What Am I Even Working For If I Keep Missing His Birthday?

You call it missing the birthday, as if it slipped past you. It did not. Something was asked of you twice, and twice you answered with your job instead of your child. That is not an accident. That is a pattern, and you already know it. The doubt you feel now is not weakness. It is the one honest part of this. The question is not whether the job is worth it in general — that is too big, too vague, a question you can argue about forever without deciding anything. The real question is smaller: what will you do the next time a deadline and a birthday land on the same day? You are not doing this alone, and you should not decide it alone. Say it out loud to the people who share this load with you — your partner, your pod, your team. Let them hear what you just told yourself. Then make the next choice with them watching, so it is harder to slide past again.