The Pact

When old neglect finds a fresh place to hurt.

I lock my jaw, swallowing the needles in my throat. Over all the years of nannies and boarding schools and summer camps where I was kept busy and raised by anyone but them, I’d found little pain in anything my parents did anymore. But it seems there are still parts of me to hurt.

Credence · Penelope Douglas

What it costs to lose a job you didn't know you loved.

I had never considered that you might miss a job like you missed a limb—a constant, reflexive thing. I hadn’t thought that as well as the obvious fears about money, and your future, losing your job would make you feel inadequate, and a bit useless. That it would be harder to get up in the morning than when you were rudely shocked into consciousness by the alarm. That you might miss the people you worked with, no matter how little you had in common with them. Or even that you might find yourself searching for familiar faces as you walked the high street.

Me Before You · Jojo Moyes

Η γονεϊκότητα δεν λογαριάζεται πάντα ως πραγματική δουλειά.

So many people these days, it seemed, believed that these things (personal fulfillment and self-esteem) could come only from work, not from parenting, and many people believed that having children had nothing to do with raising them.

The Rescue · Nicholas Sparks