I Hate Kids

Ok, that's not entirely accurate. I hate kids as a collective. I like children as individuals, so long as they belong to someone else, and I can give them back when I'm done with them. I really like babies, and can handle them for longer periods of time, but give me more than one of any child ages 2-14, and I will tear my hair out and struggle a serious internal battle between wanting to shake them, and wanting to run.

I know, that makes me a bad person. I can't help it. Just looking at me, you'd never know I dislike your child. I'll play with them, I read to them, I listen to stories and piggyback them around. I've worked as a mentor to children's groups, taught a class to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, and worked as a camp counselor for a summer for grades 3-12.

But they cry, and they whine, and they're loud, and they scream and sulk and need your attention constantly and they're sticky and they want to touch you. Even when I was a child, I disliked that. In third grade, my best friend was a 12th grader.

I like grown children. I like teenagers, and twenty-somethings, and desperately enjoy playing Mom/Mentor/Best Friend/Advisor/Co-conspiritor to people that age. I have a maternal streak a country-mile wide; I just prefer to use it on older children, and people my own age.

I also don't want to have children of my own. *Rolls Eyes* Yeah, yeah, I know. "I'll grow out of that." Whatever. Exhibit A: I've never liked children, nor wanted any of my own, in 21 years. Exhibit B: Due to medical problems, I may not be able to have children. Exhibit C: I want to adopt/foster teenagers. I watched my cousins torn apart in the foster system, because it is impossible to get teenagers adopted.

Why can't I? I like teenagers, I want to be able to make a difference in someone's life, I want to give someone a fighting chance at a good life. So, why is everyone so opposed to me doing this?

Oh, right. Because little kids are cute and cuddly, and I do not like them, therefore I must be a monster. Pfffft. Fine. If you like them so much, you let them put their candy-sticky hands in your hair while they screech at the top of their lungs.