Don't make financial or other sacrifices that impact your emotional well-being. Your children need you to nurture as well as to provide. Forget a fancy neighbourhood, expensive vacations, or private school if the only way you can provide them is by being constantly stressed.
If you come home grumpy or are resentful of your life, your children will suffer much more than if you are making work/life choices you feel good about. Be honest with yourself about whose needs you are meeting -- theirs or your desire to "look good." Many mothers are in essence sending themselves to private school.
The kids ultimately pay the price. A comment I have heard from many young adults whose parents made significant financial sacrifices is "It puts so much pressure on you to pay them back for what they gave up. I don't know if I'm pursuing this career because I want to, or because of that parental voice in my head which says, ‘You must achieve. You must be successful because of what I've done for you.'"
Don't allow yourself to be swallowed by your kids. Define yourself broadly. Nurture your romantic and other relationships. Some women made sad comments such as "I always put my kids' needs before my own. I lost my sense of who I am somewhere between the dance class and soccer practice. And one day they are grown up and you find yourself very lonely, in a shell relationship with your husband, and without any sense of purpose."
Remember that they are his kids as well. Imagine a man saying about his wife, "She's really good with the kids and helps me a lot around the house." If you ever find yourself making a statement about your partner, which when flipped around would sound odd, stop for a moment and ask yourself important questions about the division of labour in your home.
Whose expectations are being filled? What is your role and your husband's role in maintaining this state of affairs? (Sometimes it is the women who are guilty -- they guard jealously their position as chief parent and household manager even if they bitch about their husbands doing nothing.) Are you comfortable with the arrangements? If not, how can you renegotiate these expectations?
Excerpted from Dish: Midlife Women Tell the Truth about Work, Relationships, and the Rest of Life by Barbara Moses, Ph.D. Copyright 2006 by Barbara Moses. Excerpted with permission by McClelland & Stewart. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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