family – Smart, amusing, authentic piece -- confession -- from an over-worked working mother who is proud to proclaim she's not perfect (far from it!) & get used to it.... (Start of an ongoing blog.)
Regardless of what kind of lifestyle she provides her children, she's a saint compared to the mothers who emotionally and/or physically scar their offsprings. Just yesterday on the news, there was a story of a woman going back home after a job interview with her two children. She phoned 911 along the way to inform authorities that one of her kids was no longer breathing and she thought she might be dead. When the police arrived, they discovered the girl already in rigor mortis with scars and bruises all over her body. What's a little cheese on the back of the toilet compared to this?
I was a single father for most of my son's growing up years and boy, did I try hard to be a model father and mother to him. I kept the house spotless, spent as much time with him as he could stand, went to ALL of his soccer, football, basketball, tennis games AND practices, ALL the PTA meetings, ALL those awful events at his school (you ever sit through a grade school beginning band concert?...whoa!), cooked all his breakfasts and dinners and packed a lunch for school, and I had to re-arrange my work schedule to get all of this in and I did this because I didn't want him to miss out on not having a mother around. Wish I read this blog back then and know that I could have taken it a lot easier.
In the end you will not say I wish I had spent more time on the job. When you are over 50 and your children are grown you will long to have the days back when your children were young.
One day you will just wake up and realize no one , except yourself, cares how succesful you are- and the only ones impressed by your financial success just want your money.
Your children are the only people guaranteed to be in your life from beginning to end- even spouses come and go - if you don't invest your time now you can expect a negative return when you need them the most.
When my daughter was learning to tell time at school, the teacher gave them a sheet of paper with "empty" clocks and they were required to correctly place the minute and hour hands on the clock according to an assigned daily task. My daughter correctly placed the hands on the clock at 8:30 p.m. as the time "your family eats dinner." The teacher marked it as an incorrect entry. My daughter was livid. "But mom, that really is the time we get around to eating dinner, isn't it? "Yes, honey -- you're right -- your teacher is wrong. I'll write you a note to explain. Little did I tell the teacher that getting a meal on the table at 8:30 wasn't always a given! Sometimes it wasn't until nine and at that point who really cares? Bring out the cold cereal or Ramen noodles! :)
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Enjoyed it. She's honest
Honest, but still a bad parent.