Hi Dear7,
I still have my Fender P bass and J bass in my closet even if I stop playing bass for so long.
From my limited experience between P and J bass. I'd say J bass is more versatile than P bass. You can use J bass to play almost every style of music while P bass is mostly suitable for rock music. J bass neck is smaller at the nut than P bass so you have to be more careful about neck warping than P bass. But to me personally I've been using Fender J bass all of the years when I was a bass player in Thailand until it's been stolen and never have been found until today. When I went to USA, I found and bought a used Fender P bass for all those years of playing in the rock band in USA and later I bought a spanky brand new Fender J bass too!. Both of them are good for any level of players (from beginner to pro.)
J bass looks more vintage than P bass, so older guys prefer the looks of P bass but not necessarily so
And as I know of Squire is just the low-end of Fender, so it should be OK to at least have it to practice or even keep it for a while or even longer. Just remember "It's the players who mainly make the music not the guitars"
Hope my $.002 help you in someway.