Author Topic: About the parental thing...  (Read 15657 times)

GuitarStv

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Re: About the parental thing...
« Reply #50 on: July 07, 2016, 06:10:27 AM »
The trick is to recognize each season and to understand that it's temporary.

This is very important to remember to keep your sanity.  The shittiest points of having kids are temporary.  It sure doesn't feel like it at the time, but they do pass.

MrsCoolCat

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Re: About the parental thing...
« Reply #51 on: July 07, 2016, 08:59:24 AM »

Getting back to the original topic, I think that by simply having intentions to hang on to your sense of self the OP has already done more than many pre-parents do for themselves and their relationship.

Thanks but I'm trying to be selfish though what originally prompted me "ready" to consider adding another human being into my life was, "I think I can & want to care about someone else aside from myself!" If that makes sense.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2016, 09:01:48 AM by MrsCoolCat »

CNM

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Re: About the parental thing...
« Reply #52 on: July 07, 2016, 11:16:40 AM »
Yeah, responding to the original post, I guess that if a parent wants to lose their sense of individuality, he or she can do so but it is certainly not inevitable. 

I think it can be analogized to, say, housekeeping.  A person can spend every minute of every day for days on end doing housekeeping and house maintenance.  It certainly isn't necessary or required to have a clean and working home.  Ditto with child rearing.  A parent can involve themselves in bringing up their child such that it is the only thing the parent ever does.  Again, not necessary or required (some may even say harmful) to have a healthy and well-adjusted child.

Kaminoge

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Re: About the parental thing...
« Reply #53 on: July 07, 2016, 02:01:10 PM »
[quote author=rockstache link=topic=58171.msg1142996#msg1142996 date=1467817181
I love kids and think it's weird (and kind of rude) when people say they don't like children. You don't have to have them, but I don't think you should dislike them any more than you dislike old people/teenagers etc. It's just a phase of life. I may or may not want to have them myself (undecided), but I'm not saying they aren't wonderful. I am saying that I think I am a grown up at this point in my life with or without them.
[/quote]

I don't like children. That's not quite the same thing as actively disliking them by the way. Most childfree women I know seem to feel the need to stress that even though they don't have kids they love their friends' kids or their nieces and nephews etc. I don't. As far as I can tell my niece and nephew are very nice children and remarkably well behaved (remarkable given the way my brother was as a child and the way he parents) but I have no particular desire to spend time with them. I baby sat my nephew once for around 3 hours when he was about 3 it was insanely tedious. Many of my friends have children. I'm happy to be polite and ask about how their kids are etc and now their children are mostly getting older (into the teens) I'm genuinely interested in hearing what they're up to etc but I don't want to spend any time with their kids.

I find out society's default idea that everyone (well all women anyway) should breed completely baffling. There are so many examples of awful parenting that it's impossible for me to understand why anyone would try and convince another person to become a parent unless they really wanted to (and trust me, it's a thing, I've quite often been told things along the lines of "you'll regret it when you're older" or "you can't know true joy if you don't have kids" etc.)

Cassie

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Re: About the parental thing...
« Reply #54 on: July 07, 2016, 02:16:35 PM »
There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be a parent. My older son and his wife have decided not to have kids and I never try to change their minds. I told them it is a really tough job even if you want it badly. So why do it if you don't?  Thankfully now we have choices in these matters.  I wanted my kids badly and spent a ton of time playing with them, etc. Guess what I am now burned out and really could care less about being a grandma-I probably won't be.  I also found I used to have lots of patience but not anymore when I babysat a friend's daughter's daughter. I could not wait for it to be done and now say no.

wenchsenior

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Re: About the parental thing...
« Reply #55 on: July 07, 2016, 02:56:08 PM »
Quote

I don't like children. That's not quite the same thing as actively disliking them by the way. Most childfree women I know seem to feel the need to stress that even though they don't have kids they love their friends' kids or their nieces and nephews etc. I don't. As far as I can tell my niece and nephew are very nice children and remarkably well behaved (remarkable given the way my brother was as a child and the way he parents) but I have no particular desire to spend time with them. I baby sat my nephew once for around 3 hours when he was about 3 it was insanely tedious. Many of my friends have children. I'm happy to be polite and ask about how their kids are etc and now their children are mostly getting older (into the teens) I'm genuinely interested in hearing what they're up to etc but I don't want to spend any time with their kids.

I find out society's default idea that everyone (well all women anyway) should breed completely baffling. There are so many examples of awful parenting that it's impossible for me to understand why anyone would try and convince another person to become a parent unless they really wanted to (and trust me, it's a thing, I've quite often been told things along the lines of "you'll regret it when you're older" or "you can't know true joy if you don't have kids" etc.)

This entire post is spot on. But especially the bolded part. 

I don't dislike kids (as a group) and I don't like them either. I don't particularly like or dislike any age group of people. However, in general I become more interested in people as they age and gain self awareness and life experience, so babies are the least interesting, followed by the toddlers, K-12, teens, etc.

I wasn't interested in most kids even when I MYSELF was a kid LOL.

Kids sometimes actively annoy me with their noise, but that's because I'm noise-sensitive. It's not their fault they are poor communicators and/or play exuberantly; I'll just try to stay away, or possibly bitch to my seatmate a lot on an airplane flight. I'm fine engaging with kids if I have to (I was surprisingly popular with kids that I babysat for) but I'm pretty out of practice now, and don't really care to get back in practice.

Many people DO seem attracted to babies, which I kind of get hypothetically because I find juvenile animals endlessly fascinating (I find animals generally more interesting than people, though I find people interesting, too.) However, I'm mostly unaffected by human babies. They are occasionally amusing and cute, and usually screamy and stinky.  I've taken care of several babies quite intensively, so I can do it competently. I just don't care to do it. No biological clock urge, ever, unless you count my ever present urge to garden and create wildlife habitat.

No big. It's an interest for some people, like any other. Thankfully, humanity has beaten back the biological imperative of the selfish gene with birth control, so now if we aren't interested, we don't gotta!  If you love kids or have always wanted the experience of being a parent, by all means have them if you are in a stable situation. I'm happy to pay some taxes for your kids to be educated.  I'd probably be a perfectly good, invested parent to my own child. But there's several hundred things I would find more hypothetically interesting on any given day than to take care of kids or interact with them.

Now, I AM interested in how parenting affects friends and family, because they are adults in whom I am emotionally invested. But I don't really care about the particulars of the kids themselves or what they are doing. As the kids themselves get older, if they become interesting to me, I'll get invested then. Or not. Just like with all people I know.

Cassie

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Re: About the parental thing...
« Reply #56 on: July 07, 2016, 03:21:19 PM »
I love babies-human and animals so you can count on me to hold one endlessly, etc. I had not thought about that until you mentioned it WS.

 

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