That’s the thing - circumstances change and you can change your mind.
In one of my sister’s marriage they never intended to have the husband be a stay-at-home dad, but shortly before their second child was born the company he worked for went under and he was unemployed, my sister still had a good job with good benefits, and their daughter wound up having medical problems - in that case the logical choice was for daddy to stay home with the kids and mom to keep working. It was never anticipated, and I’m not sure chosen is the right word here as there was a lot of pressure to make that particular choice, but there is no doubt that was a MUCH easier choice in the 80’s than it would have been in the 50’s. It was what worked for them and later on my BIL said that he wound up really glad he’d been a stay-at-home dad for part his kids’ childhoods even if the circumstances leading to it had been really unpleasant. And that, really, was the goal of feminism, that families could make the choices that worked best for them, that women could be the breadwinners if that made sense, and men be full time parents, and that people could switch roles over time if that made sense or circumstances dictated. Or people could be the traditional gender roles, as those two were for their first child’s first few years.
Very few people actually stay on the path they started out on. That’s OK. Or rather, it should be.
If you’re in a better place now that’s a good thing even if how you got there wasn’t a fun ride.
There’s a common saying: “Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans”.
My story isn’t as dramatic as Broomstick’s or Spice Weasel’s, but it contains a lot of the same results: I/we ended up very different from what our 20-something selves had planned and had expected. But our commitment to each other remains undimmed.
Not everybody whose life turns out to have a big plot surprise can keep their relationship together. The big error that most parents of Baby Boomers made, and I suspect many current parents still make, is to implicitly or explicitly teach kids that life will be a smooth progression along a predictable path.
That does happen to some people, and it can be a pretty comfy rut when it does. But if I had to place an even money bet on whether some particular 20 yo will get to 75 without a major life surprise / disruption / upheaval I’d bet “no” every time. And make bank doing it.
Afterthought: I have seen men doing that kind of thing - gushing nonstop about how much they love their children - and most of the time with this, they’re divorced and not allowed to see or even contact the kids, for some very good reasons.
