[NeuroBeautiful]

I've always wanted children but I have a trauma history that would probably lead me to only doing foster care or adopting but I cannot do that because like others have said I dont feel confident in my emotional regulation, energy and all that it takes. I don't feel emotionally or mentally healthy enough. But sometimes I think, how bad can it be if my sisters think our father is "the best dad ever" and that's a low standard. So if I am better than the generation before me, maybe that's good enough? I can be hard on myself and perfectionistic though and want to be an excellent parent, an excellent human being and for any future children I am responsible for to know they're truly loved with the healthy kind of love.

I have a lot of intergenerational curses that I need to break so to speak and I would hope that at minimum that if I raise a child and as a human would be, am not perfect and make mistakes along the way that they grow up to see me as overall someone who cared and someone who was a healthy grownup and role model in their life and someone who overall raised them properly and well. I think the task is overwhelmingly challenging for someone like me but very important too.

Even more so would be kids who are being adopted or fostered because they can be coming into my home with trauma and emotional wounds whereas a baby born through pregnancy has a somewhat of a fresher start. So for these kids who were in the child welfare/foster care system, I would need to not only know how to raise a child properly but also have the executive functioning and extra emotional and mental skills/energy to maybe take them to social workers and therapies and interact with their bio parents and all that stuff that comes with it. I would need to know how to deal with kids having trauma reactions and behavior challenges that are greater than kids who did not experience these things.


Also I've always had a dream of homeschooling my children if I were to have any but there would be a lot of work on my part as a person first. I would also make sure I am not being selfish and if my child was one of the kids in the world who truly enjoys school I would send them to school. But I know for many kids, school is not a good environment for them and that homeschooling works better and by homeschooling I mean it loosely. I dont mean sitting at home all day doing schoolwork at the kitchen table and having no friends.

I am currently at a crossroad in my career as a teacher because I am finding it so hard to do such an emotionally demanding job with all my own emotional stuff I carry with me. And it influences me to lean on not wanting to have kids because I say if I need to quit teaching, step away or take a hiatus etc that may be acceptable because I am an employee and even when I am doing all I can to last through to the end of the year because I feel strongly about sticking out the year for the sake of my students having stability. But with parenting, I cannot take on the responsibility of raising a child and then quit or realize ooopsies it is too much work! That's what scares me! And teaching is sooooooo hard and stressful and kids can be mean and triggering and the school environment is stressful on its own and coworkers are stressful but when you are a parent, you can't back down because life is stressful!

and I am just thinking of all the years I've been working with children and by that I mean 10 years in formal work and many more informally because part of my family dysfunction is that I was a caretaker so in a way it is second nature. And that's not to mention the volunteer jobs and other jobs I had working with teens and adults too. But I have made lot of mistakes and not everyone was so forgiving or had given me grace or understood how hard it was and how tied my hands were. And it's hard because kids gravitate towards me and want my attention but to parent is a whole other level. To be a teacher is also a whole other level. It isn't just let's play a fun game and then if you need your mom, she is right here reading a book and can intervene.

I am very scared of responsibility because of what i've been through. I know I can do it but it often leaves me depleted for days after. I know i can step up when I am called to for survival reasons or to save someone else but resposnibilities often make me feel like there's a crisis because of how overwhelmed I get. I can do it in the moment but I need time to recover and with kids you may not get a chance to recover unless you're good at executive functioning, setting boundaries and a lot of other things that I am still working on.