Sure before I had kids my interaction with little kids was similarly limited. My wife used to complain about how freaky they were with their jam covered hands.
Well, I would put it this way:
There’s nothing wrong with being childfree in the orginal sense of the word: Not desiring children.
But it is true, many of the people who post on the childfree boards are complete whackjobs. Any time a child is given any type of news coverage, good or bad, they get up in arms. If it’s bad, it shows how evil all children are. If it’s good, no child deserves it. The whole world is a big conspiracy by parents against the childfree.
I think there’s a lot of similarities between those boards and, for example, freerepublic, in that both are dominated by confirmation bias.
I can only hope that the people who post on the boards (mswas has linked to them) are only a small minority of the childfree population.
I have to add that I haven’t seen anything nearly that bad on the SDMB.
Well, if I go to forums dedicated to left-handedness, I’d be entirely unsurprised to see disparaging remarks about “righties”. I wouldn’t automatically assume that all (or most of, or even a significant minority of) left-handed people feel this way, since I’m looking at the self-selecting group that bothers to post on such topics.
So, no, I don’t agree to things that are unproven.
Disclosure: I’m left-handed and childfree.
It’s no more Newspeak than the distinction between “loner” and “lonely”. Or “atheist” and “godless”.
And considering the way most people act towards those who don’t have children - as if they are either defective or evil -it’s an important distinction. Some people don’t have children, don’t want children, and are neither unhappy nor evil.
It’s more reserved on the SDMB but they slip in comments about genuflection and the cult of the child.
If actually taking on the job of the propagation of the species is ‘cultish’ then whatever, I’m a cultist. I do seriously consider how I raise my child and what that means for society. I try to raise her to be civil and to respect others. To say please and thank you. You don’t have to believe me or give me accolades, but I do actually think about the greater society. When she’s screaming in a restaurant I do try to figure out the best way to get her to stop so that I don’t annoy the other diners. shrug Best I can do I guess. If people still hate me and my children for our simple existence, well, I think that’s bigotry. And if you are going to make comments about ‘genuflecting’ then I’ll go on using the term, ‘childless’.
The Newspeak dictionary was about limiting the language. Removing ‘unnecessary’ words for political reasons. You’re right having the world ‘childfree’ isn’t Newspeak. It’s the attempt to eliminate ‘childless’ that is Newspeak.
But I maintain that civility is a two way street. If you don’t want me to use the term childless, don’t pat someone on the back when they make a bigotted joke at the expense of the ‘breeders’.
I think the whole childfree/childless issue is oversensitivity to an extreme degree. It’s like ‘herstory’, saying that the word history is anti-women. It’s really the intent that makes something offensive. When someone calls me a breeder they INTEND to be offensive. When someone uses the term childless they’re just speaking English.
I really don’t believe it’s ‘most people’. But I live in the Liberal Utopia of New York where these types of things are not a big issue in my subgroup.
Well, if anything that’s a polite way to put it. On the whole, I see “children” used as a weapon. “For the children” generally means “against everyone else”. I see the “pro-child” people demanding unearned respect, while at the same time trying to restrict the freedom of others to supposedly “protect the children”. Protect them from “dangers” that just happen to be what the parent in question finds personally offensive. I’m tired of putting up with censorship “for the children”.
Who’s trying to eliminate it? Someone asking that they, personally be referred to a certain way isn’t trying to eliminate a word.
Something I can’t recall ever hearing in the first place, except in cases like, well, yours where you probe the crannies of the Internet to find people saying something you don’t like.
Sometimes. Quite often though, they are being insulting, pitying or outright accusatory. I’m not interested in listening to someone lecture me about how they are morally superior because they have children and how I haven’t done my “biological duty”.
Really, I don’t see the point here.
“I am childfree and that kind of shit appalls me.”
See? I guess nobody here agrees with this weirdos on a some message boards that are all about hating children. We just don’t understand why you get so worked up about this non-issue. Really, a self-titled “childfree” Internet forum is the mother of all confirmation biases (biae? biasae? bias…esses?). You just cannot argue from that alone.
Really, this is the issue of people hating other people because of something they do or are. I don’t see anything special here. There are people on this world who would hate me because I’m male, because I’m a geek, because I’m a an atheist, because I’m german, hell, hate me because I don’t like sports or because my favorite colour is blue. you just found some people who hate other people because of something else. So what? It’s even a little less aggravating then racism to me, as it’s hating people for something they DO instead of something they ARE.
Yeah, well, no more. People here have told they…
a) …don’t actually have anything against children or people who have children, but chose to remain without children for their own reasons, and…
b) …they like the word “childfree” better, because it does not imply something that’s missing, but rather a state they chose. In fact, they are offended by “childless”, because it implies this state is involuntary.
So, from now on, if you use the word “childless” in this context, you are well aware you are insulting people. 
Come on. You don’t want to be called “breeder” (I mean, that’s a english term, too - if you have children, you bred, didn’t you)? If you don’t want to be called that, all right, of course I understand that, but then why don’t you accept that some people want to be called “childfree” and not “childless”? You can’t complain about getting a label you don’t like from other people if you label them a way they don’t like.
The question if we should be grateful to people who have kids is not even related here.
I knew that before. But why should anyone care about the feelings of people who have contempt for my lifestyle? What does it matter? If they are going to make comments about ‘genuflection’ then that absolves me of any necessity to validate their life choices knowing full well that they won’t reciprocate such courtesy.
It’s about intent. Childless is merely descriptive whereas no one uses the term ‘breeder’ in a non-offensive sense. It’s MEANT to be offensive, whereas childless is merely the default.
It’s interesting that this concept is lost on people. Being intentionally offensive vs just using English in the mainstream way.
Do you think there is a responsibility to kowtow to the linguistic stylings of people who express open contempt for you?
It’s multicultural Chomskyan tactics. The idea that language itself is oppressing them. I don’t use ‘herstory’ either and plenty of feminists would claim I am oppressing them, and I think their argument is more valid than that of the childfree about the term childless. It’s multiculturalism run amok, where we are told that every lifestyle is some kind of subjugated minority, when the notion that life is oppressive to the childfree is patently absurd. Everyone I know who is childfree revels in it, goes to live in France for one month and California the next. They party all night, hop from bed to bed if that’s their thing. I don’t see any oppression going on at all. I see a society that supports a radical freedom in their lifestyle.
My parents had very little in action with me during my childhood because they had better things to do like earning a living. Children were raised communally in the extended family with whatever hands were available doing the child minding, but it certainly wasn’t the desirable work of any adult. The desirable work was something that paid money. Yet, I look back on my childhood, at least until the point when I was old enough to be given chores, as an incredibly blissful period. I certainly didn’t suffer from any lack of parental attention. In fact, I think it is the primary factor in why I am a self-sufficient, mature adult today. And the same is of my cousins and siblings and all the other children I know raised in similiar fashion.
Ahh, sounds like an interesting situation.
Well, if the kid is dead, those of us who couldn’t stand the kid are free of him or her. Why do childfree people sometimes wish death on children? Probably the same reason people sometimes wish death on street mimes, skinheads, muggers, etc. It’s a natural response when someone annoys or threatens you.
You could step up and be the better person.
Sure, but I don’t think that if this kind of hate is the norm, the mainstream among childfree as seems to be indicated by childfree forums that it should be validated. Hateful ideologies should be recognized as hateful ideologies. This should be viewed similarly as other bigotted zealots like Fred Phelps. As I see it bratfree.com is the same as godhatesfags.com.
To me it was the norm.
Sure, that’s one way of looking at it. I just don’t think this bigotry should be validated by society at large. It needs to be pointed out for the bigotry that it is and we shouldn’t give into the whiney bullshit about how childfree people are oppressed by parents everywhere. It’s entitled hateful nonsense. There’s no oppression going on. These people need to relax, fly to Cozumel and drink a Margarita and examine just how oppressed they’re not.
How is it bigotted to point out that the Duggars have nineteen children, children that are homeschooled, taught to adhere to roles in life based solely on gender, allowed no exposure to the outside world and barely given any education?
All you to do half the time is listen to one of her poor kids. When they speak in public most of them give no evidence of more than a third grade education.
Yes. There are people who are bigotted against those without children.
Your point?
Your opinion.
You’re obviously never been a woman forced between economic survival and leaving a three month old baby behind in day care.
I have and yes it sucks.
Compared to the rest of the industrialized world we very few protections for women with small children. We have no subsidized maternity leave and no subsidized day care. Lose your job and you risk losing your family’s health insurance. We tie decent public schools to property taxes thus making it hard to find good public education if you are not middle class or above in income.
Then again attitudes like the implications that you’ve apparently expressed herer – that breeding is inherently good even if the net result is someone who grows up to be a mugger, crack addict or half wit – don’t help either.
Over sensitive much? Pro-natalism could easily be classed as a hateful ideology because of the danger overpopulation presents to the lives of those of us already born. If you don’t like the fact that boards like bratfree.com exist, then devote your time to teaching children manners and proper deportment. When society has no brats, places like bratfree will cease to exist. Until then (and it will probably be a long until), be glad that childfree people have places they can commune free of children and let out some of their tension. It makes us less likely to respond in kind to the bad behavior of brats and their handlers.
Hm. Followed by
,
I guess you do have contempt for a chil… for a lifestyle without children, at least it’s implied here. But I wouldn’t call you a “breeder”.
Oh, no. “childless”, like “godless” feels somewhat offensive like many other “-ness”, in the way of “why the hell did you screw up so you don’t have it” to me. It emphasizes the without. I wouldn’t call a person horseless, or planeless. The point is, you can’t decide what description is acceptable just because you don’t see anything wrong with it. With the same argumentation I could say - mswas doesn’t care if I like being called this - why shouldn’t I call him a breeder then?
See, most people I see here are not intentionally offensive. They see the word “childfree” as I described it above. And that’s it.
And again you go on over… I don’t know… a conspiracy of people who want to change language? Or something? I honestly don’t understand this. I’d expect you reaction to this to be something like “Huh. You really don’t like this word? Childless? That bad? Allright then, I’ll call just you … what was it? Childfree then”. Really, there is not a big meeting of children-and-mother-haters going on, and their latest plan is to mess up language to annoy you. There are just a few nutjobs who have an irrational hate on children. They happen to call themselves childfree. But that does not mean everybody who uses this phrase thinks the same.
I look at it a bit different. Two year olds are brats naturally. They are basically feral and must be taught manners. The thirty and forty year old brats at bratfree.com have no excuse and no room to talk.
The only way for there to be no brats is for there to be no children.
It seems like a spoiled brat ideology for people who are pissed off that they don’t get coddled like children anymore. That’s all I can see in it.
There’s no oppression. Go fuck and suck your way across Europe, or whatever your pleasure is, stop whining about how people who are far less free than you are live. You get to go home and my daughter is no longer in your hair. She comes home with me. 
I enjoy her company, and I love my daughter, but she can be really annoying.
Before I ever had kids I don’t remember EVER being as angry at children or their parents as what I see from childfree types. Sure I saw poorly behaved adults with poorly behaved kids, but I see poorly behaved adults without poorly behaved kids too. Such as at bratfree.com.
Rather than hating kids, take your Dink ass sailing around the Caribbean and be hundreds of miles from any children for days at a time. Seriously. If you don’t have kids and you are socially mobile, what exactly do you have to complain about?