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

[BirdPlanet]

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.

I don't like middle aged women.

I don't like noisy, poorly behaved children raised by entitled, lazy parents.

And why is it acceptable to say you don’t like children? With every other category of people it’s considered completely unacceptable, as has been pointed out several times already.

Obviously, some children are noisy, and that can be annoying, but I find noisy adults worse. Especially drunk adults.

I agree OP, it's a horrible thing to say. I don't have any children but I like them in general, and a few in particular (my nieces and nephews 🥰).

Of course YABU

People are allowed to have no interest in being near children, not want to be around children or babies.

it doesn't mean they have to put up with adults of any age. At least adults you can ignore, let them do whatever they want and walk away if they annoy you.

Not at all, it doesn't sound offensive the other way round either. Old people can be very annoying as well!

Ok but other people can require patience as well. If we’re making sweeping generalisations you could say “I don’t like old people, they’re deaf so you have to repeat yourself, they walk slowly so you have to go slowly. I just don’t like having to be patient.”

I know a number of people who don't like small children - so not children in general, just the 'baby and toddler' variety. In their cases though it's most that they don't like unpredictability, and being unpredictable is rather the raison d'etre of babies and toddlers, so I can, sort of, understand this.

I don’t like rude, loud, badly behaved children. I don’t like rude, loud, badly behaved elderly ladies either…

Yes they are noisy and annoying. But they are also funny, endearing, inquisitive, engaging. I walked past a toddler in a buggy yesterday. The parent blanked me but the child gave me a cheery wave and a big smile. So I smiled and waved back then went on my way a bit happier.

Is it a mum forum? I use the recipe and style and beauty threads primarily.

Its just a forum

I don't think it's unacceptable, just a bit odd. I don't have children, not because I don't like them, I just am not ready to be a parent (and may never be). I like some of my friend's children. But equally I enjoy spending time in child-free environments too.

Regardless of one's feelings about children, I would think and hope that no one is actively against children, as a group, being worthy of rights and special protections, and needing adults to advocate for them.

Well they can say it, I don't think the police will arrest someone, so unacceptable to whom? Will the sky fall if somone says it?

I don't have to agree or like it but it is not unacceptable

I don't have much time for them and they often can be very irritating and annoying, well some of the parents are anyway. I think more than anything it is indulgent parents who allow their kids to go wild and scream all day long and generally be little scamps are the problem.

I feel the same about many people who annoy me, and that's allowed. I just don't say it out loud to anyone, I keep it to myself and avoid where possible occasions where I have to be around them. Same with dogs frankly.

It shocks me regularly how many posters on a forum for mums openly dislike all children. Look at the poll results for this thread! Very telling.

I do think a lot of posters on mumsnet aren’t mums though.

Quite the opposite, I'd say most are mums but they only like their OWN kids, who are always perfect little darlings BTW of course!

But this is a positive comment. Positive statements are welcome.

Saying you hate something means you don’t want to be around it - so then hating children I’m assuming means you don’t want to be around them or want to be around parents when their children are with them?

I don’t know.

You can say “I don’t feel comfortable around children” or “I don’t know how to react around children” because that at least tells us what the issue is. But just saying that “you hate children” is so extreme - the is an extreme world and I heard it a lot - especially from people that maybe don’t spend much time with children - but then I think to myself - just make a life where children are around.

It’s like saying you hate babies, you hate dogs, you hate men, you hate shop assistants. You’ve either had a bad experience; never been around the group enough to know that they are not all the same; or don’t want to be around that group.

I find it more understandable that people would say they dislike all children than those who say they only like their own.

The OP didnt mention hating children she asked if its ok for people to say they dont like children

Its ok not to like something.

I don't find it offensive, just fairly juvenile

Obviously they can be annoying but that's generally the things that go along with being a kid, not the kids themselves (and I have dcs myself).

I find it irritating when people on MN fall over themselves to say they don't like kids, would never have them etc.

Oh god, do we now have to qualify "i don't like children" with "hashtag not all children just the boisterous ones whose so-called-parents just ignore them"??

i generally like children, but i don't want to be exposed to anyone's badly behaved brats wherever i go, especially in the evenings. So sue me.

ETA: oh and given the disgraceful ageism here on MN we can see that plenty of people don't like older women

but the difference there is patience is required for EVERY toddler, because of the fact they’re 2, and don’t know how to do everything yet, whereas not EVERY elderly person requires patience.

they are the one and only group of people who DO have a common thing which applies to all of them - that they haven’t learnt yet how to contribute interestingly to any topic. This doesn’t apply to any other group of people.

if I wanted to sit round a table and discuss any topic with a mixed group of strangers, say a 2 yr old, and then one person from each other decade, I wouldn’t know beforehand whether I would enjoy/agree with/find interesting the contributions from any of the people other than the 2yr old, which would be a no.

I always think generalisations are a bit daft.

She said generalising.

People are dicks op. What you going to do 🤷🏻‍♀️

I used to work with a manager who was quite vocal that she didn't like children, so I used to tell her that she consider herself lucky her parents didn't feel the same