Thursday, June 9th, 2011 11:57:30

It’s Not About Me, It’s About You

Maybe it’s because I’m in my mid-40s and part of what a friend from college calls the sandwich generation, helping out with both our children and our parents, but I am once again thinking through what it means to succeed or, in the language of sports and politics, what it means to win.

Both of us have children in late elementary school and middle school. This means that we have fewer hands-on duties as mothers, and we are no longer fully consumed by just making it through the day. But we are also very aware that we will not be around forever. In my case, that has led me to wonder about the legacy I will leave my children.

They were born 22 months apart, which made the first two years of my second child’s life a bit of a blur to me now. During my son’s first year of life, I thought of myself as successful if all three of us made it through the day in one piece.