Did Zorinth suffer from that, compared with your girls? Probably. He didn't do any martial arts until last year when he was old enough to organise it and go by himself. There were times when his dinner would be late because I was writing, when I wasn't paying attention to him because I was writing, he couldn't assume a hundred percent of my attention whenever he wanted it, when we couldn't afford things because I didn't take a job that wouldn't have given me time to write, and he grew up knowing I wasn't going to utterly immolate myself on the pyre of what was better for him.

I don't think that counts as suffering: Zorinth's dinner was late sometimes, but he didn't go hungry, and frankly I don't think it's good for children to grow up knowing their mothers will immolate themselves on that pyre. Okay, so he didn't take martial arts until this year, but he's not going, five or ten years from now, to assume that any woman he's involved with will do all the boring work and put her needs ahead of his. (I suspect that what girls learn from having that sort of self-sacrificing mother is different, but possibly just as destructive. And Peg is not that sort of mother either: I know that from reading what she's written about looking for a balance.)