Life is made up of choices. Dh and I chose to work in non profit. I chose to work part time so I could stay home with the kids. We chose to live in a small house and drive one car and have few possessions. Yes, it makes us different from those around .. but do you ever feel sort of badly for those around you in the rat race of life?

My brother and SIL live crazy busy lives. They both work full time. Their kids are in every activity under the moon. They are both involved in lots of activities. They even make time to work out. She works out at 5:00 am and he works out in the evening. They have a beautiful big house, two cars, their kids are dressed only in the best. They eat out all the time. They have a cleaning lady.

I figure life is about choices. I like my life. She likes her life. But sometimes I feel a bit guilty for living life in the slow lane while they are burning the candle at both ends. Am I lazy? Should I be doing more? Recently she told me that she thought I should be dressing my kids in name brand clothes so they feel confident and fit in more. I admit I was hurt but I wondered if there was a grain of truth there. For a moment. I just feel badly sometimes that they never have any down time, hardly ever get to spend quality time with their kids, and yet they are providing things for their kids that we don't for ours (nice clothes, music lessons, extra curricular activities, vacations) etc.

Do you ever feel a bit guilty about living life in the slow lane?

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At least you know it is about choices. Hopefully your children will understand that they have will have choices as adults regarding lifestyle and the trade offs. There are trade offs. I found that my sanity really suffered trying to provide all those "opportunities" that name brand clothes and prestigious schools supposedly provide.

Cathleen

I love my simple life. I work full time as a teacher, but thankfully am "retiring" in 15 days. I have no plans. My dh is a wonderful, supportive guy. We live way below our means. We have a small house that we take care of. We grow a lot of our own vegetables. We defy grocery stores by not using processed foods whenever possible and we make almost everything from scratch.

We catch a lot of flak for biking to work a couple of times a week and not going out to eat with colleagues. But we made the choice a long time ago that we didn't care what others thought of our lifestyle, as long as we are happy that's what matters.

I Do think its About Choices - And I Feel like whatever Works For you is Great!

I am Somewhere in the middle of You and your SIL -
I Never ever Want a House Bigger than I Have time to Clean , or that we can Afford on My Husbands salary Alone. I Do want to Return to the Work force , But I Am Footing the College, Wedding , Retirement Funds.
I will Never Be dragging My Kids to Activity after activity.
They Will Only ever Get One Choice of a main activity , and A few other Here and there things to Do.

However I Do like Things and even though i Declutter Daily ,
I Guess My Decorating style would Not Be Called simple. I Mean , I Like to have a Full house Of Furniture and Stuff on every Shelf And Wall. Decorating is My thing - so I Stick to It.


No , I don't think you are lazy Or should Feel Guilty, I Think that is just the Way life is - everyone Lives different. Happiness is Key. : )

Also I Have always had a thing for my Kids Clothes , and I Love Name Brand stuff. BUT I Find About 80 % of That On sale. And Great sales too!
And If My son Has 4 American eagle shirts , He can Also Wear 4 Target shirts.
They Definatly Don't Need everything...
But Being On My 2nd Preteen , I Can see how kids Tastes Do change and they Want to Look Like their Friends and shop in the Stores their Friends do .

Sometimes I do feel guilty, but I am instilling good values. I dress my kids well and they have all hand me downs. I think there are 3 pair of jeans that were actually bought for them. The rest are from friends, thrift stores and garage sales. I also know I could easily give them every toy on the market if I had the means, but I am glad that I don't. My kids are creative and unspoiled.

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Wendy~Self-proclaimed hippie momma to Bob and Jamie

I don't feel guilty. I feel like we are better off in the long run.

My parents are the exact opposite of us. They are go-go-go and constantly are stressed, tired, and they also place a lot of value on money/gifts - I think since they are unable to spend much time together. They constantly expect us to do things with them, and go to this thing for them, etc. I finally explained to my mother that I don't want my life to be that way. I am not lazy, I work hard, but I want to ENJOY my quiet life with my family and not have it all fly by before I even notice. Time goes by fast enough as it is, I don't need to rush it.

I also think that what she said to you about clothes was uncalled for - I can see her point, but do you really want your children think that their value (and the value of others) is determined by how they look? I wouldn't.

I think if name brands are the source of their confidence, that's very sad. Yes, I realize teens are that way--I used to whine to my mom that I wanted the name brands, too--but she couldn't afford to give in to it, and the few times she did, it didn't make me more self-confident. But there were kids who were so self-confident, they could wear *any*thing and it would be the thing everyone would want to be wearing. And there were other kids whose clothes just blended in--nothing that stood out, just basic (not name brand) jeans etc.--who were also self-confident, just not dressers.

I like to overindulge in my daughter's clothes, too, so I'm not trying to badmouth buying cute clothes either. I'm just saying. Surely a sense of personal security, depth of thought, and personal accomplishment are better ways to develop self-confidence in your children than name brand clothes. I would feel badly for someone who sad that to me, too.

I don't feel guilty. Our girls love the things we do outdoors.

This post is almost exact to my situation, except I do work outside the home and my kids are younger. Otherwise, you took the words right out of my mouth!

There are times I definitely feel guilty for not being able to do more things with my kids. While I'm blowing bubbles outside with them, so many others get season passes to Sesame Place, Great Adventure, Philadelphia Zoo, local pool club, etc. So yes, sometimes I'll feel guilty.

But then I think how these same people are bringing their little ones to preschool everyday, missing out on being with them. (As I write this, my dd is laughing under the table trying to tie my sneakers together!) I like to think the kids will look back on these times and have a sense of security, knowing I was always here for them.