I'm glad my husband and I had 10 years together before we had our son.
It was rough going at first and I thought I had ruined my life.
Now I kind of like the little guy, well, not so little anymore; he's almost 6 feet tall!
The point is that I like the fun parts of parenting. I love playing with kids, reading books to them, even buying their clothing.
I like kids so much that I'm a teacher!
But, the unrelenting marathon of monitoring their food input (and output), monitoring their nightly sleep needs, monitoring their health, dealing with chronic and acute medical conditions, monitoring their schooling, providing transportation, the requirement to monitor his whereabouts every minute of every day. It's the Management of Every Facet of Another Person's Life that is wearing. I could only do it for one child. Thinking of having another was too exhausting.
However, the older they get, the more of this work transfers to the child himself. My teenager doesn't have to be supervised every minute. He is able to feed himself, wash his own clothes, get up on his own and get himself to school on time, and take his meds. I still have to monitor these things, but the 24/7 nature of parenting has lessened over time. This has reduced much of the stress of parenting and I have more emotional energy to bond with him than ever before. I love him more and more and more and now I am looking at letting him go in a couple more years. It's just heartbreaking.
I've come to realize that what I like most about parenting is meeting a new person and giving him the tools to be an independent person. It's a thankless job, and if you do it right, you work yourself out of a job. For me, it's about helping him grow up. I feel that way as a teacher, too. My job is to help them learn and grow, and at the end of the school year, to be one more year closer to independence.
There's a new person in the world. He looks like me. He looks like my husband. But, he's his own person.
And I'm unleashing him on the world in 2 years!