parenting class

So I went to my first parenting class last night…No I haven’t been that busy since I moved, last week.  I’m not a parent. I have to reassure myself even as I type this. You’re probably wondering why I am in a parenting class. I have to take it as part of my internship for the MSW program at Portland State. It’s a Positive Discipline Class and the tools they teach are valuable in parenting and working with kids in general. It’s interesting though. Part of me sits in the class, so happy that I am NOT a parent; I don’t have to deal with tantrums, naptime, screaming, crying, biting, vomiting, and general defiance. Another part of me wishes that I was a parent, to pour my love into a child that came from my genes and my being. To know that there is a little one walking around that is half me, how cool is that. I felt kind of awkward during the class, surrounded by mama’s and papa’s concerned about their parenting habits and their children while I doodled, listening and relating most of the stories to time I’ve spent with my nephews. 

One of the exercises we did during the class was role-play based and consisted of six adults standing on chairs, yelling awful things to three “kids” who walked around below. They would yell things like, ‘you’re stupid’, ‘leave me alone’, ‘don’t you listen’, ‘you don’t know anything” and the three “kids” who circled below them would quietly say, “I’m just a child. I want to belong.” This might sound silly. I thought it was silly at first, too. But, as I thought about it, it just made me sad. People do say these things to their kids and children just internalize it and feel awful about themselves and they begin to think they don’t belong and that they’re not worth it. Our teacher said, all kids really want/need is to feel that they belong. Isn’t this what all of us really want, to belong, to feel worth it? It just made me think about my actions and words; I would never want someone to think they are not worth it, because they are worh it.  As far as kids go, I do want to be a parent someday, but I am content to be the cool Aunt that I am, to the coolest nephews in the world.