Do you think you'd would make a good parent? Or if you are one now... did you think you'd be a good parent before you were?
A long time ago, I had a dream that I was a father. I had just witnessed the birth of my child and I couldn't have been happier. I was running through the streets announcing it to everyone I met.
Now this was many many years ago, before I came out (BICO for future reference). I was still living in NCity. There was a lot of change going on in the lives of my friends. I think that a lot of meaning from the dream was dealing with change and change in my own life as well. It really was a new phase in my life. A birth of sorts.
I've wrote before about my thoughts BICO, about having a family of my own one day. In addition to those thoughts of having kids of my own I thought about my interactions with my friends who would be having children. If I couldn't be a Dad myself, I would want to play 'Uncle' to my friends kids and shower them with attention. I could do that.
If I did have kids, hopefully it would've been within a similar time as my friends so that just as I grew up with most of the people that I am close friends with now. Our children could grow up with such life long friends. It was something important that I wanted to make sure my kids had.
Now, here I am. Early-thirties. No kids. And not the 'Uncle' relationship that I would've thought I would have. I don't say that negatively towards my friends who have kids. We're still cool, you guys. ;-) I say it more in a mourning way that I didn't make more of the time at the time.
I've often said that my mind works like a movie. Scenes play out on how I'd like things to be. I often work things up in my head and can be disappointed when they don't play out as the beautiful masterpieces I had envisioned. Things may be great, but I probably imagined it better. It's a fault of mine, I would say.
I would say that I'm not the first person anyone would think of to ever babysit. I think I give off an aloofness towards children that makes people think I don't like kids.
I was an only child for the majority of my life and when I did finally have siblings they didn't live with me. I have not been around many small babies. So learning what to do and how you take care of a small little person is still very very new to me. It wouldn't be something I would want to do by myself. Not at first anyway...
I should stop now before this starts really sounding like a mid-life crisis. It's not. Just had parents on the mind...Labels: children, introspective |
