I didn’t have kids because I grew up with my Mommy Dearest constantly reminding me how much of a pain raising kids is. I don’t want to be anyone else’s Mommy Dearest. Therapy has helped, watching my friends raise their own kids kindly has helped.

Listening to myself chide my deaf dog for his accidents has also helped (it feels safe to tell him “honey childe, you done fucked up again” in a gentle tone, in a way that wouldn’t be fair to a human child that could hear and understand me, and listening to myself repeat things I heard as a child reminds me that some of my programming is still fucked up.)