Do you like playing with small children?

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Do you enjoy spending time with small children? Do you enjoy playing games, feeding, reading stories, explaining things, rough housing, etcetera with children under the age of five years old? Could you see yourself having children?

For about 5 minutes, yes, then I get bored.... I want go go back to doing MY things...
Also kids make me have to do things when THEY want, not when I want to, so I struggle with that.

I prefer to use proper chess pieces, they don't wriggle so much

Yes, I like small children a lot and enjoy spending time with them. I'm very good with kids (and animals ), it's easier for me to be patient with them and they also seem to be attracted to me.

That being said, I decided a long time ago not to have children for unrelated reasons.

Yes they're great fun, and they're not stuffed full of all these weird adult judgements about people being "not quite right." My wife was quite shocked to see the non-introverted side of me when I played with a toddler not so long ago.

Though I know from experience that I can't be in that mode for very long. I soon feel the strain of not being able to get on with my own stuff. I've had one of my own, and wouldn't want to go through all that again, but I miss it.

Just as you are in your avatar picture P , I do the same with our grandchild. He likes to touch everything on the ceiling.

I'll spoon feed him off my plate, play chase, read to him.

But it's momentary though, like maybe 30 minutes or so, then I'm off into introversion land again.

I like standing them on top of each other and knocking them down with my truck.

Rudy Simone said in her book that someone asked her once, "Don't you just love being a mother?" Her answer was, "No, I don't." The person got all butt hurt over it. She goes on to say "She didn't ask if I loved my daughter. I would have said yes absolutely, if she had."

I can absolutely relate. Being a mom is hard under the best of conditions. I find it doubly challenging, because it's a struggle for me to keep up and cope with her constant changes, chattering, screaming, shrieking, crying, screwing up my careful routines by being a precocious, relatively normal 4 year old. I love my daughter, with every fibre of my being. However, again, it's damn hard for me. I feel like I didn't closely 'bond' with her at birth. From her first breath she was Daddy's girl. Not having known my dad growing up, this is something foreign to me, but I encourage it anyway, because I felt that lack my whole life, and I don't want her to feel it ever if I can avoid it.

It's a lot easier now, that she's older and she can verbalize more (when she does). But I still struggle. I get so overloaded by everything, tv, kids movies, ugh. There was a time I literally could not stand to hear her crying because it felt like an ice pick in my head, it was so physically painful. I felt like a monumental failure as a mother, because I couldn't hold her for very long, and couldn't comfort her when she was crying. I still feel guilt for that. I try not to let it get to me, and I think I'm better these days at handling it. But there comes a point when I can't take any more, and Daddy has to step in and help. For all that he's a Taurus, and a royal pain in my ass, he's a super-dad. He's really had to deal with a lot of the burden of both of us, another source of guilt for me, but I keep trying to just be thankful that he's as good a person as he is.

Little kids are great because I can say funny words, and they will either laugh if it's a funny word, or they won't laugh if it's not a funny word. Kids have nothing to gain by repressing how they really feel, because otherwise they would never eat. So they help me professionally.

Also, I get to play with Tonka Trucks, and that's great.

I like childrens things like games and toys, the children themeselves I could take or leave. Crying children make me want to scream because it hurts my ears so bad.

Tried playing croquet with them once but instead of rolling along they just get up and walk away.

I love playing with small children and doing all those things. It's an excuse for me to be the immature person that I am and get away with it.

I love playing with children. I mean, physical play. I enjoy reading books less, although I'll do that too. I'm totally not big on playing pretend (but I love roleplaying games, go figure).

For some reason, children glom onto me quickly. I'm not sure why. This is before I have a chance to do anything with them.

Small children make me smile. They are often without guile. They see magic in life. Their laughter is without cruelty.

I do wonder where it all goes though. We grow up and become hard.


Sigh.

Oh yes. I like showing my niece how to play video games on my phone. I don't like imaginative play with them though. I saw my nephew and his dad doing that once and felt uncomfortable.
I'd prefer to sit down with them and show them how to draw or very simply teach them things, but not physically play. I haven't tried to read to them yet.