Can’t we combine this thread with the gun thread and talk about something fun, like hunting toddlers for sport?
We could combine it with the thermodynaics thread and complain that toddlers never thaw in time to roast them for Sunday dinner.
Ditto.
A possible reason people who go around proclaiming themselves “child-free” get a certain amount of grief is because they are using an unusual term, which sounds odd, pretentious and frankly silly to those who have not heard it before - as if they were advertising themselves like a new brand of chewing gum (“sugar-free” rather than “sugarless”).
It is similar to the equally lame attempt by some feminists to popularize “womyn” rather than “women” because the latter contains the word “…man” and thereby perpetuates the patriarchy.
Someone could easily find use of the term “womyn” laughably dumb without thereby hating all that feminism stands for, and equally someone can find “child-free” silly and pretentious without denying that some really do not want children. It is pretentious because it replaces a commonly used, neutral in meaning and perfectly good word for another and lesser used term for no reason other than to push a particular agenda.
We could go back to the babies n beer.
How you like your babies? Rare or well done? 
The bald example is the perfect one to use. People who shave their heads don’t generally refer to themselves as being bald, but as having shaved heads. People use the term bald, but there is an implicit recognition between someone who has shaved their head and someone whose hair naturally falls out.
No I did not - at least, I would imagine that persons of normal intelligence would recognize obvious sarcasm.
But then, I’d expect persons of ordinary intelligence would be with me on the point - that dogs are not, as a matter of fact or law, treated like children in our society.
You don’t see any irony in the fact that ‘childless’ doesn’t imply a lack to anyone except those who feel the need to apply the term, ‘childfree’?
Toddlers hunting curlcoat and starwarsfreek? They’d have to be careful though, they both have dogs to turn on their enemies.
If only that were true. Which it is not.
If coming off as a little pretentious to people who think that the functioning of my genitals is any of their business is the worst thing I do today, then I’d say I’m having a pretty good day.
My god, that was an awkward sentence.
The vast majority of people find the word to be a little bit strange, or would had they ever heard it. Those of us who have heard of it generally associate it with a pretentious hipster subculture.
You’re trying to say it as though the meaning is an objective fact, like the way YOU interpret it is the correct one and the way many of us are telling you we interpret it is wrong. Obviously people see it in a different way. The existence of people like curlcoat doesn’t do much to shake my original interpretation. It’s a good keyword to root out the antikinder when searching forum threads.
Dude, the problem here is that you are mistaking the attitude for the word.
There is no doubt that some people think that people without kids are lacking, and that everyone must really on some level want kids.
But that has nothing whatever to do with the word “childless” ending in “…less”. Replacing that word with another is not going to make all those folk smack their heads and say ‘gee, I was wrong all along - people without kids really aren’t lacking anything! Of course!’.
Their predictable reaction is gonna be to think you are sort of nuts and feel sorry for you, like a guy born without arms proclaiming himself “arm-free”.
Thing is, a lot of other people are gonna find the use of the term silly, as stated above.
It is the functioning of the English language that concerns me, not that of your genitals (which frankly I’d rather not think about).
Sure, it’s a free country, sound pretentious all you want.
Yeah the way I see it is that I didn’t see you not having kids as a lack before, but now that you are oversensitive enough to create new word for it, that there must be something to it. Otherwise why would you feel so sensitive that you needed to create a new word?
On the other hand, new terms are being devised and used all the time, on behalf of people who feel marginalized and insulted by words blithely used by majorities in the past. Such changes in usage have been fought on the grounds that they are unnecessary, pervert the language or cast the users in an unfair light. But changes take place, and life goes on.
Both “childless” and “childfree” have in-your-face aspects currently. I think it’s easily possible to avoid using both, even if a “handy” term is a casualty.
Well, for one thing, it’s not a huge issue for me, but I know it’s a huge issue for others.
For another, I’m not the one that made up the word.
If I ever have occasion to use that word IRL, whoever I’m saying it to probably feels that way about me anyway.
In actual fact, it hasn’t come up for a good long while, so it’s all good.
I do remember, though, about 7 years ago when the woman I was dating was facing a cancer scare. She had to have a full hysterectomy, and she was scared shitless about it. I made the mistake of mentioning that to a cab driver, and his reaction was “Leave her now. She is not a real woman. If she won’t give you children, she is not a real woman. Leave her for someone better.”
Perhaps you can explain to me why I should have used your list of approved words with a tool like that.
So your previous claims of not being a parent were lies? Did you simply forget you had children? Are you insane?
No, they do not. Service dogs have no rights. People using or traning service dogs have specially granted rights. The laws are written for the benefit of the people who need to use that particular tool - not for the benefit of the tool.
But if you’re conceding the original point, which is that society is SUPPOSED to cater to children because society is supposed to cater to human beings, and children are human beings, and what you do with a fucking dog has nothing to do with that, then great. You’re finally seeing the light.
Everyone is just as lucky as I am, unless you work in a business that caters to children. The children around you are likely just as well behaved as the ones around me; I’d bet 99%, at least, are well behaved when within earshot of you. Your perception that this is not so is simply a product of your mean, bitter attitude and lack of intelligence, as a result of which you don’t realize you’re being heavily influenced by perception bias. I simply do not believe that you are frequently inconvenienced by children. You’re full of shit.
Old farts have been moaning and bitching about “them kids today” since the days of the Roman Republic. This complaint is documented to have consistently existed since at least the fifth century BC, meaning that we’ve been listening to this bellyaching and bullshit for one hundred generations. It has always been wrong. Kids today are essentially just as fine and decent and well-behaved as all generations of the past, according to virtually all available objective evidence. There is, indeed, a fairly large amount of evidence that they’ve recently started getting smarter, too (though this phenomenon is not well understood, so nobody really knows for sure where it comes from.)
I had this thread in mind today, and as it happens I was done with my customer visit early and had to stop by the mall to get some cards. Just for the hell of it, as I went into the mall, I decided to make a point of noting every single child I saw and determining how many were making a fuss and how many were well behaved. As it happened it was a good opportunity because (1) parents of young children often shop during the day, (2) if there’s anything that can make a kid melt down it’s a boring mall, and (3) I had to walk the entire length of the mall and back.
I observed 37 young children, though I think a half dozen were the same kid twice (since I walked back the way I came.) Every one was well behaved. Not a single one was raising a fuss.
Just for shits and giggles I’m going to continue this experiment for awhile, since one visit to one mall is not much of a sample. I plan to count kids and tallying up behaved/not behaved, especially in kid-unfriendly places like grocery stores, malls, and restaurants. (For the sake of clarity I won’t try to count teenagers.) I might even start a thread. I think I know what the results will be, but I won’t believe it until I have a substantial data sample.
Send me the leftovers: I’ll make a curry.