Child or No Child?

Once, a friend asked how many children I would like to have in my family. At the time, I said that I always saw myself surrounded by five children and the oldest was a boy.

In a recent conversation with another friend, we discussed about having a child of our own. This time I said to this friend that if and when I finally get married, I think I don't want to get pregnant and have a child of my own. It's no longer my priority.

It is not a health issue. Many doctors say that nowadays 40yro women could be pregnant and deliver babies as safely as 30yro ones. It is more to my personal moral-responsibility. When you decide to deliver a person to this world, you'd better take a great responsible to raise him to become a good person.

At the moment, I have a little boy in my care. Although not my own, I always consider him as a part of my life. Through him, I have learnt how many patience I have to care for a child, to raise the little one become a good person....and it is very limited....hehehe... My mom is the one who teach the little one, from learning to read and count till studying Geographic. Her patience is so great, because the little one is not the easiest person to teach. I'm very thankful that Mom is still in a great shape in her old days, still be able to teach high school mathematics to the little one, while most of them has lost me...hehehe... Of course, I can't depend on her to be able to teach my next offspring, right? It is not fair for her....

In my dream, at age 40 and married, I should have been free from caring little children. Instead, I should be able to concentrate in building (or re-building) a sweet relationship with my better-half. So, I hope women won't say that I'm not fulfilling my destiny as a woman....I'll fight you over the "destiny" thing....hehehe... On the other side, I hope my better-half will agree with my principal, that I won't put my marriage on the urge to keep on our heredity.

Parental Influence in me

One day, a young friend asked me which parent that  influenced my life mostly. This is not a first time for me facing that such of question. Indeed, I always give it a serious thought in answering it every time.

Usually, I said that neither Mom or Dad gave any strong influence to me. I barely have any similarity in the way of thinking or seeing something. And although Mom has always been within my reach all my life, I'm not close enough to her to make it easier for me to interact with her.

I used to think that books and magazines had influenced my way of thinking and acting. Because since 10 years old, I've spent most of my learning time by reading. Learn about myself, about entering adolescent, about choices and consequences in life.

Today, I read this quote from a discussion in a website:

There are many ways that parents can influence their children.  I would say that these tend to fall into two categories -- children can choose to pattern themselves after what they see their parents do or they can choose to avoid being like their parents.

In large part, we as children are shaped by what we see our parents do and how we see them act.  I know that I have tried to model myself after my parents in many ways because I think they have done many things right.

On the other hand, there are things that I think they have done wrong and I consciously try to avoid doing those things.  But either way, the way I live my life has been influenced by them.

And.....whammmm!!!!....I realized that it had happened on me. Subconsciously, I had chosen to avoid being like my parents. I don't know how it had happened in the first place. Maybe the distance between my parents and I had made me turned to books and other references to look up for answers. But, not only I got the answers, I also got various information about seeing life. Maybe from those reference I could disagree to the way my parents handle things.

I guess it's right. More or less, my parents has helped me shaped my own life. Regardless I model myself after them, or try to avoid become them at all. And in all, books and parents played the same role in building myself as I am now.