People who don't like children

[LMNO]

SOMEONE TAKE THAT GOOD REVEREND OUTSIDE ALREADY!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

SOMEONE TAKE THAT GOOD REVEREND OUTSIDE ALREADY!

YES.  SOMEONE DO.

TGRR,
Knows they knew the risks when they took the job.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I had a good childhood, in terms of parents and privilege.  The social scene was pretty generally shitty, but nowhere close to "fearing for my life and/or grevious bodily harm".  So: didn't hate my childhood.

However, I've noticed this topic has made me uncomfortable. So, I thought about it.  Preliminary considerations:

I don't like humans (people) who bother me.  This includes:
-People who scream because they're hungry.
-People who scream because they're in an unfamiliar environment.
-People who scream when they're on an airplane and the air pressure changes.
-People who scream in a quiet restaurant*.
etc.

I don't like humans who interrupt me when I'm concentrating on something simply because they're bored.

I don't like humans who wander out into traffic with no consideration of the consequences, especially when its in front of my car.

I'm not saying it's only kids who do this, mind you, and I've tried to make sure I haven't said that.

Yes, I know this seems very self-centered and selfish.  But I didn't say I was trying to present myself in the best light, I'm trying to figure out my discomfort.

In addition:
-I don't like people who feel they deserve special consideration or advantage, simply because of who they are or what they've done with their bodies.
-I don't like people who single-mindedly obsess about a subject that only affects them personally, with no regard to whether their peer group is also interested.
-I don't like people who feel that my behavior must change because they don't approve of it when certain other people are within earshot/sightline.

Again, I'm not saying it's only parents who do this, nor am I saying all parents do this.  I just don't really like those kinds of people.

Finally, to put this in perspective, only a few people I know personally have had children, and I haven't spend much time in the homes of those that have.  This would skew my experience of children towards the above scenarios (i.e. bothering me).




Look, I know that the above makes me out to be a dick.  And I'll probably get a lot of shit from people who have been parents.  I'm not saying I'm right, I'm saying this is my point of view.

If it's any consolation, I don't think that makes you look like a dick. It makes children look like dicks. Which is probably true. I fucking hate when they get all interrupty and in my face with their meaningless bullshit. I figure completely ignoring them is teaching them a valuable life lesson. Even if their parents take offence to the fact that I just blanked their little darling's attempt to interrupt me in the middle of saying something. That's cool. I can ignore the parents bitching and whining, too. I'm not ageist. I can be an ignorant bastard to anyone.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Having raised two sprogs of my own, my personal peeves are:

1.  People who give parents shit about their kid crying on an airplane (they can't take the kid outside, and they can't do shit about the pressure changes).

2.  People who let their kids run wild in stores, etc, and/or allow the kid to make a scene when the kid doesn't get the impulse item of their choice at the register.

3.  People who try to outlaw any fun thing a kid might want to do (rollerblade, skateboard, etc), simply on account of DAMN KIDS.

4.  People who get offended when a woman breast feeds.  It's biology, you stupid bastards, deal with it.  And NO, LMNO, YOU DO NOT GET TO ASK FOR A SAMPLE.

[Junkenstein]

I had a good childhood, in terms of parents and privilege.  The social scene was pretty generally shitty, but nowhere close to "fearing for my life and/or grevious bodily harm".  So: didn't hate my childhood.

However, I've noticed this topic has made me uncomfortable. So, I thought about it.  Preliminary considerations:

I don't like humans (people) who bother me.  This includes:
-People who scream because they're hungry.
-People who scream because they're in an unfamiliar environment.
-People who scream when they're on an airplane and the air pressure changes.
-People who scream in a quiet restaurant*.
etc.

I don't like humans who interrupt me when I'm concentrating on something simply because they're bored.

I don't like humans who wander out into traffic with no consideration of the consequences, especially when its in front of my car.

I'm not saying it's only kids who do this, mind you, and I've tried to make sure I haven't said that.

Yes, I know this seems very self-centered and selfish.  But I didn't say I was trying to present myself in the best light, I'm trying to figure out my discomfort.

In addition:
-I don't like people who feel they deserve special consideration or advantage, simply because of who they are or what they've done with their bodies.
-I don't like people who single-mindedly obsess about a subject that only affects them personally, with no regard to whether their peer group is also interested.
-I don't like people who feel that my behavior must change because they don't approve of it when certain other people are within earshot/sightline.

Again, I'm not saying it's only parents who do this, nor am I saying all parents do this.  I just don't really like those kinds of people.

Finally, to put this in perspective, only a few people I know personally have had children, and I haven't spend much time in the homes of those that have.  This would skew my experience of children towards the above scenarios (i.e. bothering me).




Look, I know that the above makes me out to be a dick.  And I'll probably get a lot of shit from people who have been parents.  I'm not saying I'm right, I'm saying this is my point of view.

If it's any consolation, I don't think that makes you look like a dick. It makes children look like dicks. Which is probably true. I fucking hate when they get all interrupty and in my face with their meaningless bullshit. I figure completely ignoring them is teaching them a valuable life lesson. Even if their parents take offence to the fact that I just blanked their little darling's attempt to interrupt me in the middle of saying something. That's cool. I can ignore the parents bitching and whining, too. I'm not ageist. I can be an ignorant bastard to anyone.

I'd have to agree with P3nt here. I'd take it a little further though.

Minor change to the above - It makes people look like dicks. Which is probably true. I fucking hate when they get all interrupty and in my face with their meaningless bullshit. Some children take this behaviour and continue though life with it. Which probably explains my aversion to most people.

LMNO's list seems to mainly cover people who are incapable of controlling themselves in a social environment where these behaviours could/will affect/annoy other people. I've known a few parents that shit themselves blue because they were asked to leave/not allowed into a quiet romantic restaurant with their shrieking spawn. Needless to say, they could not understand why this is and felt it to be gross discrimination. I feel quite the opposite in most of these situations.

I think it may be highlighted in behaviours to children more as there is a social expectation of treating kids differently and allowing them to get away with shit that would make you punch an adult that did the same thing. I'd suspect that some parents encourage and validate these behaviours rather than correcting them. Looking at YOU indigo parents.

I try to treat everyone in a similar way. This breaks down with kids because of the inherent protection and "Special snowflake" that follows them. In short, I think I'm struggling with interacting with kids partly because I'm treating them as equal to myself and then getting frustrated that they're not functioning at remotely the same level.

[Junkenstein]

Having raised two sprogs of my own, my personal peeves are:

1.  People who give parents shit about their kid crying on an airplane (they can't take the kid outside, and they can't do shit about the pressure changes).

2.  People who let their kids run wild in stores, etc, and/or allow the kid to make a scene when the kid doesn't get the impulse item of their choice at the register.

3.  People who try to outlaw any fun thing a kid might want to do (rollerblade, skateboard, etc), simply on account of DAMN KIDS.

4.  People who get offended when a woman breast feeds.  It's biology, you stupid bastards, deal with it.  And NO, LMNO, YOU DO NOT GET TO ASK FOR A SAMPLE.

Interesting.
1- Reasonable. I can't say I've ever done this, though I have had a number of shitty flights due to this exact problem. Offering gin tends to offend the parent. Just a handy tip.
2- Here I would advocate my patented F.A.T.E (Five Across The Eyes) solution. Observation of parents indicates this to be a good method of silencing a child.
3 - This, I don't get at all. I suspect it may be a generational thing added with the modern drive to make everything ultra safe. There's probably something in the level of potential danger/harm kids are exposed to and behaviours in later life. I can't imagine many kids raised in bubbles about to take up free climbing or somesuch.
4 - I've never understood this. I understand even less that it generally comes from straight males. It's called a free show you ungrateful bastards. If its really that bad have you tried not looking?

Tangents. Tangents everywhere with no real contribution.

[LMNO]

I do recognize that some people have only been on this planet a few years and haven't figured stuff out yet, and with those people, I understand why they might be behaving that way.  However, I still don't really like it.


Babies on a plane?  Not the parents' fault.  I still don't like hearing it, though.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Sort of like my feelings about Libertarians, I am fascinated by people who want the benefits of living in a society, but resent the less-than-totally-pleasurable-to-them aspects of living in a society. It seems, not so much dickish, as (perhaps ironically) just very immature when people actively resent the (normally well-controlled, nobody likes a brat) behaviors of children (or old people, or gay people, or people in love, or deaf people, or retarded people) in communal spaces; reminiscent of the me-me-me stage of childhood, when kids haven't yet realized that they are not actually the most important people in the world.

I'll need to think about this, and figure out whether it's consistent or inconsistent with my hypothesis.

[LMNO]

Like I said, it makes me sound self-centered and selfish.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I actually am pretty sure that the real reason so many straight men have a problem with breastfeeding in public is because it is a very distinctly unsexy context for breasts. They don't object to it because it's sexy, they object to it because it emphatically desexualizes a body part that they fetishize.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

3 - This, I don't get at all. I suspect it may be a generational thing added with the modern drive to make everything ultra safe. There's probably something in the level of potential danger/harm kids are exposed to and behaviours in later life. I can't imagine many kids raised in bubbles about to take up free climbing or somesuch.

No, they do it mostly out of mean-spiritness.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I will say that I don't think that anyone looks favorably upon bad parenting and the products thereof. Including good parents, and their children.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Children are adorable bundles of joy and love, and also copious amounts of barf and poop. This is the biological reality of the matter. Emotionally, children run the entire spectrum from "OMG SO HAPPY" to "Jesus fucking Christ would you please remove that thing." And every individual child is capable of existing at any point on that spectrum at any given moment, because, well, children are humans and that's just how humans are. I find, however, that the emotional reaction to children is more a thing that happens inside the brain of the person who's doing the reacting than it is anything the child is in control of (usually).

It is not the child's fault that parents seem to have lost all bearing in the past few generations on what the fuck it means bring new humans online on this planet. I blame Dr. Spock for starting a trend of know-it-all new-age parenting "gurus" telling people that the way our species has reared its young for eons is somehow inadequate.

Here are a few helpful tips on when to call "Bullshit" when your stupid 500-page book about how to ruin a child's life forever gives you advice:

- Fuck you. Spanking a child is not only legitimate, it is necessary. Have you been around children who have never been spanked? They are holy terrors, and often they rule their parents like some kind of a god damn demented Baby Hitler with a bottle full of Hate Juice. SPANK. YOUR. CHILD.

- Do not use your "Mommy loves you" voice when reprimanding your child. It is important that the child understands where she has crossed a line, and that consequences will bee SRSBSNS if she does not immediately withdraw her errant behavior.

- Do not bribe your fucking children with toys or candy. Holy mother of fuck, if I could punch a person every time I saw them pleading with their child to "PLEASE BE GOOD, I'LL PROMISE TO BUY YOU SOME RIDICULOUS THING MADE BY SLAVE CHILDREN IF YOU'RE GOOD!" I would have a lot of broken knuckles and I'd be much more at peace with the universe. Are you trying to reinforce the idiotic notion that simply doing what is expected of civilized people is somehow grounds for a bonus? No wonder the fucks I deal with at the office seem to think making approximately 1,000x more per hour than the average human is somehow "not enough."

- DO listen to your child when she has something to say -- even if your wrinkled, cynical, jaded old brain thinks it is trite or unimportant. In fact, listen especially hard in those cases, because your child is trying to convey to you the fucking meaning of life, you bitter old senior citizen.

- DO comfort your child when she is crying. Fuck this "let them cry it out" bollocks. Do you want them to begin life feeling like they are alone and there's no one around who gives a shit? Really? They'll grow up voting Republican that way. Think twice.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I mostly agree with V3X.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Of course, it is also nearly impossible to tell the difference, from a stranger's perspective, between a child who is behaving badly because their parents never enforce boundaries and good behavior, and a child who is behaving badly because they have a developmental disorder or are coming down with something or some other factor outside of the parents' control.