I hate the use of the word “sacrifice” in this context. The term implies that the parent gets nothing back. Parents who pays lot’s of money because they want their kid to get into an Ivy are not performing a sacrifice, they are investing in their kid’s future. Whatever time, effort, and money I used in raising my kid is well worth it, because their success is mine as well.
Talk about sacrifice always seems to me a strategy for emotional manipulation - a way to maintain control over the kid through continuous guilt trips “look how much I suffered because of you”. I don’t want them to listen to me because they feel guilty at the thought of all my “sacrifices”, I want them to listen to me because they figure out that I know what I’m talking about and because they love me. Moreover, I do not need to control my grown children, and there are better ways to get them to do what they should other than guilt trips, and getting them to do what they should do should be the goal, not getting them to do what I want.
The most telling fact with the use of the term “sacrifice”, in regards to raising children, is that I have yet to hear somebody talk about “sacrifice” when they have a pet. You spend a lot of time and money of raising a pet, yet people don’t talk about spending a morning at the vet as a “sacrifice”. That’s because you cannot give a pet a guilt trip, and guilt does not help you control your pet.
Well, I agree that if you die to save your kid’s life, that can be called a sacrifice. Everything else is an investment.
Maybe I feel this way because I’ve seen just how toxic the use of guilt to control kids can be, and how it destroys real affection and respect, and this has colored my perception.