Dyslexics of the World Untie!

Have I mentioned I'm a workaholic? Actually, work has been going really good lately. I've even been able to come home on a regular basis before 6 o'clock (most days). The Thanksgiving break really gave me a chance to get caught up on a few things and Christmas is only a week and a half away!

Had an epiphany this week regarding school and other things.

Let's start out with a brief work history:
In high school, my evening job was working an afterschool program till 6 and the nursery (as in babies, not plants) until 9.

Then I went to A&M, where I started working at a recreation center my junior year of college- a job that totally changed my life.

I graduated, moved to San Diego and ran a school program at an inner-city elementary school for about 5 years.

In between that job and my becoming an elementary school teacher there was a brief stint as a pediatric nurse.

The whole point of this rant is that over the last 16 years, about 12 of those I've been working with kids. And out of those 12, 8 were working with the poorest of the poor kids.

But, in essence, kids are kids. You either can relate to them or you can't, and, generally, and my immature sense of humor seems to help. I've been thinking about it this week, and I think I've figured something out. Working with kids has made me train myself to see something good in every personality. I even find myself saying to people, you'll love this person. Then, to my surprise, my friends (as in long-time ones) end up hating him/her. I couldn't figure it out until I started realizing how much I work at finding something in every kid that I can relate to or just plain enjoy.

I guess that's a lot easier to do when you don't have your own kids. I've known for a while that having kids may not be the best idea for me. Even in college, I loved my job, and, like I said, it changed my life, but I often appreciated the fact that when I left that job, the kids stayed there and I didn't. I figured that later on in life, this would pass. That I'd get to a point where I was willing to put myself second to another little life that depended on me.

But as I've gotten older, that still hasn't changed. Putting myself second has become some kind of joke to me. Are you kidding me? Me- Second?

Work is one thing, and having a job I can throw 12 hours of my day into makes me happier than most things in life. But one of the things I love most about giving all of myself at that job is that I can walk away from it at the end of the day and really concentrate on that other parts of my life, which, in an essence, are myself and my needs as an individual.

In other relationships, I've always floundered to the thoughts of my significant other and believed as they did, that making a family would be the next step in making a marriage complete. What was I thinking? I guess because I truly love kids, in a lot of ways it made sense to me that I should be a mom. For a while, I even got off of birth control so that when we decided it was time to conceive, my body would be ready.

Now it has become clear to me that being a mom is not only not in the cards, it's not a good idea.

Let's face it: I'm a selfish person. I don't mind saying that when I really want or need something and I don't get it, it bothers me. A lot. Especially if I've worked hard to get it and I deserve it.

With kids, though, everything that you want and need comes second to them. And that's how it should be. But I'm just at the point where I can finally say without any shame- I don't want to be a parent.
There's guilt in saying that, even now, even at 32, when I know there shouldn't be.
And I even that out in my head by saying, I give a lot to kids right now. I dedicate myself to giving them not only an education but the ability to deal with life in better ways. And that, I'm not sure if I could do as a parent. Not consistently, anyway.

My dad was a wonderful man. He gave his whole life up to be a good father, and my needs were always first before his. I can't think of one mistake that man made, ever, as a father.
On the flip side, there's my mom, who never could seem to grasp that motherhood was a full-time job. She was pissed about that. A lot.
It's funny to me now that she was pissed everytime she had to take me to school or fix me dinner. As a child that hurt, and I blamed myself for her being unhappy so much. Now I have a great relationship with my mom, and I think a big part of that is because I'd be pissed, too. It's so clear to me now why she felt the way she did. Because she gave in against her own better judgment.

Wow, I don't know where all of this came from. It was supposed to be a funny blog about how I like people that no one else likes simply because I've trained myself to see something good in all kids. That ability is something I've now learned to carry over to big people, too. But geez, this blog was like some kind of purging. Who feels better?
Oh well, I guess it needed to be out there, and now it is.







Peace. And I mean that, man.

-MM