Recently, I got together with two other couples — both of which are still dating and have not yet begun to think of having kids — for a night of board games. We’ve all known each other for a couple of years now: they remember when the Big-Eyed Boy’s first weeks in public kindergarten rendered me sleepless with worry; they listened patiently as I debated whether to homeschool him; they’ve watched our kitchen grow increasingly cluttered and messy as our school corner has taken over the room.

And they’ve watched as the Venomous Hubby and I have stopped going out, sat in front of fans in the summer rather than spend money on outrageous A/C bills (and piled on sweaters in the winter due to the increasing cost of heat), and even while I’ve learned to color my own hair rather than spring for a day at the salon.

We’ve watched as they have changed apartments, bought new cars, acquired PS/3s, digital TVs and iPods. I’ve oohed and ahhed over their new shoes, new clothes, new haircuts, new CDs and new nightspots where one martini costs more than a bottle of vodka plus a bottle of olives.

I know at times they’ve felt sorry for me. Like the other day when the girls talked about going shopping then catching a movie and dinner for a “Girl’s Night” out. I passed. I didn’t have enough “allowance money” to afford it. The very thought that a married woman would have an “allowance” boggled their minds. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I was the one who determined what my weekly allowance was and that, although it’s small, I’m fine with that since that kind of money-management is what enables us to homeschool.

And I know they’ve felt “sorry” for me because they somehow believe that leaving the practice of law, staying home to raise and educate my kids, and being “nothing more than a SAHM” means that I’ve somehow abandoned my full potential.

Me, I feel sorry for them sometimes. I feel sorry that they don’t yet understand - and may never comprehend - that making a life out of raising one’s children is the best thing I could ever want to accomplish with my life…and it’s something I accomplish new every day.

As Craig at MT Politics recently wrote:

Look, we’re sacrificing our kids on the altar of “Me, Me, Me,” and gladly handing everything over to the government and the schools, so we don’t have to worry about it. From where I sit (and probably my own parents as well), parenting is a thankless, dirty job. You’re up to your elbows in urine, feces, paperwork, school trips, soccer games, football games, meetings and the whole nine yards, and its hard damn work and you don’t get a vacation, no matter how bad you want one.

But as the cliche says, no one wants to have their gravestone saying, “I wish I’d spent more time at work.”

My sinestra friends will no doubt see the answer in more government-provided day care, so that parents can make a “living wage,” but the answer lies right in our own hands, folks. Do we need the biggest house, the newest car, the latest boat, the 100″ TV?

Give some of that stuff up, and you win back the most valuable commodity on earth: time. You only get one chance to screw up your kids, and why not take the time and effort to do it your way, rather than paying someone else to do it?

Amen, brother.

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