You can smile sweetly and say
"I LOVE children, as long as there someone else's."
That's pretty much exactly what my child-free SIL says. That, and she afraid whe wouldn't like them when they grow up.
I like kids and want some of my own.
But I don't think they're all sweet, all innocent, all wonderful. Many are brats, some have no potential and some have tons. Some are fun and some are tolerable and usually I'm curious to see how they'll turn out. For the most part I regard kids as raw, untamed humans. Eventually they'll grow up to be people.
This opinion of kids lead some people to believe that I don't like them. Not true. I think I'm just a bit more realistic about them.
Why? I have memories going back to about the age of 2. I remember my childhood very well. Many people thought I was this sweet little girl who wouldn't dream of being bad. Oh, they were so
very wrong.
At 4 I teamed up with my brother to con the neighbors into buying Halloween candy (brother paid me in candy ... I
made him pay me or I'd turn him in to Mom). The trick was, he'd ring the doorbell, ask if they wanted to buy and if they said "no" I'd start to cry until they said, "yes."
At 6 I won my first poker game. My brother and cousins played for leftover Halloween candy. There were 3 of them and my brother. Looking to increase the odd of him winning he began teaching me when I was 5. The con was I'd whine and be the little sister asking to play saying I'd "learn real fast." I'd keep whining, and just before the cousins would get the adults involved brother would relent, "reluctently." I'd keep the newbie act up until the end of the game. My winning hand was a royal flush. The cousins were ticked and ran straight to their mom. That was when my mom learned that not only was I a shark at 5-card draw, but I was pretty darn good at black jack too. (I still had trouble shuffling because my hands were too darn small.)
Ages 7 to 15 I was my brother's bank. I was a saver, he was not. So, when he'd want something he'd borrow the money from me. I'd take his CD's and whatever else I wanted as collateral, charged 10% in late fees for everyday he was late (and he was often a month or more late every single time.) I actually didn't have to get a job (even though I did anyway) until I was in college. Oh, and the first time he did complain to mom. When she approached me I showed her our signed agreement (written in crayon) signed by my brother.
At 7 brother and I (see a pattern here?) were very displeased with our baby sitter. She broke a major rule by having her boyfriend come over after my parents left. We never thought our parents would listen to us if we told on her (we were wrong about this), so we decided to drive her away instead. So, brother got his new tape recorder and made a recording of me screaming my lungs out. You know, one of those crazy shrill little-girl screams... And at a predetermined time brother played the recording full blast in the basement while I gave the real thing upstairs. Babysitter goes running in several different directions encoutering all the tape and bristle block booby traps we had set up earlier.
Fortunately I had very patient parents and I did grow out of
most of my criminal tendencies...
All children sweet and innocent? No way.
