We’re talking about an individual who said she hated children, then spent 9 pages bitching about adults. At some point, it becomes clear that certain people are just fucking dumb.
I’m just curious which restaurants / stores these are where kids are at a constant, migrain inducing, can’t shut them up, goes to 11, screech … becuase of all the restaurants and stores that I go to, I run into something like that on the order of once every blue moon or so.
Maybe Maine is mellower than other places. Who know?
Heh, reminds me of the fellow who earnestly argued that women ought to dress modestly, because otherwise if they get raped and killed it is their fault - ‘guys have natural urges, you know’.
My experience is the same, in Toronto.
Same down in Louisiana.
It’s strange to me that there’s people out there who think that the “default small child” is a shrieking-loud hellion. Why isn’t observational bias within oneself even considered?
The people who hold that attitude tend to be the same people who claim unusual sensitivity to children’s noise, such as migraines triggered by children laughing etc. I suspect this is not a coincidence.
I guess the issue is to what extent people in general ought to arrange their affairs to accomodate the unusually sensitive.
The legal situation is pretty clear: what amounts to a “nuisance” at common law* is something such as a level of noise that would be bothersome to the average person - not the unusually sensitive person. To my mind this makes sense, since refraining from activities others find bothersome has social costs - it would not do to have the community held hostage to those of unusual senstitivity.
*At least, in most jurisdictions.
I was going to point that out too, but I figured anecdotes, data, blah blah blah.
But I cannot remember the last time I saw a kid have a legitimate meltdown in a store or some such place where the parents didn’t do something about it. Honest-to-God shrieking meltdowns are very rare things to witness and the parents usually do something.
I travel around a lot, too, and I have no idea where these armies of out-of-control children storming grocery stores and Borders’ are. Amazing that I’ve lived this long and somehow this plague has escaped me. Do kids cry? Sure, and parents usually do something to deal with it. I can think of many occasions when I was irritated or inconvenienced by adults, but kid-related irritations are very few and far in between.
Count me among those who find that certain high-pitched screech young children make to be physically painful. Not to the extent of nausea-inducing hours-long migraines but it does give me a headache. I’m not talking about general-purpose giggling and laughter, here; the sound that gives me headaches is specifically the full-blown, maximum-volume, maximum-pitch joy-squeal they occasionally admit in a fervor of excitement.
Do I hate the kid for being happy? No. I simply find the sound extremely unpleasant and wish the offending source were somewhere else. Depending on the location, I may or may not blame the kid/parent. McDonalds? Not their fault, doubly so if it has a playground. I leave. A bookstore, library, or other establishment where peace and quiet are generaly expected? I think the parent and kid should leave. It’s situationally dependant.
I’m not sure what some of the upthread posters who are calling those of us who are negatively affected by these high-pitched squeals are “bad people” are talking about. Are they saying that we’re not really feeling any pain, we’re just making it up as an excuse to be offended? Are they saying we’re CHOOSING to suffer every time we hear a certain frequency? Are you saying we’re lesser human beings because of a physiological reaction to a certain sound that, purely by coincidence, happens to be produced largely by small children? Because none of those are the case. Were the offending sound produced by windchimes, mail vans, or boiling cabbages, we would stay away from, and quite possibly hate, those offenders as well.
And for the record: I don’t hate children but I do dislike them. I find them too giggly and I don’t like the fact that I can’t hold intelligent conversations with them. I don’t want to have to entertain them, I don’t like playing childish games, I don’t think they’re cute. I don’t hate parents for being parents but I want nothing to do with their offspring and would be perfectly content if I never had to nteract with anyone under the age of sixteen. Do I makea big deal of it? No. I simply try to remove myself from situations where I’ll need to deal with kids, and instead go somewhere else. Basically it comes down to a simple desire to spend my time with others like myself; since I’m not a child anymore, this equates to a preference for spending my time with other non-children, and conversely, a dislike for spending time WITH children. If that makes me a bad person in your eyes, so be it. Your opinion of me is not really a concern, and I will merely mark you as a judgemental and easily-offended individual who I will shun in the same way I shun little kids, and then i will move on.
Long story short: Children have as much right to exist as anyone else. However, I don’t like their company, and they are capable of inadvertantly causing me to suffer, so I avoid them whenever possible. And while I understand that most of the time it should be up to me to remove myself from any situation where a child’s behavior is offensive to my sensibilities and sensitivities, I do expect parents to recognize when their kid’s behavior has crossed the line and it becomes the parent’s responsibility to deal with the situation.
Do you also dislike dogs because they wag their tails.
I mean, shit, they’re kids. They’re supposed to be giggly and unable to hold intelligent conversations. What do you want, a 9 year old to offer up is opion on the global economic crisis or something?
Anyone else find it a little odd that Jettboy hasn’t posted at all in the four days since the OP?
While I’m not the person to whom you refer, this strikes me as a bit odd.
The strange thing is not that some are especially sensitive, but that they would be “offended” by the source of what they are sensitive to, or “hate” the source. It isn’t the kid’s fault, or the parents, that you happen to have this disability.
If mail vans caused me acute pain, I still would not find mail van drivers “offensive” people or “hate” them - I’d realize that the source of the problem was my acute sensitivity, not their very existence.
The irony of the “easily offended” bit is somewhat funny, no?
Apologies to everyone who expected me to keep a running commentary on this thread, or to address each and every supergenius who took time to pound out bizarre, bullshit, kindergarten-level insults like “Fuck you in the heart with a big rubber dick.”
Last week was Spring Break, so I closed up the studio (where the computing box stays) and spent as much time as I could find with my ‘parasitic crotch fruit’, also known as my ‘squalling poop and booger dispenser’. We were planning a multi-state screaming tour of every McDonalds and grocery store along I-95, but that had to be scrapped due to my son’s lack of interest. Instead we spent most of the week hanging out at the gallery, going to the library, going to the zoo, hanging out at the beach, and watching DVDs at home. Only one trip to McDonalds, and he wouldn’t scream not matter how much I begged him.
To those who misinterpreted the OP as being about ‘everyone who doesn’t have children’ for whatever reason, I encourage you to go back and re-read it.
It should be apparent that the OP is very clearly about a very specific type of individual. The buzz phrases “No, not just people who don’t have kids, but the special group of asswipes who actively hate children” and “The emotionally immature, self-absorbed, narrow-minded, narcissistic, pinched little jackasses who rankle at the idea that their ‘freedom’ should be curtailed in any way…” or “Those childless-by-choice folk who bitch and moan incessantly about children…” couldn’t have been any clearer.
Still, if you are leading a life bereft of curtain climbers, yard apes and/or rugrats but don’t profess to an absolute, and very vocal, hatred of children with a fiery, burning passion that consumes your soul, and the OP somehow offended you, I offer my apologies. Again, the bitching was directed at a very specific type of individual, not just ‘anyone who doesn’t have children’.
That aforementioned specific type of individual is personified out loud and upstream by the amazing—and my personal pick for Shithead of the Year—Starwarsfreek42. Take a bow, dingus. You are without a doubt the most intolerant, bigoted, hate-filled, abrasive cow I’ve ever encountered on the ‘net. It’s not just your intolerance, bigotry, hate and abrasiveness that get you that dubious distinction; it’s your dogged defense of those less-than-stellar qualities and the warped sense of pride with which you display them. I can’t for the life of me imagine what psychological trauma must have happened to you in childhood to make you the damaged, fucked-up piece o’ work you are…it makes me sad to even think about it. Run, don’t walk, to the nearest therapist; if you really get lucky you might be able to get the help you need with only a decade or two or counseling.
The thing that was in the forefront of my mind when I wrote the OP was the way that the assholes mentioned therein feel that it’s perfectly fine-and-fucking-dandy to hate an entire group of people for no other reason than that they are young. I can almost understand racism, sexism, and homophobia —I don’t approve of them, but I can almost understand how someone could feel that way—but I can’t wrap my head around the idea of hating children. Why? Because they can be annoying? Hell, lots of people, things, and situations can be annoying, but they seldom inspire the outright hatred I’ve seen demonstrated here or the smug pride that some of you fuckers seem to feel about this attitude.
Children are people; genuine, complex human beings with their own thoughts, feelings, likes, dislikes, ambitions and agendas.
I know this guy, my best buddy, who is always quick with a joke or a smile. He’s always a pleasure to talk to, even if the conversations take all sorts of weird twists and turns; starting with why Spiderman is so cool and ending up with a desire to be a mandrill in the zoo for an afternoon. He can identify over a dozen classic American cars by sight, and can tell the difference between a ’59 and a ’60 Chevy Impala. He has a heart as big as Texas and once burst into tears because we couldn’t take an old homeless woman home to live in our spare room or, barring that, give her a zillion dollars with our plastic money card. He laughs like a donkey at the stupidist shit in the world. He speaks very well in English, and his grasp of Spanish is coming along nicely. He loves The Clash, and The Ramones (referred to as The Mamones), and Jimmy Buffett. He can read and write better than a number of people twice his age.
He’s my son, and he’s five years old.
Yeah, he can be an annoying little shit at times. He can, and occasionally does, stomp his feet, puff up and try to emotionally bully his mom and I until he gets his way. He’s often a master manipulator. He can be noisy and, being the inquisitive little monkey that he is, has a habit of ‘looking’ at things using his hands. He often doesn’t know when to stop, or when a joke has gotten stale and needs to be discarded. All of these negatives could be applied to any number of adults, including my wife, my mom, my brother, etc.
The sad thing is, if my boy was to ever meet you, Starwarsfreek42, he’d smile, shake your paw and chat you up about Star Wars characters, and movies, and animals. He’d try desperately to be your friend and wouldn’t understand your hostility. He probably cry because he, like most children, isn’t used to being disliked for no reason.
This thread has taken a strange turn. Now it is about the hypersensitve and the easily offended?
I admit, I get annoyed at the sort of child who screams and throws things and acts like a little maniac (because he’s learned he can get away with it).
But I expect more, and expect better from supposed “adults”. Look. There are sensible and reasonable limits to most things. If you have a migraine, stay the hell at home that day. Don’t go to Chuck E Cheese during a migraine attack. Is it that hard to figure out? How about the “easily offended”? We already have “political correctness”. There are already “the manners police”. Everyone is already a little paranoid about maybe offending someone.
I don’t care. Apart from the usual and customary level of courtesy or decency, I am not about to worry about some “professional malcontent” who is going to be oversensitive or offended about every damn thing.
Who are the real spoiled brats here? The child who yells MINE MINE MINE, or the so called adults who are doing the same. damn. thing.
The thing is, I don’t expend a lot of energy putting up such a barrier. I don’t go to Chuck E. Cheese or McDonald’s. I don’t really like either of those places anyway. Screamy toddler on aisle 3? I go down aisle 5 instead, till the coast is clear. Kids in my driveway? Get outta my driveway. I don’t have a reason to relax around kids because I am rarely around them in the first place, and it’s not because I go out of my way.
He wouldn’t have the opportunity to smile or shake my paw, because I’d have walked right on past him before he noticed I existed.
He’d probably be tipped off by the lingering stench.
Because that’s totally relevant to the discussion.
“My fluids would coagulate, my cone would shrivel, and I would die, miserable and alone. The stench would be great.”
That stench?
If you really don’t see a difference between inanimate objects and humans you really need to think about therapy.
That’s not what I indicated at all. How is a kid throwing a tantrum ok, but a guy’s cell phone going off not ok? Both sounds are the products of humans, but one is directly made by a human and one is not.