I'm 47 now and my parents are deceased. As I got older I appreciated the fact that my mother was home when I came home from school. Hot dinners every night. I thanked my parents often for giving me such a wonderful childhood. I loved having a non-working mother. My parents were quite a team.
What I think is sad is that this is so foreign to many children.
A friend of one of my daughters came over at around dinner time. My other daughter was setting the table. No big deal, really, just a fork and knife, plate and glass. This poor little 12 year old girl was amazed that we set the table and ate dinner together.
I was shocked that she was shocked!!
"My parents were quite a team."
Mine were, too. Though that ended once we girls were grown and off to college and careers and families of our own. Then Mom hit the bricks, trying to "find herself" and recapture the youth she "sacrificed" for us. (She actually SAID that to me when I became a mother; "Don't sacrifice yourself to your kids the way I did for you.")
Granted, this was in the late 70's when the NOW hags were in full swing. She's really done a number on her Grandkids, though she has tried to make up for lost time in the past few years. Too little, too late, IMHO. You're either IN their lives, or you're OUT.
Sadly, my own Mom was one of the first to race from the gate the moment the Women's Movement made it OK to do so.
And now what do we have? A generation of kids with all of the problems described above! Way to go Libbers! Thanks for everything! /sarcasm
I grew up in the 40s and 50s, in a highly industrialized city, with lots of oil refineries and such. The women were just starting to work in jobs which were usually for men -- as a result of the transition during WW2.
When my dad returned from WW2, he INSISTED that my Mom quit her "refinery job" and stay at home with we 3 kids. His words were something to the effect -- that in every family, where the wife took a job outside the home, the couple divorced. And he didn't want a divorce in his family. So, that was that. My mom didn't work. She had to find her fulfillment in other ways -- and she found art. She become an accomplished artist -- worked in the home.
I, too, am forever grateful for the wisdom of my folks.
Two paychecks are needed because they live in a 2000 sq. ft. home, own two cars, eat out a lot, have computers, TV's, cable, internet access, etc. If people lived more modestly, they could make it on one paycheck.
You are very lucky. I am glad you recognise it. God bless your mother.
I am a couple of years younger than you. My father had a great job, but he was only home on weekends. My mother could have stayed home--but did not feel "fulfilled" doing so. She worked everynight until 10pm. Not because we needed the money. When she was home, on her day off, she was too tired to do any housework, or cook, or she wanted to shop or go out with her girlfriends. My siblings and I raised ourselves. We made our own "meals"...sometimes just bread butter and sugar! Often we wore dirty clothes to school, because she did not get up to see us off, or make breakfast. She was too tired.
It was a horrible existance. We were the latch key kids. And I will tell you, that it is NOT "fine". It is NEGLECT! No one to welcome you home. No one to hear how your day went. No hot meals. No clean clothes unless you wash them. No hugs on a bad day. No help with homework, or teaching of social skills. No parents at the school plays. No afterschool programs, because no one can take you or bring you home.
It makes kids feel invaluable. It makes them angry, to feel so insignificant to their own parents! If your own parents reject you, you feel very low indeed. And when a parent models such self centeredness as to bring children into the world, and to put their own "fulfillment" above the children's welfare, that IS rejection.
I am eternally thankful for neighbors who watched out for me. Neighbors like your mom, who invited me to dinner, and took me camping. I thank God for sending me good neighbors, who were not child molesters or other kinds of bad influences. I got my values from some great neighbors, and God, who always let me know I was valuable.