Is it wrong to hate small children?

[freaper]

Only when parents can't get them to stay quiet in public, like at the movies or on the bus.

Not all kids come with a quiet-switch.

 

[sky14kemea]

I hate kids. Both at work and the experiences I've had with neighborhood ones.

I think it's fine to hate kids, as long as you're not actually mean to them. It's that whole "kids take in more than you think" stuff. If a kid asks you something or looks at you, you should smile and respond to them nicely, even if you do hate kids. Because it would be much worse if they grew up into an asshole because random adults were mean to them during their childhood.

 

[bluegate]

It seems that some people on here would benefit from some professional help in certain areas.

As for children, making noise, smelling and doing stuff is what kids do, it is what everyone of us used to do. Although some forms of behavior of children can be controlled to a certain extend, some things are out of control and just have to be endured. For example, babies can cry for a plethora of reasons and in some cases there is little a parent can do to make the baby feel better and be quiet, getting angry at the baby for this is indeed a fault on your part.

 

[Aesir23]

Being annoyed by them is understandable.

Actually hating them is...a little irrational.

Yeah, people throw that word around a lot, when I think they mean they really dislike something. Hate is very powerful and rather hostile.

Well, referring to the earlier post, I don't actively think about hurting them or anything like that. Its just that I despise their presence.

Though...it definitely becomes hatred and thoughts of violence when we enter hour 3 of straight full-on screaming and wailing and it's 1:00AM and I have work in the morning and this is the third time this month and now I'm wondering if I should bury all three bodies together as a family or spread them out to make them harder to find....

Hour three?! Wow, you have more patience than I do. I was wondering after only half an hour when a toddler started shrieking at the top of his lungs for my entire early morning commute because he wasn't allowed to stand up on a moving bus.

 

[bluegate]

A community of people who exist primarily on an isolated online forum centered around games, is full of people with serious psychological, emotional, and other issues?

If you don't want to be in that crowd, you need to find new places to be.

So, people having 'serious psychological, emotional, and other issues' is an inherent thing to online forums centered around games nowadays? I wasn't aware of that development.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

From an evolutionary standpoint, probably not.

There is no 'wrong' from an evolutionary standpoint anyways. It's descriptive and not even descriptive of morality.

Of course, this probably means you're not very evolved, if you still have these caveman urges..

That's not how it works...

 

[JoJo]

From an evolutionary standpoint, probably not.

Children not your own are a threat to your own progenies security so you would do away with them to ensure security of resources for them once born.

Of course, this probably means you're not very evolved, if you still have these caveman urges..

I don't know, if you're going back as far as a chimp equivalent then that would be true, chimpanzees are notorious for killing and even eating each other babies if they're left unattended. One of the important things that separates us humans from other apes though is that even in "cavemen" times we cared for each other's young, allowing hands to be freed up to benefit the tribe as a whole and passing on vital knowledge to the next generation. Lion-style killing other group member's young for your own benefit has been out of style for millions of years, may as well talk about the evolutionary benefits of sleeping in trees.

 

[RaikuFA]

I see this more as hating parent's who think their child is a special snowflake that can do no wrong. I've seen people have their kids use the store I work at as a personal playground. Then get upset and threaten to sue if we even try and stop the kid from swinging off of a aisle.

Hell I actually get a lot of well behaved kids at the store. I double check with the parents if it's ok to give a sticker to them to make sure I'm not rewarding two faced behavior. Parents are actually impressed I do this.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

And I mean actually intensely so? Not to the point where you want to hurt them or anything, but to the point where just being near them is uncomfortable?

Because it seems like if you even think about not liking children and thinking they're super and awesome, you're some kind of defective monster. Like I'm suppose to appreciate their insipidness and the smell, and the getting into everything. And the noise, oh sweet mercy the noise. The noise. The never-ending cacophony of noises that split the sanity of anyone nearby.

But we're supposed to play nice. Not complain or expect people with children to be considerate of others. That the rest of us are just supposed to deal with noises that make us seriously consider that a Hellgate has opened and demons are crawling out. The worst part is now I've gotten to the point in my life where social events and gathering are going to based around and revolve around babies and small children, since nearly everyone is getting married and/or having kids now so you've got to fake enthusiasm for them.

It isn't weird, honestly. What would be is if you verbalized actual murderous urges or confessed to wanting to slap the ragamuffins silly for no reason whatsoever.

I consider kids to be larval adults missing all the important bits: the respect of personal boundaries, the understanding that mental fatigue is a thing, the intellectual stamina required to invest time and effort into actually worthwhile pursuits... The thing is, I remember being a kid, and I remember being just as obnoxious. I wanted all the damn toys that came with fake boogers, all the Doctor Dreadful chemistry sets and all the Halloween or Ghostbusters-themed memorabilia out there. I misplaced my toys, cried about it and blamed it on my parents when they couldn't find them. I had plenty of good streaks and probably had friends who were twice as horrible as I could be, but I know for a fact that I ruined my fair share of quiet weekends.

It's that knowledge that gives me patience around children. I've seen one of my cousins grow up from being an obnoxious mouth in constant need of nourishment and riddled with self-esteem issues to a young man that radiates self-confidence and who has quite resolutely found himself. We have multiplayer seshes together or sometimes crack open Elder Sign or Arkham Horror, and he drives me around whenever our schedules allow it. I stuck around, and that allowed me to see the worthwhile adult push out of the obnoxious teenager with relatively little prodding. I can't say I raised him, but he definitely looks up to me.

Whenever you feel the urge to throw all the kids in your vicinity through a Hellgate, remember that you used to be one and that it's ultimately just a phase. The obnoxious squeaker with the online potty mouth can actually turn out to be someone who's worthwhile, if a few years go by.

 

[Nailzzz]

I prefer to reserve my personal hatred for the parents rather than the children. Parents are the ones who are after all far more responsible for your discomfort. Sadly we don't hold parents responsible enough for the actions of their offspring. Instead parents use the diminished state of their children as a shield, rather than take full responsibility. Frankly parents need more incentives to not become parents.

 

[Dinadan]

A community of people who exist primarily on an isolated online forum centered around games, is full of people with serious psychological, emotional, and other issues?

If you don't want to be in that crowd, you need to find new places to be.

So, people having 'serious psychological, emotional, and other issues' is an inherent thing to online forums centered around games nowadays? I wasn't aware of that development.

Yes, it is, and it's not a development, it's always been this way. Fringe arenas fill with fringe elements, and part of any fringe element is a healthy dose of the mentally ill, developmentally delayed, socially and emotionally disturbed, and more. It's not an exclusive thing, it's more like sociopathy in prisons vs. the general population.

It's not JUST games though, it's all online communities in general, and the smaller and more niche-focused in particular. The focus matters less than the monomaniacal nature of the focus.

As true as this might be, knowing that still doesn't make some of these comments less disturbing. And someone further back said the 'children should be seen, not heard' line, which makes me shudder. Kids are kids, not little gremlins in training. If you expect them to annoy you, they will, because you will pay special attention to everything that might do so.

Of course, having sensitive hearing or just a tendency for headaches doesn't help there in the least.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Of course not. We send the cops when you love small children not when you hate them. Hating them is OK. Hate is what keeps you away from them and away is good.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Don't worry, it's completely evolutionary:


I actually like children, so I appear to be an oddity around here. Sure, some kids can be a pain in the ass, but it tends to center around certain ages, and it's definitely not all the time. A lot of people's experiences here are exacerbated by the fact that you only tend to notice other people's kids when they are being annoying

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Nah. Nuthin' wrong widdat.

I dislike kids sometimes too. Every Friday between 5 PM and 6 PM, to be precise; The kids in my taekwondo group have absolutely zero discipline, and it irritates the everloving shit out of me. They never stop talking no matter how many times you tell them off (seriously, they can keep their fucking mouths shut for 4 seconds at most before they start babbling again), they rarely listen to me, some of them just do nothing but whine and the focus is just not there. It's also worse whenever the head instructor is absent.

But God forbid I raise my voice or actually have some expectations of them, because then I'll just be reported to my instructor that I'm too hard on them. Yes, that seriously happened once; There were two little shitty brats who refused to be quiet and would not listen to me, and when I told them off, not being any harsher with them than I was with any of the other kids, the parents called my instructor and said that I apparently scared them so bad that they didn't return again after one more session.

God. Some days, you just wish you could smack them. One of my instructors who had to stand in for me once even told me that I must have the patience of a saint to be able to put up with them every week.

Oh, and also whenever I'm in the vicinity of crying, screaming babies and their shithead parents who don't even try to calm them down. I'm very sensitive to loud noise, so this is extra grating. And I seem to encounter them everywhere; On the town, at bus stations, on air planes, in cafés, in stores...even my mom has commented on how weird it is. I believe that I was cursed by a baby deity for some wrong-doing I did in a previous life.
The worst part is that I know that this is completely irrational; They're babies, they don't know better, they're just signaling that something's wrong. But my disdain for noise outweighs my reasoning at those times.

Someday, I'll probably grow past this. But that day is not today.

Can we work together to build a "no kids" camp together? Cause it sounds like our opinions mesh quite well. The little shits frustrate me all the time... I get it, they're young, they don't know better... I don't care. The parents suck ass too. My parents know how I feel bout kids too. They can see it in my expression when I see a kid freaking out for no reason, and the parents refuse to do anything.

I was at work walking through the parking lot to grab a car to clean (Rental service stuff), and this little 5 year or so girl just walked with her parents screaming, again and again and again, for NO reason. She was happy looking. The mother didn't say a single thing. Instead, she just kept talking to her friend. Fuck those kinds of parents. They're the type that are so sick of listening to their tiny crap of a child going on about nothing that they shut them out, and the kid thinks it's fine cause he/she is going un-opposed. Neither becomes an effective way of making things better.

I doubt I'll have kids. I'm sure it'd be different with my own kid, but I can't help but imagine how cozy of a life I could have with all of the money, time, energy, and mental sanity I'd have if I didn't get involved with a kid. And I'm selfish sometimes when it comes to my quality of living. So, those points far outweigh any benefit of having a kid, personally.

Edit: I wanna also clarify that kids aren't always horrible. At a fast food place I worked at, this 8-10 year old girl very shyly asked me for a cup of water, and even backed up when I handed it to her. She looked like she wanted to hide from me. But once I gave her what she wanted, she smiled brightly and thanked me before scampering back to her table. It was adorable, I remember that moment very fondly. It made my day. I've had moments where kids were alright. I just wish I could experience more of that. Instead I tend to experience kids when I want them to just stop screaming/talking/prying for attention to the point I have to drown them out. It sucks. Bah

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Hating any people, genuine hatred, is typically the path to bad things happening. If you genuinely hate children I don't know what causes you to be so wound up about a group of people ... but it sounds like a you problem and you might want to talk to someone about it. I have no problem hating concepts... like bankers and politicians... but I don't think that bankers are inherently bankers or politicians, just people who willingly choose to be bankers and politicians.

Bit hard to justify hating children solely for being children, regardless of individual qualities. And yes, I think such attitudes are in general poisonous to true reason. After all why exactly should people pretend not to show genuine distaste in a person who arbitrarily hates an entire group of people simply for existing, without nuance or reasonable discrimination of one's hatred? If anything, it's you being utterly unreasonable in hating something beyond logical boundary.

Doesn't seem like people simply 'playing nice' and rather people actively trying not to be a truly unreasonable bastard. If that's your thing, fine... but don't pretend you're an enlightened soul.

 

[Bat Vader]

I hate kids. I hate it when I am at a nice restaurant or a movie and someone's kid starts to cry and they won't take the damn thing outside. I'm happy I made up my mind long ago to never have kids. I would hate having to deal with that.

 

[Fox12]

What gets me is that adults talk about how innocent and good natured children are. Have you seen kids? They're violent, selfish, lying little monsters. They're also expensive, and smell bad. I mean, I wouldn't mind having a little monster of my own one day, but lets be honest. They call this bout of insanity "parenthood."

They're not as bad as old people, though. I actively hate the elderly.

Spoiler

 

[Sarge034]

The last part looks like he's complaining that society doesn't cater to him and he has to go through the terrible burden of tolerating kids. Not a demand but still.

I don't care for kids but it's a bit much to gripe that we can't just go around complaining about kids and that other people do like kids.

So instead of society catering to him you advocate society catering to mothers and their children? I dislike little bratty children and any child who makes a bunch of noise. So let's say we're in a public place and a child is throwing a temper tantrum, why must I deal with it and the mother not be made to? I have tinnitus in my left ear, any loud noise and any noise above a certain pitch is absolutely excruciating to me. Why should I be driven out of a public place because of your child? Do I hate kids? Eh. Do I hate parents who don't deal with their children being obnoxious? Absolutely.

 

[Dinadan]

The last part looks like he's complaining that society doesn't cater to him and he has to go through the terrible burden of tolerating kids. Not a demand but still.

I don't care for kids but it's a bit much to gripe that we can't just go around complaining about kids and that other people do like kids.

So instead of society catering to him you advocate society catering to mothers and their children? I dislike little bratty children and any child who makes a bunch of noise. So let's say we're in a public place and a child is throwing a temper tantrum, why must I deal with it and the mother not be made to? I have tinnitus in my left ear, any loud noise and any noise above a certain pitch is absolutely excruciating to me. Why should I be driven out of a public place because of your child? Do I hate kids? Eh. Do I hate parents who don't deal with their children being obnoxious? Absolutely.

In most any circumstances the parents WILL deal with it. Just because kids don't come with an off-switch and it takes time to calm them down, doesn't make the parents automatically inept or uncaring. Also, yes our societies should cater towards kids, cause they are a fundamental part of them. No society can function for long without kids for obvious reasons, so why should people be punished for having them? It's already not very appealing from a financial standpoint in most western countries, should they now be only allowed to go to public places under stringent conditions?

 

[krystalphoenix]

I don't think it's wrong to hate children. I don't particularly like them until they've learned some rules and can essentially play "nice" with people. The exception to this is my step-sisters little girls and my friends kids. They can turn me into big kid in a matter of seconds. I think it comes down to the fact that with my step-nieces and friends kids I can dole out a small amount of discipline, tell them not to do things and such, without their parents thinking I've overstepped a line. I can take care of the tykes for a few hours at a time without assistance, but they are definitely more manageable when you've got multiple family members around.