"I'm glad being a parent brings you such happiness. It certainly shows in the way you speak about your child. Frankly I'd feel better about the whole thing if more parents showed as much joy as you do. As Ghandi might say, the reason I don't become a parent is because I have known too many parents."
It really does, even when she drives me up the wall and sometimes she does. But then she will turn around and simply amaze me with her insight or generousity.
There were things that I did, rules that I decided upon when I had my daughter that were delibrately different than how my parents raised me. So I know I made some mistakes, which we both survived intact, but at least they were MY mistakes and not the ones I felt my parents made with me.
I don't think you ever truly know how you are going to react to a situation until it happens, and many people told me that having my daughter would change my life in ways I couldn't imagine and I have found that to be turn. I think how a person handles those changes makes all the difference in the world.
I made career decisions based on the fact that I was a single parent, choosing to avoid a line of work I found interesting and was pasionate about, or by not accepting jobs that were too unyieldingly demanding of my time. I don't regret it, I can still chase that career if I want too when my daughter is older, but now I have other things that drive me which are perhaps a better path for me in the long run.
That said, I am not sure that there is any perfect time to have kids, I think they come when they do, often at the most inconvenent or inopportune time. In Europe it is very common to wait into your late thirties and early forties to have children, most of my friends did. I think its mostly about what works for you and only you truly know what that is.
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Date: 2006-03-17 05:07 pm (UTC)It really does, even when she drives me up the wall and sometimes she does. But then she will turn around and simply amaze me with her insight or generousity.
There were things that I did, rules that I decided upon when I had my daughter that were delibrately different than how my parents raised me. So I know I made some mistakes, which we both survived intact, but at least they were MY mistakes and not the ones I felt my parents made with me.
I don't think you ever truly know how you are going to react to a situation until it happens, and many people told me that having my daughter would change my life in ways I couldn't imagine and I have found that to be turn. I think how a person handles those changes makes all the difference in the world.
I made career decisions based on the fact that I was a single parent, choosing to avoid a line of work I found interesting and was pasionate about, or by not accepting jobs that were too unyieldingly demanding of my time. I don't regret it, I can still chase that career if I want too when my daughter is older, but now I have other things that drive me which are perhaps a better path for me in the long run.
That said, I am not sure that there is any perfect time to have kids, I think they come when they do, often at the most inconvenent or inopportune time. In Europe it is very common to wait into your late thirties and early forties to have children, most of my friends did. I think its mostly about what works for you and only you truly know what that is.