You are a good mom. You may not realize it, but the most important thing you ever did for them you did before they were even born. You very carefully choose their father.
When I was young (18, 19) I knew exactly crap. The best part was that I *knew* that I knew exactly crap. (That's the hard part.) I hunted women like you. Good mothers. Women who had happy, well-adjusted marriages. I'd pin them down over coffee and make them tell me everything that they knew about marriage and parenting. I was quite obnoxious about it. I wouldn't leave until they'd given me everything they could think of and I'd take notes.
And every one of the, God Bless 'em, every one of them lovingly and freely told me every bit of advice that they could dredge up. Never did a woman deny my request for information.
Now I spend about 40% of my waking hours teaching women of my generation the lessons that these lovely ladies taught me. I save marriages. I prevent abortions. I teach women how to mother their own children.
You would've been one of my mentors. I'm not angry at you. I'm angry at the mothers of the dozens of women I've counseled over the years. I'm angry at the fathers who abandoned their daughters and didn't teach them a damn thing and who never gave them a sense of security or taught them how to handle a marriage. And I'm angry at a generation (and it really is the bulk of the generation) that refuses to see the impossible burden they are placing on the shoulders of their children via social security. They refuse to even look at the math. They can't accept that they will be breaking their families for two generations if they maintain the status quo.
And now in your post #511, you almost compliment me, after such scathing rhetoric in your post #504...see now, I am confused...
I am very touchy about my parents...they were the best parents in the world..they loved each other madly, they loved me and my brother madly...and they worked so hard, and long, to provide for us, to discipline us, to make us into responsible adults...and when I read your post #504, well, frankly I was seething...
Because as they aged, dad was stricken with cancer, and mom got Alzheimers...and they both suffered, which seemed to unfair to such wonderful people...the only thing I could do, was take care of them and love them, because after all, they had taken care of me and loved me...I owed them everything...
So I am having a hard time reconciling your post #504 to me, with your post #511 to me...
Anyone who denigrates who my parents were, and how they conducted their lives, will find me a spitting tiger...
If I misunderstood you, I am sorry...
If not, well, my remarks stand..