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Published May 09, 2008 01:28 pm - Mom said that she was lucky to have two healthy kids, and mostly to have two kids who never really gave her or anybody else any trouble.
So here’s what I said: “That’s not luck, that’s work.”
Anne Kettenbrink: No luck involved in raising kids
I just got off the phone with my mom. Technically, it’s not Mother’s Day yet, because I have to write this column before it runs in the paper.
However, being the organized (to a fault) person that I am, I have already sent her present, and she has already received it.
She called me to ask if she should open the box.
I told her yes so that I could hear her uninhibited squeals of delight when she found many purple things in the package. Purple is her favorite color. You can tell because of the squeals.
Anyway, she liked the present. And then she told me something.
She told me that she’d been discussing luck with a co-worker recently, and how she doesn’t have any. OK, maybe that’s not true, maybe she has bad luck, but not good luck.
It seems that nothing ever works out easily for her, which to her means that she doesn’t have any good luck.
Then, she told me, she started thinking, “I think I used up all my luck on my kids.”
She went on to say that she was lucky to have two healthy kids, and mostly to have two kids who never really gave her or anybody else any trouble.
And the more she talks to other people, the more she realizes what a bullet she dodged.
So here’s what I said:
“That’s not luck, that’s work.”
And I really believe it.
I think I’ve said some of this before, but it warrants repeating, especially on Mother’s Day.
My mom has two college degrees, a bachelor’s and a master’s. She worked for a few years before getting the master’s degree, and for a few years after.
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