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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]defacto7
(13,485 posts)That's the fact. I had a career, then married and had kids. Now, after having had 20 some years of career time, I get to be a stay at home dad. My wife now has her career. As for me, I do the dishes, the floors, the laundry... yuk, it drives me crazy the repetitive stuff over and over. But then the kids need help with their homework, wow, I love it, I get to decide what to make for dinner and the kids help, I drive them to their activities and we talk the talk.. it's great and wonderful and awful and boring and repetitive and I wouldn't have it any other way.
One day, I'm folding clothes and come across a sweater that I have always enjoyed seeing my daughter wear but now it's too small. I look at it for a moment and just sit there... and I realize what an honor it is to be able to fold it for the last time before putting it away... because my daughter is growing up, and I have watched her and her brother, and have been able to influence them in ways only a stay at home can. There's a spiritual plain, existential joy of passing on my life to my children and their future.
Years before during my career, I would never have noticed.