Lydia: Thank you for reading my work! I greatly appreciate it and I am very sorry for the pain from your divorce and your parent’s marriage. Please know I understand what you are feeling (I read your own article on the topic) because my own parents divorced. The pain of divorce is very real. To live is to suffer, Friedrich Nietzsche said, and “to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.’’ I hope you can forgive your parents for any pain they caused you.

You wrote about the word investment and I wasn’t mainly writing about a monetary investment (though that argument also does apply). The primary definition of the word “investment’’ is about investing money with the hope of profit or material result (and please note, no investment is guaranteed to produce a profit). I’ve made good and bad investments.

The secondary definition I was thinking more about is “an act of devoting time, effort, or energy to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a worthwhile result.’’ Ask any parent you know if they think the time/money they devoted to having a child produced a “worthwhile result’’ and I am certain nearly all will say it was worth all the time and money. Nearly all would tell you they got back far more than they put in, that it was a good investment of their time.

There is a risk/reward in every single investment of your time or money whether it’s the money spent preparing for a date, a day spent at a conference, or a degree you pursue at a university. I also can give you examples of people with a lot of money having bad marriages/childhoods and people who were very poor having amazing lives. Thank you again! Joe