To think society hates children?

[Orangeandgold]

During a crisis people tend to defend children and babies, but on a day to day basis when everything is “normal” I usually find and feel so much hatred towards children.

My DD picked this up quite young too. It is small subtle everyday conversations and actions.

I would have to remind an adult not to barge past a 5 year old when there is enough space on the pavement; or people that feel that they can comment or roll their eyes at you and be malicious because you have a buggy; or general comments in conversations about “all kids are brats/ those children/why would anyone have them.”; animals are so much more loving than children …

… and the comments go on!

If you don’t want children you don’t have to have them, but we were all kids once. AIBU to feel that society in general hates children and to get upset about it every now and then? Or am I just in a pessimistic bubble? Maybe it’s also the city, people have less tolerance? I just feel nobody really looks out for each other the way we would growing up - I would have neighbours on the look out as a child but now it’s different.

No they don't. Mother's seem to hate everyone else's children but their own.

Mumsnet alone, never mind other parenting spaces, are full of threads about annoying children\hating children\dreading playdates\excluding children from birthday parties\dont want my children around my niece\horrible neighbour kids etc.
It doesn't stop.

Maybe consider people feel about your kids the way you feel about theirs.

I’m frankly scared of children (autism and my sister had a childhood illness that meant she actually screamed for about five years straight) but I don’t hate them, they’d be rescued first in a fire. I’ve seen the exact opposite of hatred from people around me though, eg at my church the entire choir including those child free by choice would rush over to coo at anyone younger than about seven and to pluck something else randomly out of the air, think of Marcus Rashford’s effort - children were rightfully prioritised even though poverty-stricken parents were skipping meals left and right.

Absolutely agree OP. There is a real hatred and intolerance of children in the UK. I have experience of living in other countries (South America, Germany, Greece) and have never come across this same cold attitude. In those places it’s accepted that children will be children. They will run, shout, play, be curious, make noise - all completely natural. Not sit in silent contemplation like little monks, as some posters seem to expect. DH is Greek and children are adored there. There isn’t this attitude of seen and not heard as here. People here are quick to judge other people’s parenting but very unwilling to offer any help or support. I had this recently at an airport, DS1 was crawling, I was there alone with him, trying to hold him, whilst hauling a pushchair off a carousel and erect it. I had to put him down and obviously he started crawling off towards the carousel, cue audible gasps from people but not one of those fuckers offered to help me. I had to ask a young couple near me to help with the pushchair whilst I grabbed him. Lots of judgment but zero support.

We have really moved to an older age centric society - you can see it in the benefits position - the greatest welfare spending is on pensions and universal pensioner benefits but as soon as someone mentions 27% of children living in poverty and lifting the 2 child benefit cap it’s all “it was your choice to have children, I am not paying for them, lifestyle choice etc”. There is no sense of society or investment in future generations, we are a really individualistic, selfish society, geared towards serving the elderly (many of whom expect their elder care to be funded by taxpayers rather than having to sell their homes or assets but don’t want to contribute anything towards struggling families and children - who have borne the brunt of austerity). There is growing inequality and inter generational animosity - the two are linked and only going to get worse. It’s very depressing to see how children are treated in the UK, and no surprise that there are so many children with mental health issues as a result.

On the performance parenting thing there is a world of difference between the ‘show offs’ and the normal parents just positively engaging with their kids as they use day to day encounters to help them develop confidence in themselves and basic life skills. Very few people are going to get upset at some parent handing a toddler a £20 note to give to the checkout person at the supermarket while being encouraged to say hello and thankyou. People do get irritated when it becomes a time-consuming extended maths exercise that said toddler is not engaging with yet the parent insists on completing no matter how long they hold everyone up. We have all seen this along with the loud humble brag conversations about how terribly advanced Lulu is for her age and that she is now reading Solzhenitsyn and Tolstoy because the pre school reading list is not challenging enough. I have seen toddlers in high end restaurant who are clearly bored shitless being loudly lectured on taste groups and being asked to articulate their thoughts on the truffle langoustine.

“Can you describe the taste Archie”

“Poo poo bum bum”

“That’s right I am getting a very elegant and clean hints of citrus with classical aromas of saffron too”

Performative parenting most definitely exists which is why we have the ‘overheard in Waitrose’ stereotypes

Different areas of the country are different in social expectations and as UK is increasingly age segregated - side affect of housing costs - different exposure levels -seeing less children means less experience of what is normal behavior and people do forget - plus some areas often more middle class do have concertation of permissive/gentle parenting cohort.

So I think it to be expected that experiences vary.

Several posters including me have also posted about our kids being pre-judged - so it's not our kids behavior but people expecting poor behavior from young kids and reacting to their prejudices.

I'm not sure I agree with this. I've come across some badly behaved French children. One French child was snatching repeatedly in a play setting (and not being discouraged to by their mother, who simply smiled her way benignly through it) and another one trying to run into a kitchen in a cafe (mother did not physically attempt to retrieve her child, but I assume was asking them to come back in a half hearted sort of way. A member of staff had to physically block the child from getting in to the kitchen). It may be that these are minority incidents but they do show that generalisations about badly behaved British children vs well behaved French children are not always accurate.

I think it's fair to say that most children are well behaved most of the time, and that every child will have a temper tantrum/ behave badly at some stage (usually when their parents least want them to!). I genuinely think most parents are doing their best, but obviously that does not extend to all parents.

Very few people are going to get upset at some parent handing a toddler a £20 note to give to the checkout person at the supermarket while being encouraged to say hello and thankyou. People do get irritated when it becomes a time-consuming extended maths exercise that said toddler is not engaging with yet the parent insists on completing no matter how long they hold everyone up.

Absolutely this! My DC loved doing the self checkout when they were small. if it was quiet, I would let them help me. If it was busy, I had to do it myself with them just doing the odd item, because it wasn't fair to make everyone else wait for ages.

I agree with this. Sorry for your airport experience.

Performance parenting just seems to be another lazy excuse to judge parents for actually talking to their children and responding to them with interest. As opposed to sticking them in front of an IPad which will also be judged as “lazy parenting”. I speak to my children, read to them and actually enjoy interacting with them. If that bothers you then you need to get help with your absolute selfish narcissism whereby you imagine everything is about you and centring your needs. Honestly, grow up, you really are not that important.

"We have really moved to an older age centric society"
100% agree with this. And the fact that families and kids are pre-judged by a lot of people.
An example is the animosity people get if they dare to board a plane with a baby or young child. I shared before - coming back from NY on a night flight many years ago was a man in his 50s with his elderly mother. The poor woman clearly had dementia. She was shouting, getting out of her seat and even soiled herself and he had to get her to the toilets and clean her up. It was an awful flight for her, and him and everyone around them. But there was no animosity or judgement that I could sense. Everyone seemed to have sympathy for them both. Now imagine how different that would have been if she'd been 2 or 3 years old.
Why do we expect little children to have the cognitive abilities of healthy adults?

This hasn’t been my experience at all, although I’m fully prepared to believe it’s variable by area.

I’ve got two young children and I notice a difference in the way I’m treated when I go out with them and without them. When I go out with them, I get a lot more kindness and friendliness than if I’m by myself - people holding doors open, smiling, I’ve even had people let us go in front of them in queues for toilets/to pay for things. And I find people are more likely to strike up conversations.

I remember the first time I went out without a buggy/baby carrier when I went back to work after maternity leave I really noticed it!

I’m not complaining at all, I’m not suggesting people should be ultra-friendly to me when I go out by myself, but my point is just that I don’t feel like I live in a society that hates children.

Absolutely this. Plenty of adults are loud, slow, angry, distracted etc but we accept that that behaviour is normal. But the same behaviour is to totally unacceptable in children, despite the fact that their brains are not fully developed and mature. Completely unrealistic expectations.

I largely agree@ParsnipSurprise88

I do think that we need to consider the fact that none of these attitudes and experiences around childhood and parenting are happening in a vacuum. We need to look at it against the wider context of government policy and demographics.

When most of my friends were having their DC it was against a backdrop of Surestart centres, Child Trust Funds, lower university tuition fees, better funded schools - and, very broadly, optimism for the future. The U.K. felt younger - dynamic and forward thinking.

By the time DP and I belatedly got round to having DD, it was during a time of austerity, crumbling schools, increased tuition fees and every man (or, more accurately, woman) for himself in terms of the baby/preschool years. The media was/is filled with stories about triple lock pensions, the housing crisis, climate change and our ageing population. It doesn’t really feel as if we, as a country, want more children - they’re seen as an expensive burden or a luxury choice rather than a positive, energising life force for our society.

"DS1 was crawling, I was there alone with him, trying to hold him, whilst hauling a pushchair off a carousel and erect it. I had to put him down and obviously he started crawling off towards the carousel, cue audible gasps from people but not one of those fuckers offered to help me. I had to ask a young couple near me to help with the pushchair whilst I grabbed him. Lots of judgment but zero support."

But on the flip side of this situation, I have often offered to help a parent, offered to hold the baby, offered to help a child off the bus while the parent has shopping bags, picked something up off the floor that a child has thrown down while the parent has hands full feeding, and so on. Usually I'm met in response with annoyance, snappy parents declaring they don't need help (literally only offered), "do I look like I can't manage" (usually, yes, or I wouldn't have offered).

I don't think people are saying that they expect children to sit in silence though are they? There's a huge gulf between silence and being hugely disruptive to other people. Of course some people are nasty and will make comment on children not doing anything overly disruptive; just as some parents will just let their children do whatever and fuck everyone else. There's a balance like most things in life.

Large swathes of the elderly are treated like shit here too, its ignorant to claim its not the case. Adult social care is woefully lacking, a lot of people have a vile attitude towards them as seen in real life and by posts on here on various topics, not all pensioners are sitting on expensive properties with swathes of savings in the bank (im sure on principle those who moan about this would forego any inheritance they may recieve because of how unfair it all is). I don't think pitting two groups against eachother when most people in this country are being failed is really that productive to be honest. People should take some responsibility when they bring children into the world though as an aside, it's seem as controversial to suggest that nowadays which is ridiculous.

Plenty of adults are loud, slow, angry, distracted etc but we accept that that behaviour is normal. But the same behaviour is to totally unacceptable in children, despite the fact that their brains are not fully developed and mature. Completely unrealistic expectations.

I'm not sure we do accept this behaviour as normal? I think people in general are scared to appear to be judging someone who is disabled in some way but otherwise, when a person is any of those things, they generally get dirty, annoyed looks, much the same as children do.

Society dislikes poor parenting which produces poorly behaved children.

I think I'm ambivalent on whether or not society is unfriendly to children. I AM very certain, though, that society absolutely loves to find an excuse to criticise mothers (not parents - mothers). The two can feel quite hard to distinguish in practice.

Yes, you quickly learn that a mother's place is in the wrong.

Yes, this. I was with my brother once on the tube. A woman had a pram with a baby and a toddler. I can't quite remember but I think the toddler sort of made a break for freedom and my brother grabbed him, picked him up and said to the mother - would you like me to put him on the train for you?. She acted like he'd tried to molest/abduct her child.

Similarly, the many people on MN who are outraged if an elderly person touches their child or asks for a cuddle with a baby. I once handed baby DS over to an elderly couple in a cafe (at their request). I was waiting for some other NCT friends to arrive. We were chatting nicely and I asked if I could grab some water and they were happy to keep him. The water fountain was about 3 metres away so not like I was leaving him with strangers out of sight. My 2 NCT friends came in - one was fine and got chatting with the older couple, the other one was horrified I'd let DS be held by strangers.

So many parents are so precious about their children, it makes a lot of other people very unwilling to engage.

In all honesty those refusing help when out with their kids and struggling are likely to do so because they feel hugely judged that they can’t manage (as seen from the comment) or are seen as imposing or an inconvenience on other people. Not because they don’t need help. It’s arising from the general attitude of “you had kids, you deal with it - not my problem”, which is so harmful.

It's not just me then! I live on the border to France and whenever we go to the French supermarket you can hardly hear yourself think from all the screaming kids. If someone's not kicking off in the toy aisle are you really even in Leclerq? And the parenting is not better. I saw a man slap a grizzling toddler the last time I was in. And yes I was too cowardly to say anything about it.

A lot of posters here have written that they don't hate children, but they dislike loud children who don't sit quietly.

The thing is, children find it hard do be perfectly behaved at all times. They're children and they're learning.

As long as the parents are trying to teach them good manners and removing them from situations if the child / parents are overwhelmed by the situation, I don't think there is a problem.

But to expect children to behave perfectly is unreasonable. The parents need to try to teach / distract / find ways to show their children how to safely behave in public- but you kind of need to be in public to teach and show them that I think.

As the mother of two children under 4 years old, I think society can be pretty judgy if your children are having meltdowns in public. I won't stop taking my kids to restaurants, cafes and shopping though. They're learning and getting better each day. So am I.

My overall experience has been positive though. Just yesterday I was in a shop and my DD was crying about something that had happened. The ladies in the shop looked a little bit off to begin with. I then went on to explain why my DD was crying and what had just happened. They were massively sympathetic and had a chat with my DD to explain that they understood why she was sad and distracted her a little bit/ offered her some sweets etc. initially they thought she was just being a brat about something but then they understood her feelings, they were really nice about it.

I think sometimes people judge to
quickly. I think when the public see you're trying your best to educate your child, they get it. People get irritated if the parents don't even bother, I think.

I agree. We live in a culture where the strong bully the weak.

Children, women and elderly are constantly abused.

I have worked as a teacher. I have seen abuse towards children in a lot of schools.

Some adults abuse children because they can. The adult is bigger and more powerful.

I remember working in a very posh private school, where the parents were paying huge money for their children to go there.

I thought "if the parents knew what went on here they would be shocked".

It's everywhere. Children are abused.

I just read Paris Hilton's book. Her family are multi millionaires. They paid huge money for Paris to go to a therepuetic boarding school when she was a teen.

Paris has since said that huge, massive abuse went on in that school. That she was locked in solitary confinement. That male staff watched her have showers.

It's so bad

But what is “poor parenting”? You see from the range of responses on here that it encompasses everything from giving your child an iPad, to interacting with them, to refusing to impose absolute silence and stillness on them, some of which is just totally ridiculous and unrealistic. I think the attitude of what constitutes “poor parenting” has become much stricter in the UK.

I remember growing up in the 80s and being allowed to run wild, play in the street, call for my friends at their houses unannounced & chat to my parents when out at dinner - we weren’t so tightly controlled or had this huge set of expectations imposed on us in the way that happens now. I am sceptical about a lot of what is now described as “poor parenting”. It also used to be the case that children were frequently hit growing up to impose discipline on them (DH was smacked every day by his mother - she wanted little soldiers who would loyally obey her every command). I am glad that we have mostly moved away from that model of parenting and if that makes my parenting “poor” then so be it.