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Date Posted: 16:24:40 04/15/03 Tue
Author: Pauline
Subject: Martha, I've been quiet on this whole issue but something in your post this time makes me have to speak up....(m)
In reply to: marshun(Martha) 's message, "Ginger.....more" on 06:45:28 04/15/03 Tue

I am not going to urge you to leave your DH. I have no idea if that is the right thing to do or not -- and what I would personally do is irrelevant anyway. I will support you in whatever decision you make.

However, I'm going to get on my soapbox about putting yourself first. I am nuts -- I am one of those people who insists on having it all. I want the fast-track corporate career AND the whole family life. (You can throw in the perfect house in there, as well.) Personally, I do not know a single woman who has done this. Sure, I'm willing to make trade-offs here and there, but, overall, I want to be supermom. And, 98% of the time, I'm deliriously happy because so far I HAVE managed to do it all (well, practically all). I have an amazing home life -- two happy kids, a happy DH who I have a great relationship with, and a house that's pretty close to my idea of perfection. I have an amazing work life -- I'm respected both internally in my company with peers and subordinates, as well as externally in the industry. And I'd say it is ALL entirely due to the fact that I put myself first almost all of the time.

I grew up with a Mom who was incredibly unhappy all the time, and took it out on my brother and me. Now, SHE thought she was making all sorts of sacrifices for our benefit. She gave up her career, her social life, her hobbies, pretty much everything that made her a person -- in order to be a mom. She stayed with us ALL the time. And she was perfectly miserable. I do not have ONE SINGLE MEMORY of a happy time as a child shared with my mother. In contrast, my Dad was working all the time, was gone a lot -- but was really there for me when he was around, which was probably about 1/10th the time my Mom was. I have only happy childhood memories of my Dad. I'm very much my father's daughter. I share his values, not my mother's. My mother was so miserable for about 30 years that she completely lost herself. My biggest wish as a child was to have a happy mom. I wished that she would go away and we'd be taken care of by complete strangers because I felt they would treat us better -- and that she would come back happy. I would gladly have given up 23 hours a day with her if there could be just one happy hour. Instead, I grew up with a mother who told me I was ungrateful, stupid, mean, incompetent, spoiled -- and that she wished she didn't have a daughter -- this went on for about 25 years. (The first time my mother told me she loved me is the day I went to the hospital to have Alex -- so, 5 years and 4 months ago. In between, we were estranged for about 5 years.)

My childhood forms one of my core beliefs: The most important thing I can give to my children is a happy mother. The saying about "If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" is made in jest but it is SO TRUE! Mothers are the heart of a family, and my attitude spills over to affect everybody. If I take care of myself, I have so much more to give everybody else. Now it sounds like I'm spouting platitudes but I don't know how else to say it. YOU have to be your own biggest advocate. Whenever I start getting unhappy and making everyone around me miserable, I can usually trace it to something I did where I didn't really listen to myself. I feel that I am such a better mom, better wife, better employee, whatever -- because I make sure I am okay first. If I have a 100% happy me, then isn't that so much more to give others than if I have a 10% happy me?

Martha, you are NOT stupid and you are NOT unimportant. (I don't know if you're ugly or not because I've never seen your picture! LOL! That's to make you laugh!) And I will be personally insulted if you continue to believe your sister and not me!!! You HAVE to take care of your needs first -- and, trust me, everything else will follow.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. My favorite quote from Eleanor Roosevelt.

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