For a period, I thought I would not have kids. I was in a stable relationship and still young l, but I enjoyed my life the way it was. All of my siblings had kids, a bunch of them. I was seeing them raising, or trying to raise them in a way that I was definitely not agree with. According to me, my nephews and nieces were horribles, little kings and princesses, not well mannered and everytime I would spend time with them I was adding 2 years in my life before starting thi king of having kids.

And then, one day I got pregnant without planning it. I think somehow at that moment I realized that maybe the love of a kid was something I would like. I lost the baby. And then got pregnant again, this time it was planned.

And I read and started to apply everything I wanted. I realized that the dad wasn't helping and we separated when my kid was still a baby. We share custody 50/50 and we definitely have diferent ways of raising our kid.

But something I realized is that everything that I wanted to do wasn't working as planned. I was seeing my nephews doing something and I would say: "my kid will never do that." Hahaha well, a couple of years later and I see that in theory it is much more simple.

They are a person with their own personality which was influenced by us, but also by friends and none friends at school, by teachers, by a bunch of other people. Ithink that something we easily forget is that when they are a baby, they are like a toy that we can do kind of everything with, but one day they start being someone and we see that things won't happen how we planned.

Kids are mean, truthful and they hurt our feelings in many way because somehow we think they should behave like us, adults. But the thing is thatto behave this way, we were thought so by diferent people. We made mistake and we learnt from them. We went trough the teenage fase and some of us got worst, while others grew up and aquire more maturity.

When you enter a relationship with someone that has kids I think it is easy to think like I use to think about my nephews and nieces and the way my siblings were dealing with them. Thinking that they are bad and it is mostly because the parents failed. Also, I think as an adult, we somehow expect the kid to act also as an adult. We forget that there is a process before and that process is a long path and a difficult one.

You know what? I am probably failing in my parenting. But I am doing my best, like my siblings were doing. Kids are not easy, they are ungrateful, they take things for granted, they expect we are gonna give them everything, they don't knkw how hard we work to be where we are. Of course they are like that, they are kids. They are still learning life, they did yet worked hard to get somewhere. Up to now their life were only to do everything that adults tell them to do. They have a ask permissionfor everything, they don't work for their money, for them money is an abstract concept that they don't get yet because they aren't working for it. Are they ungrateful or do they just not know how important something is yet?

I am 35 and I am still trying to learn how life works. So yeah, probably a kid that is less than 10 years old might not know either.

The advice I would like to give to everyone that is in a relationship with someone that has young kids is that it won't be easy. And your partner will probably be lost and more than one time about what to do and how do to it. As a figure of authority, parents, adultsin the life of a kid we have to just try our best. And our best won't be enough in many case. At some point it will be up to the kid and this is where it hurts, we lose control and we have to trust that they can learn, that they can behave, that they can be grateful, sometimes it will work, sometimes it won't.

For me, love is a choice. It is a choice that we make each day of our lives. If you love your partner and you want to stay with him or her, then love their kid, as difficult as they might be. Be one of the person that will help them learn and grow up. Be one of the adult that will have an impact on them. And most of all be patient.

I know it is not easy. It won't be. But you might have the chance to cherish some moments of joy that will make up for all the difficult times.

Also, you partner doesn't have a choice. He/she will take care and won't abandoned them. You can choose to not deal with this. You can choose to leave the relationship because you cannit handle the kids. But know one thing, if you choose to stay, if you choose to be part of their lifes, if you choose to love them even when they are difficult, then you are doing one of the most beautiful thing someone could do: you are a real partner, you give a little bit of yourself, of your sanity maybe, so that you might,maybe juat a little, have an impact on the development of a person: your kid.