Lately I've been really struggling with the concept that people have children that they don't want or care about.
As I struggle with fertility issues and face the uncertainty over ever being able to have a child, I am working in perhaps one of the worst professions at the moment... teaching.
Don't get me wrong, I love my job. The school is amazing, my bosses are great, I like my coworkers, and I love the kids I teach... but every day I am faced with dozens of kids who I am a surrogate parent to, if for only a moment, and that's hard to handle.
What gets me the most is when parents don't take care of their children properly. I have witnessed cases of abuse and neglect and it makes me so sad. The other day I cried with a girl in the hallway - yes I was crying - as she was crying and telling me how her mother walked out on them and told her that she didn't really want her and that the kids were always in the way of her life. More than anything in the world I want a baby of my own, and here is a woman with four wonderful, beautiful daughters who doesn't want them. What is wrong with some people? All I could do is cry and tell the girl that her mother is crazy not to want to love her and that she is an amazing child who is going to do great things for the world and the people around her. We cried for 10 minutes together and the girl told me that I should have kids because I'd be a great mom.
All I wanted to do was cry harder and feel sorry for myself, but instead I wiped away the tears, said thanks, and went back into my classroom with a big smile on my face... because dammit, for some of these kids, I'm the only adult that shows them that they are worth being alive.
Sometimes the universe is just cruel.
Monday 11 April 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
The universe is not just cruel, it's perverse. How else do you explain the super fertility of people without a parental bone in their body?
One of my friends has a stepdaughter who gave birth as a teenager. She kept the baby because of the money she got for him, but she didn't give a shit about her baby. She'd abandon him at her parents' place for days or weeks at a time and just disappear. In the times when she did "take care" of him, she'd trap him under the bed to keep him from bothering her. The poor little guy is like a feral animal now because he's been so neglected all his life.
Stories like that make me furious. There is no justice.
Post a Comment