To think if you hate kids you shouldn’t have become a parent?

[SlappyHap]

I see so much of “I hate kids, I only like my own” on here, and I just think it’s awful.

You became a parent but you will actively hate your children’s friends, school mates, any other child running round and playing with your child in the park/play area etc.? How on earth do you cope in child/family oriented settings?

If you hate kids (apart from your own) why did you become a parent?

Too many people have kids for the benefits or just because that's what you are "supposed to do" without even stopping to consider if they possess the qualities necessary to be successful parents.

I love my kids. I like a few of their friends. But I can’t talk to children that aren’t mine and quite honestly, I don’t really wish to.

Love my own kids and grandkids because they’re my family but I’m not much interested in small children. I find them boring.

I’m one of those.

I have zero interest in other children, only my own. I’ve never cooed over someone else’s baby, or thought, “aww, what a cute toddler.”

Just zero interest. I have to pretend to be interested in friends children, but I couldn’t really give a shit (and I would never expect anyone to care about my children).

I am shit at taking to other peoples kids too. One of my friends laughs and says I do a “kate Middleton” when talking to them. She’s right 🤣

Same with my dog. Love her, completely indifferent to other dogs and have to force myself to reciprocate to be polite when other dog owners fuss her or ask questions.

And while I’m at it, same with my husband. I tolerate him but other people’s can get to fuck, I’ve no interest in their existence.

And also massively irritating.

I actually liked children more before I had my own.

Then my tolerance for shitty parenting and poorly behaved children plummeted.

Quite the opposite actually! Many women who claim they "love kids" and end up having one baby after the other are those who fuck them up the most. They don't have the resources or attention to meet the needs of all those children.

I don’t love generic ‘children’. I never see a group of children and think, ahh cute etc. I would choose to be seated away from a young family when eating dinner.

But I love my own kids and I really enjoyed being around my children’s friends when they were younger. Now their friends are all young adults and we are friends in our own right, which is lovely. I think you’re reading too much into this. You need to question why you care about this quite so much.

No. 8 & 10.

On the contrary. I have loved having mine. Every single day since I had them, one of them had made me laugh.

I think a lot of people use “I hate kids” as a way of saying they find being around children tiring or overwhelming. Parenting your own child is also a very different experience from being around groups of other children.
As long as people are respectful towards other children, I don't think there’s much to read into it. Everyone has different levels of patience for noise, mess and chaos.

I am not a parent by choice and I hear more of this generalised not liking children from parents than from other childfree people.

It's really the opposite for me, I like other people's children well enough, but I know I would hate having my own children.

I hate this expression, but first post nails it.

I don't have a general knack for children. I am EXCELLENT, in my not so humble opinion, with the ones I know well. My son and his little pals? Best buddies. His best friend swerved round him to hug me round the knees the other day, I was dead chuffed.

But I neither want or need to have that sort of relationship with any random child. It is as weird to say "I love all children" as it is to say "I love all 30-somethings". The only difference is they you can't blame a child from being an unsocial little scrote.

And frankly, there are and should be parts of your life to which even your own child isn't welcome.

I always disliked kids, except babies. I had my own and obviously I love and like them to bits but I also like kids in general a lot more now.

I don't parents hate other kids rather they loose the patience and tolerance they might once have had because they are run ragged by their own kids. Or they become hyper aware of negative traits in other people's children that they have worked hard to avoid in their own. E.g. noisy whiny kids in a restaurant when your own are behaving would be annoying.....it's easy to forget that time your own child tipped you overt the edge by being a total pain because they were coming down with chickenpox and felt like crap but were unable to vocalise it.

I work in a school and I've heard kids say that certain teachers hate kids. They don't but there is often something else going on for that teacher, sick elderly parents, divorce, work related stress and it is a tough job. Unless you can give almost 100% every day with endless patience and tolerate the kids notice and feel like you aren't doing enough for them.

I don't hate kids but I resent the fact that I'm supposed to be ga ga over babies, love talking about kids etc just because I happen to be a woman and a mother. The same pressure isn't there for my DH even though he is a parent too.

I love my kids but I don't want to talk about them all of the time, I'm also not interested in other people's kids and find discussion around them largely boring.

It's a reason why I only made it to parent and baby groups a few times.

I’m not sure the ones who bullied me my entire school life (different schools) were vulnerable, curious and innocent… my child was bullied also by not vulnerable , curious and innocent children

Maybe women have to say they hate kids because they're not allowed to simply dislike them?!

It's not the children I dislike. It's the parents who seem unwilling to parent to the detriment of their children and everyone around them.

It depends on the child. My dcs have some lovely friends.

I think this is a bit of a myth, sorry. Italians dote on babies and tiny children but after the age of 3 or 4 they're treated mostly with benign neglect and left to their own devices.

I think the question is why dont people parent their children? I dont like the majority of children because they are feral.

I can help shape, inspire, teach, discipline etc my own child. I can’t do that with others. I find in the UK we are expected to ‘tinkly laugh’ when other peoples children are causing chaos at nice places, not sitting still and joining in conversations in restaurants, being unable to venture anywhere public without needing an iPad to occupy them, whining because Mummy said no to an ice cream. I don’t want to be around adults like that so I really don’t wish to be around children like it either. It’s not a ‘dislike’ of children per se, it’s a dislike of the current culture that children shouldn’t be expected to behave because ‘kids aren’t perfect’ which seems to excuse 99% of families that can’t be arsed to get their kids to behave.

OMG - this is me (except for the dogs. I rarely meet a dog that I wouldn’t object to taking home with me).

It is because other people's children are unpredictable and noisy and annoying, is really what they mean, least you know your own children, i don't think you have to love being around kids all the time.