I don’t know, I see where you’re coming from, but I still I think I stand by the data I got from babysitting when I was younger — which reinforced my existing preference against having children. True, I never babysat any particular kids at a deep enough level of involvement to really fall in love with them, but I did have some affection for them. What I noticed was:
I lacked the energy to keep up with a kid between the ages of 0 and 12 and keep them entertained. I physically could not play tag or keep up doing something entertaining for a baby because I was so exhausted, and the kids would get disappointed. (I later figured out this was related to chronic illness.) This did not seem promising, since I know parenting is much more exhausting than babysitting.
As a teenager, that was the first time I was exposed to the emotional weaknesses of adults. In particular, the mom who I babysat for most was incredibly insecure and often pretty depressed, and her two children were, respectively, violently misbehaved and anxious. As someone familiar with depression, general lack of energy, and insecurity/imposter syndrome, it seemed to me that raising kids to be well-adjusted was too difficult a task for me. Twelve years later I am married and I still stand by this — steering a child right is so hard and uncertain and that’s just too scary for me.
Also, my sister, who at that age already knew she wanted kids, loved babysitting. Even with the terrible children who she had to look after for 12 hours a day, who smeared poop on the walls and hit their baby siblings, she found it really rewarding to spend time with them and try to improve their behavior. She went on to work in a daycare and then run an after-school program, and she found she liked childcare for every age 0 to 18.
And now she’s somewhere in between babysitting and coparenting our best friend’s kid and it’s only strengthened her desire to have one of her own as soon as possible. I was also around in the early months of that kid’s life (but couldn’t stay around since I live elsewhere), and I love her and she loves me, but it didn’t make me any more inclined to have kids of my own. If anything it made me less inclined, since now I can have (what I see as) all the good parts of having a kid — being involved in a kid’s life from birth onwards, having some real influence on them, and loving and being loved by them as part of a family — without the pressure of the way the kid turns out being on my shoulders, and without having to give up a major amount of time and autonomy for the rest of my life.
I don’t know, I see where you’re coming from, but I still I think I stand by the data I got from babysitting when I was younger — which reinforced my existing preference against having children. True, I never babysat any particular kids at a deep enough level of involvement to really fall in love with them, but I did have some affection for them. What I noticed was:
I lacked the energy to keep up with a kid between the ages of 0 and 12 and keep them entertained. I physically could not play tag or keep up doing something entertaining for a baby because I was so exhausted, and the kids would get disappointed. (I later figured out this was related to chronic illness.) This did not seem promising, since I know parenting is much more exhausting than babysitting.
As a teenager, that was the first time I was exposed to the emotional weaknesses of adults. In particular, the mom who I babysat for most was incredibly insecure and often pretty depressed, and her two children were, respectively, violently misbehaved and anxious. As someone familiar with depression, general lack of energy, and insecurity/imposter syndrome, it seemed to me that raising kids to be well-adjusted was too difficult a task for me. Twelve years later I am married and I still stand by this — steering a child right is so hard and uncertain and that’s just too scary for me.
Also, my sister, who at that age already knew she wanted kids, loved babysitting. Even with the terrible children who she had to look after for 12 hours a day, who smeared poop on the walls and hit their baby siblings, she found it really rewarding to spend time with them and try to improve their behavior. She went on to work in a daycare and then run an after-school program, and she found she liked childcare for every age 0 to 18.
And now she’s somewhere in between babysitting and coparenting our best friend’s kid and it’s only strengthened her desire to have one of her own as soon as possible. I was also around in the early months of that kid’s life (but couldn’t stay around since I live elsewhere), and I love her and she loves me, but it didn’t make me any more inclined to have kids of my own. If anything it made me less inclined, since now I can have (what I see as) all the good parts of having a kid — being involved in a kid’s life from birth onwards, having some real influence on them, and loving and being loved by them as part of a family — without the pressure of the way the kid turns out being on my shoulders, and without having to give up a major amount of time and autonomy for the rest of my life.