It’s been a weekend of fireworks in the having kids verses not having kids debate after Andrea Leadsom reportedly claimed she said she would make a better Prime Minister than Theresa May because she is a mother.
Mrs Leadsom reportedly said in an interview with The Times that the Home Secretary must be “really sad” about not being able to have children.
She also said that as a mother her two sons and one daughter will “directly be part of what happens next”.
*”I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake,” she said. The alleged comments came just days after Mrs May spoke of her sadness at being unable to have children.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Mrs May says that she hopes voters won’t judge her for her inability to have children.
She admits that she likes to keep her “personal life personal” and says that she and her husband Philip “dealt with” the fact they couldn’t have children and “moved on”.
She adds: “I hope nobody would think that mattered. I can still empathise, understand people and care about fairness and opportunity.”
All of this debate lead to me asking myself:
Does being a parent make you a better person?
As a parent of two little ones I have to be honest – I really don’t think it makes you any better than anyone else, but it does change you. As with all things parenting – it really is a personal thing. Every child is different and every parent is different. Some parents enjoy every single moment of parenthood, while others may struggle or indeed hate the choice they made to have children.
Parenting is the hardest, stressful, yet incredibly rewarding thing that many of us will do in our lives. Even for the most calmest of people, parenting on tough days, can test limits and push us right to the edge of mental and physical abilities.
Parenting makes you more aware of your actions: With great parenting comes great responsibility (I’m sure that’s a spiderman quote in there somewhere.) Little eyes are on you, watching you all the time, and so there’s this enormous pressure to behave in a certain way. This increased accountability as parents, makes us change the behaviour of how we were before kids, keeps us in line in a way, and even (for some) makes us give up bad habits through fear of our own little ones following our lead.
Of course I know this isn’t the case for every parent, but for the majority – I’d say it’s so.
Having said this – I don’t think it’s just having children that makes you change the partying, carefree ways of youth. I think at a certain age (usually around the time when friends are having children and ‘settling down’) most people naturally ‘settle down’. I think at a certain age, we just can’t keep up with the staying up all night, every night, and working the next day. Usually at this point there’s more responsibility career wise, or more financial responsibility – such as owning a car or property.
Parenting teaches you patience: As a parenting expert (or ninja as I like to think I’ve become over the years,) even I struggle with patience thing. It is becoming a parent that has taught me that sometimes, you have to take a breath, count to ten, and just wait.
And wait a bit more.
Becoming a parent teaches you patience you never thought you had. Whether you’re waiting for a 4 year old to do the zip on their coat ‘because I can do it all by myself mummy’ or that freshly-filled-poocano-nappy from your baby, when you are running late and just about to head out of the door, parenting will require more patience of you than any other role in your life. (Unless you actually work with children of course!)
Parenting makes you give more of a shit: Ok – this isn’t saying that if you don’t have kids you don’t give a shit, this for me means I care more. As a parent, when bad stuff happens in the world, it’s not just you it effects anymore. It’s your little darlings. For me, it’s made me pay more attention to the news. I take so much more notice. At the moment for example, the world has gone a little crazy right? The crazy makes me feel pretty scared for my children. After all – this is (partly) our generations mess, and this is their future. So I actively do all I can to make a difference, to make them aware of how important it is to behave towards others around them – respect others no matter their colour, religion, race, or whatever – and to be kind.
Parenting makes you plan better: Before children I took each day as it came. If I fancied going out for dinner – I’d go. No babysitter required. No planning in advance needed.
Holidays was just me and my husband. Two suitcases and two weeks of waking up late and not planning – just doing. With kids – it’s a whole new world. There’s diaries (don’t get me started on the school parties, play dates, doctors and dentist appointments and school events) There is no flying by the seat of your pants – oh no. Big mother chucking action plans.
In a way I hate that side of it all, but on the other hand – it has made me far more organised. I’m a much better timekeeper now (just ask my old bosses how often I was late and they’ll laugh!)
Parenting hasn’t made me a better person – it’s made me a different person, and I like the differences. It hasn’t made me better than someone without children. Just like someone without children is no better than me.
We all make informed choices in life, some of us decide to become parents, some of us don’t, some of us have that choice taken away and so I really think the ‘having kids verses not having kids’ debates really have no place in our time.
July 11, 2016
Leave a Reply