I'm number three out of four of a single parent, after my father died of an accidental overdose when I was a month shy of 7 years old.

Let me ask you something. How did having children affect your husband? Did he also "get a clue" after the children arrived?

One of the things that really twigs my sense of fairness is that it's acceptable for a woman to say "I don't know...guess I'll just be a Mom" as if it were some kind of default setting for not getting on in life. Did you ever hear a guy say "I don't know...guess I'll just be a Dad?" You won't.

You want parenting to have any kind of respect, you don't toss it to the lowest common denominator as if it had no value at all, or required anything past a pregnancy. Most important job in the world, you ask me -

Perfect is for pansies - nothing in this world is perfect, it's just proof that we all carry that spark of the divine in us that can conceive of such a notion. Perfection only exists between our ears - it never happens in real life.

I said optimal - and that's what I'm asked. You short-cut any of it, and you're asking for a harder row to hoe, and that's only what you describe, neh?