Must be nice, I missed a bunch of milestones in my kids lives because...............................oh yeah, I had to put food on the table.
I could have done it too. I could have quit to stay home with my family. Eventually we would have been bankrupt.
Exactly. There always needs to be balance in life, but I never like the automatic assumption that a father needs to be at all his kids' soccer games and dance recitals and school events. When I was younger, my parents came to events perhaps two or three times a year and I didn't feel abandoned or cry about it. I knew my father and mother were working and would be there when they could. And if they were working during my birthday, we had a birthday dinner on the weekend when they were available. Parents today put way too much emphasis on going to these events or having to "be there" for the kids. Kids need to learn that being successful involves trade-offs and may mean that mom or dad is going to miss events.
I wonder how many of those milestones she would have had if he had not been making so much money.