Friday, March 6, 2009

Then Comes the Baby in the Baby Carriage

For a long time I was convinced that I never wanted to have kids. The reason was because I was terribly scared that I would screw them up with my dismal parenting skills. I didn't inherit a lot of skills that my parents have such as cooking, quilting, building houses and I fear that I didn't get that good parenting gene either.

When I adopted muh dawg Chloe (though some say she adopted me), my perspective began to change a little bit. All of a sudden I had this living being who depended on me for everything: food, water, walks, belly rubs etc. While I'm sure having a pet isn't quite comparable to having children, I think it is closer than owning a plant (which I've failed at miserably many a time in my life).

Now that I work with kids every day, my perspective has taken a 180. While I know these kids aren't mine I feel like a parent figure in their lives and reached the point where I refer to them as "my kids". A lot of them have it rough at home. We have several kids from broken homes. Others rarely see their parents because they work multiple jobs or are in Mexico. Others just have really bad parents. I hate to judge people like that, but some of the things these parents do make my heart hurt. It makes me almost buy into the idea that people should be required to get a license before they can become parents. Some people just shouldn't procreate. Interacting with these folks has given me a bit of an ego boost and I feel like I could potentially look like June Cleaver next to them.

At this point in my life, I definitely see myself having kids whether they are biological or foster or adopted. I really admire people who decide to have kids without a partner, but I don't think I could handle that on my own mainly because I cannot discipline to save my life. I am incapable of punishing kids and following through with threats so I would probably have to leave that part up to my husband. Unless I could get Vin Diesel to move in as a full time manny.

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