I think you’re associating sacrifice with something negative or painful that one resents doing.
On the contrary sacrifices (personal sacrifices) are often done by choice for a desired outcome.
One may sacrifice eating desserts and fatty foods to lose weight.
One may sacrifice eating out for lunch everyday to save money to buy a car.
They are more a “compromise” type of sacrifce.
While some parents may say they sacrifice for their kids out of resentment, the majority of them (myself included) would say they sacrifice their time, money, resources to be a parent because it’s something they want to do and would do again.
Will I hold it over my son’s head someday as a “now you owe me” type paybeck?
Hell no. It was my choice/sacrifice/compromise to make, not his.
Look at the Dick van Dyke show. Unless there was a show about their kid, he was never around except to pop in just before he put himself to bed. Plus they had a clean living room. Talk about your fantasy programs.
I wonder what he was doing in his room by himself all those nights. Probably planning to take over the world.
I think we need a paradigm shift here. It took someone outside of my family to point this out to me.
Background: I went back to grad school after having two kidlets. Before the birth of sinkid1 we were saving and doing the whole yuppie thing. After the birth of sinkid1 I quit working and became a SAHM. Money became way tight and then we had sinkid2 because sinkid1 was so much fun. Shortly thereafter I went to grad school instead of back to work and money became even tighter.
One day while talking with other grad students I lamented the fact that we had no investments for the future anymore. We had spent everything we had saved in our early marriage on the sinkids and grad school. One of my fellow research assistants looked at me as if I was crazy and simply stated: “You’re investing in your family.”
I don’t know if he’s out there now but damn, that simple statement totally changed the way I looked at things. To this day I have never thought about sacrificing things or giving things up for my kids. I’ve always thought about it as investing in my family.