"LJB" on PL's Post: "CHILDLESS AND LOVING IT!"/PL RESPONDS!

Here's LJB:

Hey, PL!
Thanks for this post! As a young, unmarried woman in my late twenties, it feels like everywhere I turn another friend or relative is getting married or giving birth. While I'm not ruling it out in this lifetime, right now I'm happy carving a different path and making fantastic discoveries about myself, discoveries which I don't think I'd be making as a wife or mother. In short, it's nice to hear I'm not alone! Because, at the end of the day, I would rather be my complete self for my partner and children, and I don't think I could if I tried to accomplish it on the "social clock."

From the green mountain state,
LJB


Here's PL:

Good to hear from you, LJB!

Some folks might want to protest what is being said in the article, and here by you, but the facts support you. As a general rule, I have rarely had parents who are actively raising children coming for therapy in my 30+ years in practice. Why? Because all too often (though less often than it used to be), having kids is chosen instead of working on one's self-actualization. Sadly, parents can and do use their offspring as a distraction from their own issues for 2 or more decades. By the time said parents arrive to the empty nest years, and finally do come for therapy, it is often with a "What the fuck happened to my life?" look on their 45 year old faces. They feel trapped in a job they never wanted, their marriage is dead, and their kids are disgruntled at best, narcissistically disturbed at worst.

Good for you, LJB. The world needs a lot more self-actualized people than it does more children with the baggage of their parents unlived lives!

Enjoy the turning of the leaves up there!