I dislike children. All of them. Without fail, they’re annoying, they ask too many questions, and they have nothing useful to say.
I just don’t understand how someone can enjoy a conversation with another person when the other person doesn’t comprehend half of what you’re saying…Or they can’t pick up on the implications of it, or even figure out when you’re alluding to something else. It’s just not fun or enjoyable. Obviously this applies to some adults as well.
This has somewhat changed. Last time I checked, pubs could apply for a “child licence”, though this would usually only be given to establishments that serve food and have a dining room. Many such pubs put a “Children Welcome” sign outside.
When I worked in a pub in Glasgow, Scotland, we did not allow children at all. Most parents accepted this with good grace. Funnily enough, it was the dog owners who got upset when we told them that their beloved pooch was not allowed in the bar for health and safety reasons.
If you assume that the other person is not understanding you, then I can quite see why you would not enjoy the conversation. And sure, if you habitually strike up conversations with children about the evils of Keynsian economics, the particle/wave duality of light or whatever, then this would be a problem.
But kids often understand a lot more than you think they will. The reason, though, that kids “ask too many questions” is that they want to understand more. That’s one of the ways they mature.
Much of what I dislike in humans is abundantly present in children, so I tend to not like them. At their best, they’re merely uninteresting. This goes quadruple for babies; sure, they’re kinda cute, but they all look the same and all they do is sleep and yell, except for when they’re awake and being quiet, in which case they’re simply boring.
As for my own childhood, I didn’t like children much then either.
Overlooking that a statement like this is not intended to engender serious debate, I can in fact look back at times I misbehaved as a child and acted offensively. Fortunately, good parenting ensured that I was taught some manners and learned early on that I was expected to use them in public as well as at home.
There have always been bad/heedless parents. I’m not sure there are that many more now than there used to be. Overall, noise and crowding seem to have increased over the years, to the point where people are less tolerant of intrusions into what remaining semiprivate space they have. This includes out-of-control children and oblivious parents.
I find it rather unlikely that current trends will lead to the abolition of children anytime in the near future. Conscientous parenting and greater consideration for others will ensure that children remain welcome in most places.
Right. It’s still annoying. Plus, the kinds of conversations that kids understand are, well, boring.
I must say, you are not alone in having thought this. I often have the same thought when reading threads on this site - there is a sheer glee, shared by many here, over dislike of disruption-by-children (whether blamed on children or parents or both) which is simply baffling and, I would submit, not at all justified by actual real-life amount of said inconvenience or misbehaviour.
The dislike of children (or “parents” if you will) among a certain proportion of Dopers is, at the very least, a common enough theme as to be worthy of notice and comment.
One thing some parents don’t seem to understand is that the childless among us (including me, by choice) are not accustomed to the screams, yells, cries, etc. that children produce. My house is mostly very quiet; the stereo or TV will occasionally be on, and two of my cats are talkers, but nothing at all like the sounds produced by neighborhood children. I don’t know what those noises mean!
For example:
Thursday I visited the local Social Security office to apply for a copy of my SS card. As I was leaving, there was a young child (maybe 1st or 2nd grade( wandering alone outside in front of the doors crying. Several women who exited the building as I did commented that he was “mad”. How could they tell? The poor thing sounded heartbroken to me. It made me very uncomfortable - I didn’t have a clue as to what to do for him, and certainly wasn’t about to go up to him lest I be accused of abduction or worse.
Even though I don’t want children and am uncomfortable with them (I am an only child and never baby sat or had any association with babies or toddlers growing up) I certainly don’t want a child-free world. I recycle and try to do things to make the future better for today’s children. I just think people with children should be considerate of the effect their children’t behavior has on people around them. That couple seated at the next table may have paid for a baby sitter to have a child free evening, and your (general you, not the OP) screaming child is definitely not adding to their quiet enjoyment of their evening.
That is quite interesting because in our decades-ago visit, we WERE allowed to bring the girls into pubs in Scotland. When we commented upon that, the Scottish pub owner said, “Well, you’re in a *civilized * country now.”
Well, I wouldn’t suggest that anyone who doesn’t like kids should strike up conversations with them.
Still, if you can’t avoid the situation, I’d say that going in with the prior assumption that the kid won’t understand you is unlikely to make the experience better for either of you.
Huh. And here I thought nobody could see me wringing my hands with diabolical delight when I write about things that irritate me.
You’re right on all points, of course. There is no greater ecstasy than the one inspired by total annoyance. Having an R-rated movie interrupted by a caterwauling infant? Singular bliss. Children in a restaurant banging silverware on the table, wailing, and throwing handfuls of food at each other as their parents ignore them? Little cherubim, every one.
But once you’ve experienced that level of pleasure, you want more and more. You begin lurking in the shadows at Chuck E. Cheese and Cold Stone Creamery, praying for just one more hyperactive, spoiled kid with negligent parents, just to get you through the night.
But even if you score, it’s never enough. Your only recourse is to search online communities for others of like mind, so you can support each other’s habits by telling and retelling wildly exaggerated (or outright fabricated) tales of your encounters with unruly brats. Everyone present tacitly understands that the stories are far too improbable to be true, but you luxuriate in your shared delusion.
That is, until someone as lucid as Malthus comes along and exposes the whole “annoyed by children” racket for the sham it is.
I think the law is different in Scotland, IAN any sort of expert. Some pubs simply have a policy about this, I suppose. When I was getting paid UKP3 per hour to deal with drunks, I didn’t feel too inclined to look into the legal aspects of things 
Mostly, by taking a disliking to most other children. Of course, I got along fabulously with adults.
Well, that’s a pretty big “only”. In fact, you listed two of the biggest things that differentiate humans from animals. And anyway, most pets don’t make near as big of a mess, nor demand as much of your patience, as children. Dogs come close, but I don’t understand dog owners either, so there you go.
I find the child’s world gray and dull, and the world of adults much more interesting and colorful. Now that I’m an adult, I get to make my own dietary choices, use intoxicants if I feel like it (which opens up whole new doors of perception), have much more interesting conversations with my peers, make important decisions, build strong and lasting relationships with my friends and paramours, and watch dark, brooding, complex movies and TV shows. In my view, having children would compromise all of those things to some extent except for “make important decisions”, which I don’t need any more of in my life anyway. Obviously, YMMV.
That, and the world is overpopulated as it is, not to mention that I don’t want to turn into my father. But that’s outside the scope of this thread.
That’s me. It’s not like I hate children–they didn’t choose to be children, after all, and when I was a child the one thing I wanted more than anything else was to be an adult–but I don’t get any joy in being around them. And, remembering what it was like to be a child who thought that adults would never understand him, I feel like I would be cramping their style at best, or a bad influence on them at worst.
That’s the thing that irritates the hell out of me. I really don’t like dogs and want to spend as little time in their company as possible–hence why, gee, I don’t have my own–but my best friend’s girlfriend takes her dog EVERYWHERE, makes me ride in the back seat of their car with it, brings it to mutual friends’ apartments where dogs aren’t allowed and specifically not welcome, and doesn’t understand why I don’t think it’s fucking adorable that it pisses all over me.
Glee? Really? Do you think we’re happy about it? I would much rather not interact with children at all than have unpleasant encounters with them all the time and develop a dislike for them.
You know how, sometimes you see a movie, and you think it was okay? But everyone else seems to think it’s the greatest work of art the cinema has ever produced, and keeps going on and on about how wonderful it is? And if you start talking about the movie with these people, they can’t all incredulous that you don’t think it was as great as they do, and they start getting kinda evangelical about it? And the more you talk, the more negative your position on the movie gets, because you’re constantly rebutting all these arugments that it was so wonderful, until you’re talking about the movie like it was the worst thing you’ve ever seen, even though you originally thought it had some good parts?
That’s what talking about kids is like for me. I don’t hate them, but everyone else seems to love them so damn much, I usually end up overstating my opinion, often out of frustration with people treating me like I’m defective because I don’t melt into puddles of pure bliss when their miserable carpet monkey smears apple sauce all over my DVD player.
There, see? I just did it again. Totally overstated my feelings about kids, right there. This is why I usually stay out of these threads, anymore.
I find children boring at best. And often loud and irritating. But if they just leave me alone, don’t yell and whine and scream and wreck things where I have to put up with it, I’ll ignore their existence. I certainly don’t hate them. To the extent that I think that a child free world would be better, it’s because I think the future is going to be awful enough that I don’t want to bring them into it; that’s our fault, not theirs.
The parents are much worse, in my opinion. With their constant insistance that the world warp itself to their desires, that everything be childproof or made to the tastes of children, rather than marked “adults only”. With their desire to censor everything in sight because little Johhny will be scarred for life if he sees a nipple. With their refusal to control their children or keep them away from others if they can’t control them. With their attitude that there’s something evil about not wanting to have children, or not liking them.
Hit a nerve, have I?
Seems to be, given you have bothered to massacre this particular phalanx of straw-men on my behalf.
And yes, there is a certain pleasure that people get by being offended. Does the term “offenderatti” ring a bell? It is the pleasure of self-righteous indignation - half the posts in the Pit are devoted to it, so it makes little sense to deny that such a pleasure even exists, and that no-one ever posts out of a desire to stroke it. I suggest you post there, the natural habitat for replies such as yours, and vent your spleen on my daring to suggest that the OP has a legitimate point, if my post so offends you.
As for me, I will merely point out that noticing a trend of excessive focus isn’t the same as accusing others of being untruthful. Though I must say, in my 40-odd years of life, in which I’ve been to many an R-rated movie, I’ve yet to see a single infant patron at one (let alone a “caterwauling” one). Is “screaming infants at R-rated movies” really a serious problem?
I do know better than to go to Chuck E. Cheese, though. Going to that place and complaining about screaming kids is like complaining about speeding at the Indy 500. 
I have no idea whether you or others like you are happy about it or not, so you are quite correct.
I should have written “there appears to be a sheer glee …”.
This post pretty much hits the nail on the head for me.
Hearing a child’s expressions – of happiness, sadness, agony, whatever – impose a huge emotional demand on me. The best thing I can think of to say as an analogy to understand my *experience *(which I think is what you want to know) is to imagine if an adult was doing what the child is doing: screaming at the top of their lungs, etc. If that were to happen in a public place, everyone would immediately stop what they’re doing to see what the hell is going on – is someone being raped? Attacked? Having a nervous breakdown?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t blame the children. Or the parents for that matter. I’m not saying they’re wrong or evil or anything else.
Just saying, that’s why I personally don’t like being around kids.
I like to have a say in my emotional experiences and a screaming person is too invasive (to me) an experience to be able to enjoy the state of mind I want.
For that reason, I stay away from where kids are. That’s fine, no hostility here at the mere existence of kids or parents with kids, but that’s the reason in my case. I’m either going to emote with the crying child and start wailing myself or else repress it or dismiss it as age appropriate, etc.; but I’d rather not deal with it at all if I’m not in the mood to have an emotionally turbulent experience. I’m often not.
I don’t like kids in general, myself. I understand that they have to exist, and why they are the way they are, but that doesn’t make me want to be around them, anymore than my being accepting of retards makes me want to interact with them. I realize the only reason I love my own is because of biology, objectively they are just as bad as other people’s kids.
Hey, I offend myself almost every day. Sometimes twice. The Internet has been a great help in this regard.
And the concept of “seen and not heard” is hardly original with this generation. I would guess the concept has been around almost as long as children have and may have been invented the first time Og and Ogda tried to enjoy a night away from the cave but couldn’t get a babysitter.