Abecedarian

Children.

I'm not really sure how I think about children. Sometimes I think I want children, but I don't want to really raise children. I don't need to add that sort of life and death responsibility to my life any time soon.

I'm not good at teaching people things. I usually do things myself rather than tell someone how to do it. When you are trying to show you're child how to walk, you can't just sit him or her back down and say "Forget it! I'll do it!" and then walk a few paces.

Perhaps the hardest thing about raising a kid is letting them learn how to fix their own problems. After you get used to teaching them everything they need to know, you want toi step in and keep doing the job you think you've been appointed. However, you can't teach your kids how to be tough, how to rely on themselves, and how to deal with pressure by fixing everything for them. That seems to be the problem a lot of parents have now. They mollycoddle their children. They give them everything they need. In return, their children barely acknowledge their good fortune and just become huge pricks. These children think they are untouchable because they don't personally deal with reprocussions. Parents like this send their kids off to college and let them spend several years as an undeclared student. Meanwhile, the kid has no job, no outside responsibility, and no motivation to learn anything.

I went to a school with a lot of these kinds of pricks.

Being a parent just seems too heartbreaking. Your kids start off cute and needy, go to obnoxious, then less cute and obnoxious, then smart and obnoxious, then they sleep on your couch after graduation until things "fall into place." All the time you grow old, uncool, and out of touch. You get pains as your body deteriorates. The bills stack up since you have to pay for everything. You get fat and sedendary.

Maybe I just don't want to get old. Maybe I'm selfish. I'd like to think that it's my way of not screwing up another person's life by being their dad.