So many child haters here

[Sabrinasummersamples]

So many threads on here seem to attract the same sort of answer along the lines of
-In my day we'd have got a smack. Never did me any harm. Give em a clip round the ear.
-kids today are entitled shrieky brats
-kids should stand for adults
-kids shouldn't be allowed in restaurants

Yet often those same posters are the first to call "agism" when people disagree.
Why do so many people hold such contempt for kids?
I mean I know kids can be annoying but honestly you could say that about any group of people. Plus we were all kids once 🤷

I really get irked when people can't control their kids - but this is a laughable post! I don't agree with belting kids for a start, and it's a load of hogwash that BRITISH kids are the badly behaved ones. You don't go abroad often do you @Finlesswonder 😆

When my family and I were in Spain a few years ago, the worst behaved children were the NOT British kids. I am not going to insult people from another culture by saying which ones were the worst, but kids from several other cultures and nationalities were rough and aggressive and LOUD.. The British kids I encountered, were as good as gold.

Only UK kids are badly behaved. 😆😆

Parents fault for letting them leave the house! Disgusting carry on/

People do realise that people have been moaning about how badly behaved kids are "these days" for thousands of years?

Kids are the same as they always were.

I think what may have changed, is that there are less kids. It is now perfectly possible for an average adult to never, ever interact with any children at all for years.

Then they go on holiday in the summer holidays and kids everywhere, being kids!

It's a shock

Sorry but EVERY generation thinks kids are 'feral'.

If it's acceptable to not like kids, is it acceptable to not like old people? Middle aged people? Teenagers?

Parenting changes all the time. What's acceptable now probably won't be in years to come. That's why we used to send small children under cotton machines and up chimneys. That's why it was fine to leave a small child in the car in a pub car park with a packet of crisps. That's why young kids could go outside and play without any supervision. That's why babies were put in their own room at a few weeks old and left to cry it out. The list goes on and on. You can dislike current parenting and claim it isn't as good as yours, but most are just doing their best and following current guidelines or else they face being publicly shamed or being threatened with social services (see the thread about kids playing in the park and someone said they would have followed the children home and called SS because they were there with a teenager instead of a parent).

This is all very true, is it an age/generational issue? I've seen language on here that I don't think I've seen before so regularly eg loads of calling kids "brats" "entitled brats"

Or is there an influx of grumpy school holiday parents who think everyone else's kids are horrors but their own little loves who would NEVER dare to speak in public.

I prefer (most kids) to (most) adults.

This!!

SliceOfCakeCupOfTea · Today 13:02

Sorry but EVERY generation thinks kids are 'feral'.

If it's acceptable to not like kids, is it acceptable to not like old people? Middle aged people? Teenagers?

If you even mention someone's age for whatever reason and they are over the age of 50 you'll get called agist on here. Kids though? Fair game for any insults you like.

I was on an overnight flight back from NY to London about 15 years ago.
There was a man in his 50s or maybe 60s who happened to be sitting in the same row as us with his elderly mother. The poor lady was obviously suffering from advanced dementia. During the flight she was shouting out a lot. She was hitting him and people walking past, she got out of her seat and he had to get her back in again against her will and she soiled herself and the poor man had to get her cleaned up. It was awful. Luckily not one single person as far as I could tell thought badly if him or her, the only thing I could sense from people nearby was sympathy. Because obviously she didn't have the cognitive ability to behave in the way we would expect most other people to and he couldn't help that. I mean I'm pretty sure shouting at her or threatening her wouldn't have helped the situation (and would obviously have been cruel)
But I wonder what the reaction would have been if she'd been say a 2 year old? I have a feeling there'd have been a lot less compassion and a lot more blame and tutting. Why? Little kids also don't have the cognitive ability to act in a rational way. Why is it ok to blame their parents, or expect them to be bullied into submission?

Loads of complaints about children playing and making too much noise - if they are in their own garden/a playground/ the park/ a play area they are going to make noise.

I don't think children are any louder than they used to be unless you are thinking of Victorian children half the way up a chimney.

This is my point, children are being normal on the whole it's the adults that are being a nightmare.

I got a train with my own DC earlier this week.
There were some absolutely feral children my DC were shocked.
Some people do not know how to parent

Why on earth was he making his poor mother fly? People with dementia need as much routine and as little disruption as possible. It must have been awful for her.

Good post

Really? I bet you sat they sat there mouths agape like the railway children whilst all the other children ran amok.

Why on earth was he making his poor mother fly? People with dementia need as much routine and as little disruption as possible. It must have been awful for her.

He was bringing her back to the UK where he and most of her family lived so that they could be closer to her apparently. I felt really bad for him (and her). It was an awful situation.

Erm no my DC aren't angels but they weren't throwing bottles, sticking their fingers up at strangers, spitting and trying to open stranger's bags!

What you are describing is extreme behaviour and if your telling me every kid on that train but yours were doing that I just do not believe you.

I don't know anyone in real life who hates children like some seem to on mumsnet. And I find it quite bizarre.

They could just be being polite, and grinning and bearing it in real life. The freedom of an anonymous MB is that you can say what you really think.

Some of the attitudes to single and childless women on this thread are verrrry illuminating, for instance.

And unlike those of us who grin & bear inappropriately noisy children, or jump out of the way of DC careering into us on the street because they've not been taught to consider that they're sharing space with other people, you'd be surprised at how much other people express their views (not quite hatred but certainly not benign) about single and childless women to those very women, to our faces.

I genuinely don't care if someone finds kids generally super annoying and avoids them - it bothers me not one bit if peolple don't want them themselves life a lovely child free enjoyable life - I like to hear about their lives.

Saying I find kids annoying I tend to avoid is different to the hectoring tone on here saying they shouldn't be allowed out/are running riot / brats/ feckless parents/ bring back the dap shite

The thing is @FarEast those people are dicks as well. I can't understand child haters. On the whole I think they're pretty awful people. But I feel the same about anyone who thinks badly about someone because they are single or child-free as well. My best friend is both and she's a fabulous person. Also she loves my kids like they're her family and they (and me and DH) love her in the same way. In fact we have spoken about her potentially being written into our wills as guardian for our kids should something happen to the both of us (and that was her who suggested it btw) although we haven't formalised it as yet. I'd trust her to be a better guardian than any of our DC grandparents. So it's not the case that people who dislike child-haters themselves are haters of people without kids

I do think people exaggerate for effect on here. One badly behaved child on a train becomes a feral rabble!

So it's not the case that people who dislike child-haters themselves are haters of people without kids

But I didn't actually say that @Sabrinasummersamples

And I actually think it's very OTT to call posters who object to children's inappropriate and selfish behaviour "haters". They are just pointing out that children too, are humans, who share public space with other humans, and parents need to instil some awareness of this - age-appropriate awareness of course - into their DC. It's called parenting, as I'm sure you know.

This thread isn't about those people though is is, as I read it it was about the extreme ridiculous comments and threads popping up lately.

@FarEast
please scroll up and read my previous post, as! Children are humans but they are not the same as adult humans are they?? Children's brains don't finish developing until their 20's!

Toddlers and pre-schoolers especially havean underdeveloped brain, you can parent all the way to mars but the fact that the brain as a whole and especially the pre frontal cortex - which controls a lot of the elements of behaviour which people and most parents find undesirable (like impulsive behaviour, reckless), means that it is physically impossible to eliminate all undesirable behaviour at those ages especially.

The type of self/social awareness you are meaning, they do not have the capacity to start to develop until between 6 and 8 and that's starting to develop!