Parenting

On October 8th, 2005 I married the best husband a girl could ask for. On October 8th, 2005 the questions of "are you going to have kids" started.
It is five years later and I do not yet have kids. It took me five years to get to the point where I know want to have kids.
I am happy that I've been married for five years without having children. We have had an AWESOME five years together and look forward to FIFTY more awesome years together. Here is my feelings on parenting.
I am going to be an AWESOME parent because I've been around so many NOT awesome parents. If I have done nothing right in my life, the one thing I will do right is raising my children. Here are some of the reasons why:
1. My kids diets will not consist of pop and candy. I grew up with every meal, drinking milk. I LOVE milk. No, I'm not talking Chocolate milk. I would chose regular ole' white milk over chocolate any day. As a kid and now. I'm so disgusted with parents who pump their kids full of pop! Why?! Why would you fill your children with chemicals that aren't good for them? It's one thing to pump yourself full of garbage but why would you do it to your children?
2. Two days ago I saw a 5-6 year old boy sitting on a bike, with training wheels. He was with his dad. They were walking home from Wesco Gas Station. Both of them were holding GIANT fountain pops, slurping away at them. They were walking down the sidewalk. By walking down the sidewalk I mean the father was walking, slurping on his pop while holding the handlebar of the boy, PULLING him along as the boy sat on his bike seat, both hands wrapped around his giant pop, slurping away. Apparently kids don't even have to pedal anymore.
3. Which brings me to my next point; when I was a kid, probably starting around 6 or 7. I'd hop on my bike and ride it to the park everyday, I had lemonade stands with my friends, Played board games, Hopscotch, Jump rope, Rode scooters, played in the yard, built forts in the woods, had water balloon fights. I was always out with friends riding our bikes around. You don't see that anymore! Playgrounds are nearly empty, bikes seem obsolete. These kids don't even leave the house anymore. Why? Why when you can jump on facebook, play XBox, text message your friends. Why on earth would you need to go out and PLAY or SEE your friends, or go to a playground where there's so many things you can do from your bedroom or family room?!
4. Greg and I went out for chinese last night. (Whoohoo for Friday nights!) There was a table, with two women and two children. It was very apparentl the older child (a girl, maybe 8-10yrs old) was the caretaker of the smaller child (a girl, maybe two... young enough to still be in diapers, but not old enough to speak sentences). The mother was too busy talking to her....friend, mother, sister...?? The younger child was probably 60lbs. VERY obese for her age. She ran around the restaurant (after throwing all her low mein noodles all over the table and floor) screaming, running through the kitchen etc. She ran behind me once and it was very obvious running caused her to breath hard because I could hear her huffing and puffing. Before we left the "mother" sent the older child to the buffet to get her (the mother) her favorite cookies. The child returned with a plate of "donuts" (actually called sugar biscuits which are like big fluffy donut holes). The mother yelled at the older child "No! I want my cookies. They're in the back corner. Go get MY COOKIES!"
Now I know I'm not by any means a "healthy" eater and I'm certainly not fit and am overweight myself. But I am not dumb. And I certainly will not feed my children the same garbage I eat. Which is one reason why I haven't had children yet. I have to take care of myself and make myself healthy before I can raise another person.
So in closing, I can't WAIT to have kids so they can be EVERYTHING that today's society children are NOT. So Society... Muskegon... THANK YOU for teaching me NOT to parent. (And Amber, keep up the work, you're an inspiration. You're doing a great job! Love you)