The person that asks me the most why I have not had kids is the one that should know the reason why. At 12 years old I was playing mom to two younger brothers after my father left to create another family. I did the cooking, picking them up from school, changing diapers and making sure they were dressed while my mom worked. After a while I became the person that had to go to attend the parent-teacher meetings if the teacher didn’t speak English and try my hardest to attend their sporting events. So in my eyes I am done raising my kids at the good age of 28. I have gone through the custody trials by translating the documents and even having to go through the agony of having my father take my brothers away from us on Christmas day. I have seen the struggle in it all and no desire to repeat it again. I feel like as a woman I have to fulfill a duty to have children but I think of all that hard work that I have already partially gone through and I sigh. I have tried to show my brothers a good path by not doing drugs and attending college and despite that they have done what they wanted to do. I am literally exhausted by all that and childrearing is still going on despite the fact that they are grown boys. To think that if I have my own the pain of them someday trying a drug and not finishing high school will be intensified by a 1,000 just discourages me. To even imagine that I may be the one saying awful things to my children also hurts. To hear from my mom that she wants to go back to El Salvador because we are not listening to her, although I am the one that has two jobs, graduated college and helped her with these boys, for lack of better words it just burns. I have already had a parent that left me for us not being “good children” if another one would like to take that plunge be my guest. But then don’t try to ask me why I don’t want to have children. In all honestly it just comes down to not wanting to hurt like that or instill that pain upon anyone else. Parents don’t burden your children with your problems let them enjoy their life. They did not ask to be here, you created them. If you do not have the means to raise kids and expect them to grown and take care of you simply don’t have any. I am not saying my mother is a bad mom. I think she was a great mom, she provided for us and we had everything we wanted. I just wish she would stop thinking that it did not affect me, because it did. The reason why I have an education and work is because of the responsibilities that my brothers did not have. Hence, the reasons they think responsibility does not exist. I have learned to deal with stressful situations in order to not burden others and think before I say something hurtful. I think I grew up a little too quickly and I am still waiting to discover if that was a good or bad thing. Things for me come a little bit more difficult, parenting and marriage have to be constantly be put under a microscope and analyzed. I wish I could just welcome them like many others do, but given my past it is very hard to do.
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