I enjoy hanging out with my nieces and nephews. Whether they be related by blood, or related by long-time friendship with their parents. I feel like this generation of kids will initially be very confused due to the sheer number of non-related uncles and aunties. Imagine a kid telling his teacher that’s he’s got 10 uncles, but in reality only two are his mother’s brothers.
Young kids have almost infinite amount of creativity and exploration. They are capable of imagining anything to be anything. That stool by the kitchen can be a Dunkin’ Donuts for the Hot Wheels cars to park at and eat. As an adult I do my best to humor them, even though the logical side of my brain keeps internally reminding me how absurd it is. The last thing I want to do is to crush a kid’s imagination. Let someone else inform them that Santa is not a real person.
I found that continually humoring a kid gets tiring for me. I guess I live too much in the logical world. It gets frustrating to keep up with the charade, especially when the kid demands input from you. Perhaps I don’t yet have the patience for child-rearing, because I cannot fathom having to do this all the time.
As of right now, I reckon I’m still too selfish to have children of my own. The tradeoffs and sacrifices that comes with child-rearing is not something I am willing to give. Is that being a bad citizen of the world? If anything, blame the modern first-world for providing so much optionality. I’d probably had kids a long time ago if I were stuck in a farm with zero entertainment, and engined transportation is were only a dream.
Don’t be so quick to judge the parents who merely stick their kids with an iPad. The demands for attention from children can be insatiably overwhelming.
Perched.