diff --git a/pandas/io/parsers/readers.py b/pandas/io/parsers/readers.py
index ef693fcbd3720..5f93eef4fd977 100644
--- a/pandas/io/parsers/readers.py
+++ b/pandas/io/parsers/readers.py
@@ -542,13 +542,11 @@ def _read(
     """Generic reader of line files."""
     # if we pass a date_parser and parse_dates=False, we should not parse the
     # dates GH#44366
-    if (
-        kwds.get("date_parser", None) is not None
-        and kwds.get("parse_dates", None) is None
-    ):
-        kwds["parse_dates"] = True
-    elif kwds.get("parse_dates", None) is None:
-        kwds["parse_dates"] = False
+    if kwds.get("parse_dates", None) is None:
+        if kwds.get("date_parser", None) is None:
+            kwds["parse_dates"] = False
+        else:
+            kwds["parse_dates"] = True
 
     # Extract some of the arguments (pass chunksize on).
     iterator = kwds.get("iterator", False)
@@ -564,7 +562,7 @@ def _read(
                 "The 'chunksize' option is not supported with the 'pyarrow' engine"
             )
     else:
-        chunksize = validate_integer("chunksize", kwds.get("chunksize", None), 1)
+        chunksize = validate_integer("chunksize", chunksize, 1)
 
     nrows = kwds.get("nrows", None)