Two is Enough is the featured book in The Childfree Life (TCFL) goodreads.com book club this month and next. I am joining in the discussions when I can and in one discussion on the chapter on assumptions two women had commented that people always said they would be a good parent. One is a teacher and she wrote "Parent as a noun is common...it is the parent as a verb that is the hard part."
She was a sought-after babysitter when she was young but always though she’d make a better mentor or teacher than a parent.
I really identified with these comments. I wanted to be a teacher when I was a kid and the kids I babysat always requested that I be asked to baby sit again, but I never wanted to be a parent. So I posted this comment:
We get the "You'd be such great parents" or "Oh you guys are they type of people who should have kids" too.
I'm sure we could manage to be successful parents IF WE WANTED TO.
The WANT is what is missing.
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2 comments:
Yes! I am a teacher and feel this completely! I love teaching, but don't want to raise children. Teaching them all day, 5 days a week is challenging enough. I like my role as a teacher/mentor.
I get this one a lot.
Close friends are not so shallow as to suggest our lives would be unfulfilled without children (they know otherwise) or that there's something wrong with us for not wanting them (they know who we are).
But the comment that we'd make great parents (and the unsaid remainder, so therefore we should surely have them) is considered fair game.
I reckon I'd be good at many different things. I've been told I'd be a good counsellor, I reckon I'd be good at events organisation, I am sure I could rock a lot of different things, whether they are jobs or something else.
But that doesn't mean I want to do them!!!
I know I'd be a good parent. That's not being bigheaded, it's an assessment of my personality and strengths and weaknesses.
I didn't decide not to have kids because I thought I'd be crap at it, but because I didn't want to!
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