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In reply to the discussion: I Look Down on Young Women With Husbands and Kids and I'm Not Sorry [View all]Brainstormy
(2,380 posts)including lots of petty admin jobs in my youth, getting a PhD in my early forties, university teaching, corporate training, starting a small business with my husband, etc. All of that, to me, was unexceptional. The only exceptional thing I ever did was produce and rear three healthy normal children, none of whom make a lot of money but all of whom have entered what we call "helping" professions, (a teacher, a child psychologist, a pediatric OR nurse) and in my mind at least are marking the world a better place.
I had my frustrations as a stay at home mom, too, but child rearing is the area of my experience I would never ask for my money back on. My daughter has that plaque in her kitchen: "A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove...but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child."
I feel bad that women are incorporating and absorbing a male value system where power and position and money define self-worth. Nothing is more valuable than good parenting.