I've lurked for a while but this which I discovered tonight prompted me to sig up to post.
I lurked a lot - mainly because I once followed a link from another site that took me here. I ever signed up as I have no children and will not have any. The main reason I wot have children is because I only get them when they get to about 9/10 when I ca start having a conversation with them. I am a great Auntie to my friends children, even when small - but then I can hand them back to mummy when they get to the irritating stage. People tell me it would be different with my ow but I am not going to risk it for the sake of the child - especially as my only ever thought of one is "who will look after me when I'm old" - which is not a good reason to have kids.
So why do I lurk on here.......I enjoy the topics and the completely opposite views to other forums I use and my working life (I'm a project manager working in large IT systems - which is another reason I would not have kids - its not compatible with the job I love). And I do not mean that in a patronising - oh how cute - way.
Fact is, eve though not a mother I think back to my child hood and think my mother did a damn fine job raising me. My relative antipathy to children is probably because I was 20 years younger than my nearest cousin and an only child I never had much exposure to younger kids (in fact none at all). It had nothing to do with the way I was brought up.
However, even though I was i school after the ban on corporal punishment, my mother supported a teacher who slapped me and I got roasted before she even kew what I did on the grounds that if it drove the teacher to slap me it had to be bad. I had tried to set fire to another girls hair with a bunsen burner in retaliation for her trying to smash my foot with a stiletto. I deserved everything I got. Said teacher ended up being my favourite science teacher.
A lot of parenting interests me to the extent I end up suffering from the adverse effects of it. e.g. was in tesco and some toddler was proddling my produce so I asked him politely to stop. I then asked the mother politely to stop him and got told he was expressing himself. When he shoved his thumb right into my peach, I suggested she stop him or I would find a way to stop him. I was accused of being rude and intolerant. Turns out she was the fiance of the local chief inspector and I got a caution under section 4 of the public disorder act as "she stop him or I would find a way to stop him" made her feel I had threatened her rugrat with physical violence.
So this is a bit log winded but it gives you an idea of why I am lurk here (other than being a science/maths tutor to GCSE and A level students!).
I may start posting more as sometimes I am dumbfounded by some of the things parents get worked up over which were non issues for me and my family! But I may not as I may get flamed!