I don't hate children at all and I don't think the threads that have been referenced here represent any "child-haters" either. The trouble is, any time anyone is remotely critical of the behaviour of some children-they're immediately labelled as child-haters, even if they, themselves, have children.
And I don't know where or why the child-free among us are being blamed for the alleged increase in "hate" when those threads are sometimes started by parents and largely populated by parents. Seems this is yet another attempt to paint the child-free, especially women, as evil, child-hating witches and they ask why we want our own board and get mad at the goady parents posting in it.
{not all parents who post in the child-free board are goady-some are lovely and very welcome}
It's not the children that people dislike. Often times, the ire and annoyance is misdirected at the children when it really belongs with the parents. I think there's a balance to be struck. There is behaviour that is absolutely normal, age-appropriate behaviour and it's not normal or good to try and clamp down on that behaviour entirely.
However, there's also a time and a place for said behaviour and the needs and wants of your child don't trump the needs and wants of other people. I remember once-going to see the final Harry Potter film and I was so looking forward to it. I booked the first screening of the day which was before 10AM.
The cinema was largely empty bar me, and a woman with her little boy. Probably around four or five. Throughout the film, from start to finish, the boy showed no interest in the film whatsoever and proceeded to run up and down the stairs as loudly as possible, jumping on each step as he went. He ran down his row of seats-and at the time-they were those pull down seats that clang and kept doing that. He climbed up the backs of the seats and over.
He talked and laughed throughout. The mother did nothing to get him under control. And when I say nothing-I mean nothing. She didn't take him out to calm him down, didn't tell him off-nothing. Just sat there, as if they were at home and there was no one else there.
At the end, she looked at me and went, "sorry," in a tone that conveyed that she wasn't really sorry at all. He clearly couldn't have cared less about the film-but she took him anyway and even when he showed he didn't care-did nothing to stop him ruining it for others-or simply removing him.
It's this kind of behaviour-"My child is more important than you," accompanied with a total lack of self-awareness and consideration for others-that gets people's backs up. And even choosing late showings of films doesn't guarantee you that no children will be there to ruin it. Had that more than once-with the parents joining in on the behaviour as well. Shock.
I'm happy to be tolerant of bad behaviour when I can see a parent struggling or that is trying to deal with it-but it's the oblivious, "continue doing what you're doing and pretend the kid does not exist," parents that get my goat. Those same parents will scream bloody murder if their kid gets injured when running around in a restaurant and blame everyone else but themselves.
Let's also not kid ourselves that some parents don't raise hell if their kids get disciplined at school. We've all seen them. The indignation that anyone would dare suggest that their little child is less than an angel sent from heaven and the chimes of "I'm going to raise merry hell at the school tomorrow," and they do. And they'll scratch their heads in confusion when their consequence-free parenting style leads their children to grow into entitled, spoiled adults who don't know how to deal with the real world. Or get shown consequences by the law.
I don't think parenting is worse these days than it has ever been, really, though. I do think some parents seem to be more permissive, allowing their kid to do what they want to do regardless of the impact on others. I think their little experiment will blow up in their faces once they realise they haven't raised likeable people, though.