Years ago, I went on a mini ski trip with my then-husband and another couple. Yes, I am making a point, I promise. We didn’t take many vacations except as a family. I never liked to be away from my children for very long. I guess it was because my birth mother abandoned me when I was two years old and I never wanted my children to feel abandoned. Maybe I need to see a shrink… but I digress.

We were in the car, the men in front and my friend and I in the back chatting and knitting. We talked about different things, nothing of consequence until she asked me if I liked my job. I was a sales rep for a software company. Yeah, I liked my job, I got to travel to different cities and even across the country some. She worked part-time at a butcher shop.

She started rambling on about how she couldn’t understand me and my ambition because to her, family was the most important thing. I was a little surprised and a lot hurt that she would think the family was more important to her than it was to me. After all, we’d known each other for at least five years; we’d been through the births of our youngest kids together.

It got me thinking later that women are so petty and jealous. We have to find fault with someone with a career and children because we know we can’t do it all, and we think they can.

I did get my little Schadenfreude moment later that same year. Our oldest children went to a school trip and were coming back a Friday afternoon. I was two hours away on a sales call with the president of the company I was working for. At 2  PM, I excused myself and explained the situation. I had to get home and pick up my son who was coming back from a school trip. He’d been gone a whole week and I missed him. Everybody was understanding and my president drove me back to the office so I could pick up my car. I got to the school just as the bus was pulling up. My friend, who worked ten minutes away, could not take a half hour to pick up her daughter. She sent the babysitter instead. Family is important indeed.

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