The Reluctant Parent

THE RELUCTANT PARENT

Working with kids as an educator and youth pastor, I have encountered parents from time to time who have admitted that they did not want children, don’t like parenting or even that they don’t like their children.   I try to be understanding, my wife and I have two boys, we home educated them and honestly we were sad to see them move on.  Empty nesting is a depressing condition for us, so to hear this from a parent is a mystery I want to unwrap. 

I have long held that the point of most significant growth for me as a human being was becoming a father.   I have several friends that for various reasons chose not to have children, that I thought would have made great parents.  Because they choose career, rejected the idea of being parents or perhaps, most sadly, were unable to conceive for medical or physical reasons or were unable to find a mate --to me they seemed a bit stunted.  Children change you, they enrich you.  They draw us out of some of our reckless selfishness, I think, and give us a cause greater than ourselves.

When a mom says she hates her kids, I scratch my head.   When a father says he doesn’t want visitation after the divorce, when I hear a mother disown her daughter, ask me to “fix her kid” or overhear a conversation that includes the words “I never wanted kids, I wish you had not been born” I am shocked, but it no longer leaves me speechless.  Sometimes these are words spoken in anger or decisions made out of spite.  While this is regrettable and can leave lifelong scars, it is not a crime.  It is the cases where there is true sustained neglect or abuse that concern me.  Honestly, I wish judges would remove children permanently from the criminally negligent.  That negligence should be carefully defined, with a three strikes clause, so that even family could use this system to correct a course.  I believe that the problem is epidemic, especially among the less educated.  There are so many parents that have willfully decided to not parent or raise their child responsibly and this is the reason for many of the problems with crime and education failures in inner cities.  That is not who I am talking about, however.  

I am referring to people who have decided that parenting is simply not for them, there is resentment in having children, because it represented a loss of freedom, an inconvenience or because it is a reminder of a poor choice in timing or partner.  These are not people who are ignorant of adoption options, or are financially unable to provide for children.  They have decided that they don’t like kids.  They don’t want kids.  There is resentment, not enrichment.  I want to explain to them that children don’t get to pick their parents either but learn to play the hand they are dealt or learn to tolerate their lot in life until they can move on independently.  I want to remind them that there are no perfect parents and no perfect children.  The fact is that have a certain selfishness and ambition that is not conducive to parenting.   Sad how some desperately want children in this world and some that desperately do not want children.  If only we could get these people together.