Community Chat

[151949]

 I wasn't able to have children of my own but my first husband had custody of his children when we married. His job required us to move often and live various places around the world, so his kids were placed in English speaking schools all over the world. They learned languages, including sign language because my father was deaf, and cultures that served them in their adult life. My step daughter works for an international bank in London and uses her language skills & ability to adapt to different cultures every day. My step son is a college professor and teaches international students. He says his understanding of various cultures has helped him help his students. He also says losing his father young has helped him to help students going through the same thing. Sometimes a kid just needs to know that someone else went through the same thing and turned out OK.Neither of them seem to feel their childhood was in any deprived by our lifestyle but instead, enhanced.

I don't know what got me off on that tangent !

[SilleeMee]

@fourpaws56 ((())) My story is similar to yours, except I have no children. 

[chiclets]

No because "expecting" is not my thing. Life happens.

[chrystaltree]

That's an interesting question, I wasn't raised to "expect" things in life.  I was raised to "make" things happen in my life.  You can't "make" marriage happen, of course.  I grew up hoping that I would find my soul mate and get married and have a family and have a happy marriage.  And that did indeed happen.  I was very fortunate in that regard.  My career is a different matter.  I didn't "expect" anything; I worked very hard to complete college and find the career and then I worked hard to grow that career.  Just a few days ago, hubby and I were talking and reminiscing about all the years we both spent working all day and going to college in the evenings to get our bachelor's degrees and then our master's degrees.  We both got associate's degrees when we were young and when we found out THAT wasn't enough to get to where we wanted to be in our careers;  we put the work and time into getting more degrees.  Perhaps it's generational.  We're both 58 and we didn't "expect" things but we knew all things were possible if we were willing to work for them.  The subject came up because we have a relative who always tells us how "lucky" we are to have what we have.  How "lucky" we are to have our jobs and our home.  As if "luck" had anything to do with anything.  He's family so we just grin and agree with him.

[SANNA]

Big time change ! I was born and raised in former USSR  preparing myself for that life and by God’s grace and my will  I am now a proud US citizen. Talk about luck!

[Dominosmom]

My life turned out way better than I expected. Took advice that I would pass along to any young girl with no direction as I was. Stay in school, find a job that you love, that make take a few tries. Don't be in a rush to get married.  

[151949]

@chrystaltree OMG you touched a nerve with me. When I was a working nurse it used to make me crazy when ancillary staff - housekeepers or nurse aides or kitchen help etc. -would tell me how LUCKY I was to go to nursing school. EXCUSE ME - luck had nothing to do with it at all. My family did not have money to send any of us on to school. We had to earn it ourselves. I got almost all straight A in school and could easily have qualified for a schlorship but I had one - however that only paid my tuition. I had to keep my job at the bakery to cover my other expenses, plus I had a loan, but tried very hard to use as little of it as possible.  I was required by my scholarship to keep a minimum 3.0 grade average as well.That meant my lowest grade could only be a B. 

No one GAVE me anything, I earned every single grade and every advance in my life. I admire you for getting your masters. I gave up that dream when I chose to get married. So the furthest I went was my BSN - however I did get my accreditation from the American assoc of Critical Care Nurses which was a big achievement that I'm very proud of.And actually, it earned me the biggest financial reward of anything in my career as the hospital was being pressured to get accredited nurses in their speciality units but were having trouble achieving it.

[minkbunny]

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@chrystaltree wrote:

That's an interesting question, I wasn't raised to "expect" things in life.  I was raised to "make" things happen in my life.  You can't "make" marriage happen, of course.  I grew up hoping that I would find my soul mate and get married and have a family and have a happy marriage.  And that did indeed happen.  I was very fortunate in that regard.  My career is a different matter.  I didn't "expect" anything; I worked very hard to complete college and find the career and then I worked hard to grow that career.  Just a few days ago, hubby and I were talking and reminiscing about all the years we both spent working all day and going to college in the evenings to get our bachelor's degrees and then our master's degrees.  We both got associate's degrees when we were young and when we found out THAT wasn't enough to get to where we wanted to be in our careers;  we put the work and time into getting more degrees.  Perhaps it's generational.  We're both 58 and we didn't "expect" things but we knew all things were possible if we were willing to work for them.  The subject came up because we have a relative who always tells us how "lucky" we are to have what we have.  How "lucky" we are to have our jobs and our home.  As if "luck" had anything to do with anything.  He's family so we just grin and agree with him.

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I have always found that the harder you work,

the luckier you look 

[151949]

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@Dominosmom wrote:

My life turned out way better than I expected. Took advice that I would pass along to any young girl with no direction as I was. Stay in school, find a job that you love, that make take a few tries. Don't be in a rush to get married.  

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I told my step daughter the opposite - stay out of college until you figure out where you want to go career wise - then if you need to, go to college. She got a job at a bank, wanted to advance, was suggested she needed a business degree so she went to college then, and the bank helped her with her tuition.By the time she was 30 she was on her dream career path and has worked at the same bank where she is now a VP for about 25  years.

[CelticCrafter]

Except for the fact that both my siblings, both younger than me, have passed - it's not supposed to happen that way - my life is exactly how I hoped it would be.