This is my entry for the May 31st 2008 edition of the Thinking Parents Wiki.

The topic for this edition was: What Would You Be Doing Right Now If You Had No Kids?

It seems to me that one way to rephrase that question would be: What would you be like today if parenthood had not changed you?

I guess there are probably a few parents out there that were unchanged by parenthood. Although I think they are few and far between, and probably they are just resisting the change or denying that it is happening. Most parents that I talk to seem to be utterly changed by parenthood. After kids, your outlook changes and your values change. Look at this old post of mine to see the huge changes that occurred in me.

So the question becomes, what would I be doing right now if those huge events of having children and giving birth had not happened?

For one thing, I’d probably be like most of the childless people I know and I’d have absolutely no clue what life with children is like. I’d spend time talking to other single people about how parents should really just take control of their children. Enforce the rules! Be consistent! I’d sit in some coffee house or restaurant rolling my eyes at all the horrible parents with their scrubby-looking children. (Actually, I do that now, but mostly I do it with the emotionally abusive parents, and the kids that are literally eating their own boogers. And only in family restaurants. If I didn’t have kids, I’d dish out the criticism to parents with kids that do anything other than sit still and smile.) I’d practice saying, “Why don’t they just get a babysitter?” regularly.

As far as careers, I have no idea where I would be right now. Before kids, I hated working at most every job I have ever had. I have gone through many stumbling career paths. I lasted about 7 days at Wendy’s and 3 days busing tables at a local restaurant. I hated publishing, and the 2 years I spent on that endeavor were wasted. Teaching was OK, but I always felt that most days I was just wasting everyone’s time (an inkling of unschooling even then!).  Oh! I know what I would be doing! I’d be a chef. I would serve fancy, pretty little meals, hardly enough to count as a bite, to people in small snooty restaurants. And if I ever came out to mingle with the masses, we would all roll our eyes in unison at all the snotty little kids and their inept parents. “Why don’t they just get a babysitter?!”

If the current me saw the me without kids, I don’t think I’d like myself much. But then again, on one of those hard days of parenthood, I dream of escaping to that world of pre-parenthood. “Why don’t we just get a babysitter?” Ah well….there’s no going back. My kids are by my side to stay, and overall, I am better for it.