When you get married, you give away fifty percent of your life,” the novelist Susan Straight was warned by her mother. “What about the other half?” a young Susan asked hopefully. “When you have a baby, you give away the other half,” her mother replied matter-of-factly.
Yikes.
Yes, marriage and relationships are hard. And in the past, they have been particularly and oppressively cruel to women. For all time, having kids has forced parents to make changes. They deprive us of sleep and money and freedoms we used to take for granted. But does that mean we have to lose ourselves, lose all our freedoms? Absolutely not.
We can transcend the bitter math. By working on ourselves and our relationships. By asking for help. By refusing to give up on dreams, even as we get older. By focusing on all the things that marriage and kids give us too, all the experiences we’ve gained and the opportunities created.
To quit on ourselves is to quit on our kids—it’s teaching them a terrible lesson.