Motherhood is not for Wimps

As soon as I read that quote, I knew I'd found the perfect book club.  The book is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families and the book club can be joined online at Simple Mom.

I decided to join an online book club for 5 reasons:

1. I've never been invited to join a "real" book club (cue violin music for Poor Missy).
2. I haven't had the wherewithal, for a variety of reasons (courage being one), to start my own.
3. I have sitters way too much as it is anyway - do I really want to spend more time away from my family?
4. This first book dovetails nicely with My Happiness Project and Missy's Maxims.  
5. The first book has been sitting next to my treadmill, just crying out "read me, read me!" for over a year. Serendipity?  

So here we are - Week One.  And the quote of my title today was coupled with the sentence, "Through it all I've learned that parenting is basically a life of sacrifice."  How true both of these statements are!  Though I think I'll alter "Motherhood is not for wimps" to "Parenting is not for wimps."  I've always thought, and my communications with blog visitors has affirmed, both parents make many sacrifices for their children - most of the time.

The other quote I want to tease you with so you join the book club too give you before I shoo you over to Simple Mom and the forum you can join (anytime - you can jump in part way through  - if you don't have the book) is this one:

"[L]ike the 'road less traveled' spoken of in the Robert Frost poem, it's the road that makes all the difference.  Despite the priority that American culture clearly places on individual freedom, immediate gratification, efficiency and control, there is literally no road laden with as much joy and satisfaction as the road of rich, interdependent family living."

Page 20, 7 Habits of Effective Families.  

Powerful, isn't it?  It resonates with how I often feel over our parenting choices - the feeling of being a salmon swimming upstream against the current of mediocre parenting.  A feeling I haven't shared with many because, well, we are on a path that's not traveled by many.  And it's a path that, while I am sure it's the right one for us, is still lonely at times.  

It's one of the reasons I started this blog.

Before you leave today, share with me what you think of the quotes I've shared with you.  How do they make you feel?  Are you trying to take your family down a different path than the norm?