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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think it's unacceptable to say you don't like children?

584 replies

BirdPlanet · 17/05/2025 09:23

Increasingly I've heard people saying some variation of the statement 'I don't like children'. I don't see why this is in any way acceptable. You wouldn't say that you 'don't like' any other category of person. If I said I didn't like the elderly or middle-aged women as a group, I'd get slapped down, yet somehow people think it's okay to talk about children as if they aren't human beings. Is it because they can't speak or advocate for themselves? Children aren't some kind of homogeneous entity. They have personalities and different temperaments, just as adults do.

Inevitably people will say that it's used as a shorthand for disliking the behaviour of some children, but even so, that’s more of a reflection of poor parenting than anything else.

OP posts:
dijonketchup · 17/05/2025 09:28

Agreed, and posted a variation of this on another thread recently. People without children seem to forget that they are just small people? No one ever says “pregnant women, they drive me mad” or similar in public about humans in a different life stage. FFS, you were a child yourself.

MushMonster · 17/05/2025 09:28

Let them say it.
It makes clear who you do not want to associate with.

TheMeasure · 17/05/2025 09:28

Well, I don't much care for badly-behaved (or rather, badly-brought-up) children.
But then, I do see a lot of them in my line of work.

Whoarethoseguys · 17/05/2025 09:26

I agree. It's ok to say I don't want to have children , or I don't want to work with children, but a blanket I don't like children is odd and unacceptable just as I don't like old people is.

Redpeach · 17/05/2025 09:26

Yeah its a stupid thing to say, generalisations generally are

Shoxfordian · 17/05/2025 09:26

I don't like children in general, they're noisy and annoying. Yabu.

FieldInWhichFucksAreGrownIsBarren · 17/05/2025 09:25

I don't like people in general so I think YABU.

Shwish · 17/05/2025 09:25

Absolutely agree with you. And I hear it a lot too. Especially on here.

Evaka · 17/05/2025 09:24

Who is telling you they don't like children? What's the context? Your OP is vague.

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