What would you have done with your life if things had been different?

Sorry Quilting gran but I can't go along with this at all. Far too sentimental

Life is what happens to you when you're not looking. Quote John Lennon.

We live in the real world not in a soap opera. When you watch the news, hearing about riots, killings, fights for basic freedom. When you consider the state of millions of women in other parts of the world then you really could sit back and think you have been extremely lucky to be born in a Western country, after the war probably and have time in a safe home to ponder on whether you should have taken a few more risks.

Some women risk their lives just by going out to buy bread.

expatmaggie I agree with you that real life is hard and am totally aware of how life is for others, including all the risks they take.

However, I do not feel that a little harmless "what if" escapism is a bad thing. If it makes us smile, or forget the problems for just a few minutes, then it is justified.

So agree Syberia ...and would add that thinking about past 'what if' scenarios has made me get up, now I'm retired and try some of them!!

I don't think I'd change much. Like some of you, I got pregnant earlyish - packed off to CofE mother and baby home where the plan (devised by MiL to be who thought I was a scarlet woman) was to have "the baby" adopted and carry on with university. I just let myself be ordered about - wouldn't happen today! "The past is another country, they do things differently there." The home taught me so much.

But then I had DD, then my mother met her("the baby") then DH met her and that was it. We got married (MiL didn't come!) and really, though it was hard, never looked back. My mother was amazing, and so was DH.

It was DH who encouraged / pushed me back to university after two more children. I read English, trained as a teacher, which I had always wanted to do, got an MA and later half a PhD, and we are now doing the things we didn't have time or money for back in the 60s.

I know I am very, very lucky. No, I wouldn't change a thing.

That's lovely to hear, Ariadne

Ariadne High five from me!

Much respect Ariadne. Such great achievements!

Ariadne that is a lovely positive post x

So pleased for you Ariadne ...but isn't it sad that your 'MIL to be' thought you were a 'scarlet woman' ... after all 'it takes two to tango'.

But, Jacey she really thought a) I was too working class (lively, political, musical family) b) immoral c) it was usually the girl's fault for leading the man on.

She was a highly respectable Scottish "lady" of the old school, and I'd never met anyone like her before. I never got it right, ever. She mellowed a bit when I produced a couple of sons, though.

Heigh ho. 50 odd years ago now!

Thank you all for your lovely comments. xxxxx

I sympathise I was not 'lady like' enough for my mil either. In fact she got fil to persuade ici to give him a job in Ardrossan to try and break us up. It didn't work! We married. 2years later when he got a new job in the then cegb we were together until he died 9years ago.

I am sure I did not fit the mould as a prospective DIL for my current MIL.
Divorced, 10 years older than her son, already had my kids and not planning to have more and not a catholic either. In fact a confirmed atheist. Who sometimes swears and is not houseproud.
I think the only thing in my favour was that I was not his previous girlfriend.
Bless her though, she never showed it and has always been kind to me .

The only thing I would wish different is that I could have had more confidence in my own ideas when I was younger instead of doing what other people thought was "better for me". When you're sixteen you don't have the confidence to say to the headteacher who just wants you to fit into a preconceived mould, No, you're wrong. This is what I want to do and I'm going to do it.

Still, my own daughters have benefitted from the lessons I learned and gone their own sweet ways with confidence.

I could not have had nicer inlaws.

I would have been a missionary in the jungle if I had taken my head mistresses advice. She wanted me to take A level history, English and RI, then follow her to Oxford and take a degree in theology.*me*!
I went to Wolverhampton tech instead and took physics chemistry biology and general studies and BOYS!

bagitha you have hit the nail on the head! I knew so little, and just allowed myself to be manoeuvred. Very bright, but very unaware of so many things. Still, I think I've caught up now!

Likewise, ariadne. I learned a bit late how to be rebellious but, boy, did I learn!

I had no real aspirations as a child, but when I became a troubled and rebellious teenager, I decided I would like to a be a probation officer - purely because my parents kept saying I would get into trouble with the law if I wasn't careful. Queueing up overnight for Rolling Stones concert tickets and not telling your parents where you are hardly counts as the crime of the century! (I do accept now that they would have been worried).

The only thing I fancied was working with animals, but I didn't have a clue how to go about it, as I kept truanting from school and would not have spoken to a careers advisor. My father decided I should work in a bank when I left school, so got me an interview with his bank manager. I went along in full sixties get-up, with a big ladder in my white tights. Can't think why I didn't get the job. Went to work in data processing and worked my way up, then met and married husband.

Anyway, years later and with a family of four young children, that interest had stuck, I did my degree and became a volunteer with social services and then probation, working mainly with....guess what....troubled teenagers. Got the career I wanted and loved it. I can't imagine doing/being anything else, but I did occasionally have a hankering for working in a garden sentre, planting out seedlings, headphones on and dog at my feet (still do, actually, but I can do this at home now). I always kept a dialogue going with the local dogs home and got many an offender a volunteer placement, some of them getting jobs when they proved themselves, and it meant I got to see lots of dogs, as well as having a menagerie of pets at home.

I think my in-laws felt threatened by me when their son took me home to meet them. A feminist, undomesticated, mouthy, dog lover and not a brass band fan! MIL was my antithesis - homebody, church-going, never had an opinion in her life. They capitulated when I produced their first grandchild, and tried their best till I divorced him and they didn't have to talk to me any more. Not even a thank you when I put myself out to ensure they kept seeing all their grandchildren, come rain or shine.

We are the result of the lives we've led, and I have few regrets, although I was glad to shake off my husband.

I think I could have written your last sentence myself, Carol. Regrets are futile, but I wish I'd had more confidence in myself and my opinions. Never took part in debates at University. And I would have liked to get into acting, but was very intimidated by that 'crowd', or should I say 'clique'!

Never too late for acting Annobel. There's a wealth of mature amateur dramatic companies in our part of the world, and Corrie is always looking for extras to pretend they're having a chat in the Rovers!

Annobel you've done it again!
1. I too echo Carol's last sentence
2. Despite being very active in my school debating and dramatic society I found the the acting / debating clique at St Andrews too 'hooray henry' for me. The Phoenix Society if I remember rightly.
Don't think I'd want to change my life but might like to slip through a time warp and try being 18 today (as long as I can come back as soon as I say the word!)

Same at Brum!

On a course years ago we were asked to write our own obituaries. Mine outlined my skill with languages, my successful international career, lovely home, warmhearted hospitality, great sense of style, brilliant culinary skills, perfect and generous hostess, my circle of friends - ah if only!!

Unlike Jacey, I scraped into the Latin stream and loved Latin - several attempts since at learning German have failed - so thank goodness I wasn't in the German stream. Failed to get into university so inevitably teaching, OK but hardly a great success. Eventually did a secretarial course that has proved invaluable and has led to my current longstanding job and also has made me available for voluntary secretarial work. Husband, 2 successsful children, 2 grandchildren. Perhaps my other dream life would have ultimately been unsatisfying.

I would have loved to have gone into nursing but unfortunatly I hate the sight of blood !!

I have a very strong maternal instinct (part disposition and part necessity as my own mother had very little) and happily I have been able to exploit that in my professional life, both as a teacher and as a social worker. My sister reminded me recently that she always thought that I would be a children's author as telling stories was something I always loved to do when we were younger.

Not very fond of it myself. But i really really cant stan vomit That's why I went into medicine not nursing!