Classic denial from someone using a term found to be offensive. “I don’t find it objectionable, therefore you have no right to be offended”.
Thanks, Rush - we’re all edumacated now. :rolleyes:
I would try sampling theatre and movies, but geez, that’d start to cost a lot of money to get a good sized sample.
Of course, if anyone wants to donate to my research project…
I think it’s kind of strange, the debate between the terms “childless” and “childfree.” They seem interchangable to me, but up until about 10 posts back, I don’t think I’ve ever described myself using either term. In general usage, I think it’s much more common to hear a person described as “not having kids,” as in “I don’t have kids,” or “they don’t have kids.”
I find the term childfree offensive, you should stop using it. :rolleyes: It implies that those of us with children are in bondage.
Or scratch that. I find overly sensitive nitwits to be offensive, they should stop being overly sensitive nitwits lest the offend my subgroup. :rolleyes:
Being called childless is not like being called nigger or faggot. No one is trying to insult you by calling you childless, there is no history of subjugation of the childless. No one is being dragged to death or lynched because they are childless.
Ridiculous.
I’m happy that you take your right to be offended so seriously. Lord knows we wouldn’t want to deny anyone the right to be offended.
Now excuse me, I’m off to be offended about the rest of the dictionary. 
But seriously … offended by the use of common terms, which hardly anyone knows are even in the slightest “controversial”? Good luck with that.
You have every “right” to be offended by whatever you want, and the rest of us have the “right” to find your “offense” a silly, pretentious affectation, lacking the slightest objective basis. Fair enough?
Excellent. 
Yeah, that’s what I said many pages ago.
Roll them eyes all you want, bub, but if you take the trouble to look at what I said, it was:
My feeling is that most people who use the term “childless” do so thoughtlessly without pejorative intent. Those who insist on using the word, even though they’re well aware it has offensive connotations, are arguably revealing something about themselves - that they harbor some regrets about their own decisions to have kids, and resentment toward those who don’t share the hassles and obligations involved.
But it lacks any “offensive connotations”.
It is a perfectly neutral term that is in reasonably wide use, and only a tiny minority find it “offensive” - I’ve never heard it described as such until now.
Why on earth should people stop using a perfectly good word just because some person posting on the Internet finds it offensive? Doesn’t there have to be, you know, some actual objective offense in the use of the word first? Blacklisting words on someone’s say-so makes no sense, where there is nothing inherently offensive about the word’s history or usage.
For the record I do not find the use of the term “child-free” offensive, I find it silly and pretentious.
But even innocuous words can be used pejoritively. I think that’s what’s really being objected to, even if the objection is being taken too far.
I can’t recall that word ever being used as such with me, but I believe that the thinking is that it’s often used in the sense of “Poor dear. She thinks she doesn’t want children, but is too stupid to know that she’ll never be a real woman without them.” I don’t know how often it’s actually used in that way, but I’ve heard many tales (many on these boards) of people, especially women, getting all sorts of grief from their families and friends about not pumping out the puppies. Being male, I never got too much of that, but I suspect it would get really old really fast.
Identifying as “child-free” may be silly and pretentious, but I’d bet that a lot of people prefer it because it asserts that they have made a choice that they are sticking with, rather than being somehow “broken.” I can’t say I blame them.
I’ll continue to refer to people as though they “Do not have kids” as I always have, but I will secretly harbor a resentment against those who felt the need to politically charge a technical distinction.
Sorry about that! Hard to keep track of a 12-pager! 
Oh… thanks, I guess. The main thing that irks me about this thread is that Jettboy, Kalhoun and company seem to think that all I do every day is hate kids. I don’t go to work, or school, I don’t do chores or homework, I don’t play with my dogs… I just hate kids. Generally I don’t spend lots of time thinking about things I hate. I guess maybe other people don’t operate that way?
I was just agreeing with you not claiming copyright infringement.
Again, the fault lies in the attitude, not in the (neutral) word. I bet the same people could very easily say “child-free” in a tone of voice making it obvious that they mean exactly what you have said in quotes above … and indeed preemptively using such a term positively invites people who hold that attitude to think that the user doth protest too much (and even people who don’t).
Whatever. I’m sure the Grand Dragon of the Klan doesn’t spend all his day hating black people, but that doesn’t make him any less of a tool.
You proclaimed loud and proud your character defect. That makes you a tool.
Again, you aren’t making sense.
Which makes it OK for you to use and abuse them?
Pay attention. I was speaking specifically about rights of access and of service dogs. If you want to twist the law to say that it is the right of the disabled human, that is sort of the same thing, except that a service dog in training has the same rights of access whether he is with a disabled person or not.
No where in there have I ever indicated that a dog is a human and has all of the same rights.
Only because you are stupid.
Who is being used and abused? Your imaginary persecution complex is none of my concern. You have to share your nation with people who disagree with you boohoohoo. You’re a big fucking crybaby.
Single parents are far more likely to have someone who watches their kids while they work, no? As for learning about the world around them, babies under the age of one don’t need to be drug about the store - that is far too young for learning much of anything.
You don’t try to make the child do anything, you remove him from the public until he can control himself. As for my having to live with it, you are a prime example of what I was talking about, as you completely ignore the fact that there is no tradeoff. Parents these days expect that the world around them will adapt to whatever they want/need, but the parents don’t adapt to anyone else at all. Particularly the single parents - they decide to have a kid(s) without a partner and everyone is supposed to feel sorry for them and support them, and god forbid if you tell one of them to just suck it up.
Of course, I didn’t say a thing about leaving any children at home alone, did I? As for children being a part of life, they are a part of your life, not mine. Unless and until you all show more tolerance for the things that are important to non-parents, I fail to see why I am expected to put up with your - er - unpleasant children.
One doesn’t have to actually pop the kid out to get stuck raising it ya know. In my case, I ended up with my last two brothers, until I escaped the family home.
The original point was that (to use your interpretation of the law) I have the same rights of access to stores with any service dog or dog in training that I have. The original question was, if that dog were to start screaming for no real reason or run amok down the aisles, how many seconds of patience would you have for that? Why is it, by law, that I am required to remove a service dog that is creating a scene but no one is required to remove a toddler? The service dog actually has a function there - the toddler doesn’t. And don’t say “well duh, the toddler is a human” - the handicapped person is a human too.
Amazing how you think you have any idea what the children are like here. If I had kept them, I could send you the reciepts to replace the planters in the front yard that the neighborhood children destroyed. Or I could send you a picture of the damage in the shell on our truck, courtesy of the kids climbing in the tree in our yard, bending a branch so it scratched hell out of the truck. Or pictures of the dents in our fiberglass garage door from the soccer balls. And we live in a fairly high end neighborhood. I don’t have a digital video camera so I can’t send you videos of screaming babies in stores, or kids on heelies running into shoppers - sorry.
Perhaps my area is just entitlement central, tho from what I read I don’t think it is the only one.
Intelligence has almost nothing to do with manners.