I typed in the article title on google and there are various places to have it available. It might become with time more readily available w/o a pay wall. I could see a bit of the article.
I imagine more articles of this type will get published.
My dad worked hard to pay off a business that my parents inherited 1/3 of it - so growing up in a small town, my older two siblings and I had a little different growing up that our younger two siblings. All 5 of us were born by the time dad was 30 and mom was 27. The business went to my parents when dad was 34 - he was sort of a ‘junior’ in the company and knew a lot, but the responsibility/learning curve was thrust on my dad at that time, and with young kids that he had limited time with us. My mom was SAHM but had strict ideals of her role of homemaking - she kept the house clean to a high standard, excellent meals; childcare in her mind was infant to school age, and then it was ‘be seen and not heard’ (my mom later in life was diagnosed as bi-polar and was cycling depression in her late 50’s; she also had narcissistic tendencies but had two things that kept that in line, she wanted to be a ‘good mother’ and she had a strong Catholic faith). I understood better growing up to ‘stay under the radar’ than my siblings and didn’t have the drama – mom was almost on a manic high (but not over the top). Dad finally felt like he ‘made it’ by the time I was a sophomore in college. They took a lot of trips internationally and visited Switzerland more often (probably every other year or so - their homeland, so relatives and friends there). Mom had a strong desire to be a grandma at age 50 - my older sister did make her a grandmother about that time but on sister/her husband’s timeline not my mother’s. I had the best relationship with mom in later years because I had the least ‘baggage’ from growing up. I also double majored in Psychology in college to ‘figure things out’.
DH and I were married for 15 years (moved for DH’s career and I obtained two graduate business degrees while establishing career in new cities); when we had DD1, and our daughters were born the years we turned 38 and 40 - we had built our home two years prior and were ‘established’. We live 750 - 850 miles from our hometowns where the parents live (our hometowns are 100 miles apart), so we would travel over Christmas and maybe summer to hometown when the children were growing up. Idyllic for the children and for us, as we could experience WI winter in a short window (and got really good snow for the kids to enjoy - which sometimes doesn’t happen in that window of time) and also glorious WI summer. When DDs were 3 and 5, DH’s job required a lot of ongoing travel, and I gave up my career and became a SAHM and remained out of the workforce for 18 years. During that period of time, I survived aggressive cancer (when the kids were in 8th and 10th grades). I had a ‘sunset career’ for almost 5 years (until retirement at age 65, using my nursing license in skilled care and rehab). Nursing in our area is not well paid, but I worked PRN so I could schedule a lot when available and take off when I wanted (they always had needs) - and in the end I was able to limit the work to admission nursing assessments for rehab entry (working regular unit shifts, they kept piling on work and pressured people to clock out and not work over from the shift). For example, no treatment nurse so you had to do those treatments, admissions in rehab and needed to do rehab admission. For the first few years, they paid overtime after 8 hours, even if not working a 40 hour workweek, but that did change later. Grandchildren were born in 2018 and 2019, and the older two grandchildren were 100 miles away, and Covid shut down their daycare for 6 weeks. Covid held off surgeries and rehab admissions, so as PRN I only had to work 1 day in 29 calendar days - just scheduled enough to keep the job while being needed with the grandkids. Over the 6 weeks, I would travel Sunday afternoon and be live-in nanny until DD arrived home after work on Friday. Coordinating with DD1 was easy. They were very grateful because neither could take the time off of work (DD1 had critical work as a RN, all hands-on deck) while SIL was in a work from home job, but he needed to 100% concentrate and could not be watching in any meaningful way and almost 3 YO and almost 2 YR.
DH’s parents raised four sons in a small town - and they had two local grandchildren (the first grandchild was a girl and was like a daughter to the grandmother). After my mother was widowed, she wanted me to travel to Switzerland with her (she had a class reunion), and our two kids were in FT Montessori – DH’s parents were retired, so they traveled to our home and had fun with DH and the kids. His mom could take over our kitchen and coordinate with DH (he could pick up the grocery items and also cook with his mom, he dropped off and picked up the kids from Montessori). I was able to arrange to be gone for two weeks from work (my mom stayed in Switzerland for a month). It was a win-win.
