Parents

Mom was single till 38 and became a mother at 42 for the first time, having built a career in science and worked in management roles, sadly in toxic chem industries (which shortened her life by quite a bit),  till she suddenly realized that being single stopped being fulfilling. That was her late 30s. She literally had not even dated before that, considering that type of thing filthy and undesirable. She wound up marrying my dad, who was also in science and headed engineering projects, just like herself, and he insisted, after a dead firstborn & some miscarriages, that she should try being a stay-at-home-mom (the chem industry was killing her, her babies and it eventually did kill her) with her next pregnancy & that’s how I was born. The only child. I saw her being stay at home mom till I was 5, then dad had to retire early due to a disability he earned at his toxic industry and the both of them worked full time as gardeners growing organic food for sale, so did I ever since 4 years old, tending to the garden and selling veg at the market w mom.. And this story is typical, as I grew up around friends just like that..