oldgold

"...I used to think we paid well..." compared to what? The nation's most valuable resource, it's children, during the most impressionable years, are nurtured and protected, comforted and directed, by devoted souls who seem to be valued, paywise, slightly above the food service and housekeeping industries.

Thanks for the reminder that Love is an ACTION word.

What do you mean "return to the unequal days..." A mother is entitled to abort a father's son or daughter in spite of his most passionate objection. This is equality?
Talk about change, how's a man supposed to deal with that?
Curious, that this should come up on LABOR day.

I don't know where inspiration comes from but it is nourished by laughter and Mark Twain is good for that.
The one which sums up everything for me is from C.S.Lewis: God wants me to think, 'What am I going to do?' The Devil wants me to think, 'What's gonna happen to me?'

The first time I met my high school guidance counselor she asked what I wanted to do after college (big assumption) and when I replied, "Play pro football." she laughed out loud. Three years later Tufts University offered me a scholarship. My football coach misplaced the application and when he finally sent it in, in April, Tufts replied that they'd love to have me on the team but all the scholarships had already been assigned.
Dream sunk, and kept on the bottom by the weight of knowing that men in authority were incompetent jerks, an impression easily reinforced during the Vietnam war.
Thirty years later I was living on a small sailboat, as excited as a ten year old kid stepping onto a raft with Huck Finn and when an old salt told me "You could easily sail this down to the Carribean." it was fireworks, BOOM, dreaming again with great vigor. Yes!
Shortly thereafter I got a phone call. My youngest son, 16, was getting, well his older brother thought it was really my job to 'straighten the kid out' so I anchored my dream and moved in with the two boys and my former wife. Within a month I had twice stood toe to toe with the older boy, "Let's go out back and settle this like men" (he must have shared his father's opinion of men in authority) so, having come to my senses, I quietly went out back, got in the car and headed toward the marina. Let's hoist anchor!
Before I could even park the car my daughter called. "Dad, I'm pregnant! It's so reassuring to have you right next door since Mike works nights." Torpedoed amidships, dead in the water.
Five years later, my daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters are planning on building a house and moving. I know that my dream is out there somewhere, drifting, but I can't muster any enthusiasm for getting her shipshape again. Why bother, the best I can hope for is to be a good martyr but not remind everyone about it constantly (Mother Issues? How dare you.).
So, anyone have any personal experience with dream resurrection which you'd be willing to share?

I propose "A Study of Studies or A Contemporary American Institution, Who pays for it, who profits from it?" Eegads!
Children are the future. Shouldn't we be teaching children that happiness is an inside job? Abe Lincoln believed that "...people are about as happy as they make their minds up to be."
Hey boys and girls, try this; give someone a BIG smile and see if they don't smile right back. Then say to your parents, "Knock-knock" Who's there? "Love." Love who? "Love YOU! Pass it on!" and skip away with a light-hearted laugh.
Hey moms and dads, your kids aren't making you happy, after all you've done for them? Try this; imagine living in China, the earthquake region, and... wait a second, I apologize for my sarcasm. For fifty years marketing departments have very effectively been telling us that happiness is something we need to get, not give, and we spend so much time working to get it that there's not much time left to spend with kids, learning from them how to be happy, just pretending.
I don't know, but I sure don't think that any "study" is gonna help us out of this pickle.
What do you think?

Definitely a "women's site"????? OK, since M.H. brought it up, and you published it, how does it shake out, M/F membership %s?