But I'm also infinitely grateful that I realized I should never be a parent.

Right there with you. I love my goddaughters to bits, my friends' kids are delightful, but I am very, VERY glad I'm not responsible for any of them 24/7.

I just hate thinking that my own niecephews are not delightful at all.

Signed, I am currently hiding in my room and trying to summon the courage to go out there and engage with them.

Just as blood is no guarantee that your siblings and parents are uplifting people to be around, it doesn't make the allegedly cute members of the family a joy to be with.

OMG, so much whining and yelling.

(Sorry for my own whining, I'm just trying to get it out here so I don't snap).

My friends kids-in theory I like them. But, they are still in the stage where they have no real empathy and it is all about them. Luckily, I am not the parent,so I just find their attempts to manipulate the world kind of funny.

Nothing infuriates me more about kids than whining. Not even the sociopathic gleam in their eye when they deliberately do something bad and grin at you.

They're probably not always assholes, just not finished yet.But that doesn't mean you have to find it amusing when they do dickish things.(when my half=brother Adam was little, and would act up when we were all out together, stepmonster would blame me...that's mean, right?) Considering I didn't give the kid a sharpie& kazoo and a cup of coffee...maybe I should have, we're all estranged anyway!

My go-to with whining is to announce with cheerfulness as soon as it starts that I actually can't hear whining. So, any time it starts, a couple of "What? Did you say something?" ends it quickly.

OMG, so much whining and yelling.

As I parent I couldn't have dealt with that either. When the boys were young we had the retail computer store and they were at the store when not in daycare or school. They always knew that a certain behavior was expected. They didn't really have to go to extremes to get attention either since they were always around so many adults.

Don't get me wrong as they are still assholes, just not unruly ones. The extreme neediness time was pretty short as they seemed to be born independent. The first couple years when I was nursing and they slept with us was of course super needy, but I think they were over it pretty soon thereafter.

The crazy making stuff for me was the constant second guessing decisions. Which school, and stuff like that. The complete lack of gratitude or appreciation for everything and anything done for them gets old too.

Still lived through it so far. It never ends. I think they turned out to be decent humans, although I suspect they will make me crazy into my old age. I still make my mom crazy at 60 so it seems only fair.

I had a huge debate with one of my brainiac elderly friends when I told him that I was trying to have children. He was furious with me because he felt DH and I were wasting out brains and talents with such time consuming matters. Ruining our lives. At 80 yo my son was the first baby he ever held when he came to the hospital to see me. My only point he accepted was that it wasn't a good plan for evolution if only the uneducated and poor had kids.

He was right in many ways. There was little time for adult socializing for quite a number of years. Certainly not the energy for the same level of career devotion either. But I didn't get into the family making business until near 40 so I had plenty of time to accomplish great things if that had been my destiny. And done with it now if I decide to do so in the future.

So, any time it starts, a couple of "What? Did you say something?"

Absolutely. They figure that stuff out. My nephew threw himself into full tantrum mode in my car when I declined his suggestion that I pull into MacDonalds for fries. I looked at him sideways and advised him that that didn't work with me. He never tried it again.