A Child In My Lap

You know, I really was so glad that I had the opportunity to travel and had the good fortune (thanks to my parents) to do what I did before settling down to being a wife and mother.

I feel sorry for those very young girls who got married at sixteen or seventeen, or may be even younger, and had to be saddled with a family, with a bunch of kids; without having had a life of their own before - no wonder there were all those 'Seven Year Itches' and lots of divorces.

True, it was not easy for me to get 'tied down' after being footloose and fancy- free for a great number of years. At least I did have my experiences of those wonderful days with little responsibilities. And, in a way, I was ready to 'settle down.'

Now-a-days, girls are much luckier than we were. You can opt to have both a career and a home life - many of your husbands would pitch-in and do house-work together with you. 
In my time, the man were suppose to 'bring in the bacon' and take care the outside of the house.
(Not in HK though - if you were rich enough to have a garden in Hk, you would be rich enough to have a gardener.)
And, the little woman was to slave inside the house 
(Not in HK either - the middle class 'lady of the house' did not have to do much house work.)

What I could not understand was, my husband had been a bachelor for a number of years, he had cooked, cleaned, and did all the housework by himself (May be he did Not do too much housework?), besides working, before he was married. He was neat and tidy though.

I found out later, when we had a dishwasher, he never would put the dishes in the dishwasher - he said, that was My job. He had a Thing with Dishwashers!

Let me give you a run down of my life in the next few years - I will fill you in with more details later.

In the first ten years of my marriage, we had lived in nine 'homes,' - spanning two countries, Hong Kong and the United States of America (including three states in the U.S.).

In time, the household had two Additions - we had two more girls, Melinda and Cissy.
Melinda was born in Texas, and Cissy was born in New Mexico.

S.C. had four different jobs - though each job change was an improvement financially, it nevertheless was a lot of "uprooting." 

Now, you understand I really had no time for anything else besides taking care of the family. 
For me, my girls always came first. 
When they were very young, I would not leave them with any babysitters, unless it was absolutely necessary.
I took care of them and did whatever it was needed of me. 
Call me over-sensitive! over-protective!

For the first twelve years of my marriage, I could not wear any light colored or white clothing because I always had a child sitting in my lap. 

It actually felt strange when I found myself without a child in my lap - when Cissy was old enough to sit by herself in the car.  

We did not have car seats then.