I don't like children

Marksie

brown*eyed*girl wrote:

I think its probably the OP's attitude and the way she goes about saying it that probably annoys her friend.

I wouldn't be too sure of that. Its possible that her friend banging on about it would engender that reaction.

As i posted previously i normally answer now "I like children but couldnt eat a whole one." Precisely because people have banged on so much....

Still woudn't stop me taking them fishing for example if they wanted or playing footie.

But they do cook up well with minted new potatoes

shoegirl

marksuttonie wrote:

I wouldn't be too sure of that. Its possible that her friend banging on about it would engender that reaction.

As i posted previously i normally answer now "I like children but couldnt eat a whole one." Precisely because people have banged on so much....

Its more of a) my friend's insistence that ALL children are just adorable and loveable (as it happens she doesn't have children but desperately wants them to such an extent she either just HAS to have one, or if she cannot, she just HAS to be with a partner who does) - from my experience most children are nice (and some are just the best ever) but some are really not so nice ("ruined" is a word some people might relate to) b) and secondly the fact that I should feel guilty about not loving all children automatically and not wanting one myself, the suggestion that there is something wrong with me because I don't.

That to be honest, I find offensive, lacks understanding, and to be honest, is probably a worldview that could end up badly shot down some day. I have We Have to Talk About Kevin on my reading list, and have come accross a few children who were quite malicious in my yuth and in my teaching days (some of whom actually came from very nice families who simply couldn't understand what had gone wrong). I came accross children who really hurt their families (or adoptive families) to such an extent that the damage was permanent. Thats something that does wake you up to the worldview I take. This is why I take exception with my friends opinion that "all children are innocent and lovely." I could have introduced her to a few 10-20 years ago who would break even her heart.

Of course, she's nearly 6 years younger than me, and only really knows a handful of children, all of whom are nice kids. I sincerely hope for her that she doesn't meet some of those I've known.

TempestSabre

This issue isn't about kids being nice or not. Its about two people having completely different opinions. If you can't agree to disagree then you'll like reach a similar impasse in the future on other issues. Wheres the fun in that?

brown*eyed*girl

WOW shoegirl you seem to have met some terrible children (in your view). I've had the opposite experience and the majority of kids I've met are nice - same as with adults.

I think the best way to resolve this is to have a heart to heart conversation with your friend. Try and stay calm and cool and just say that you both feel passionate about wanting/not wanting children and by either of you "going on" about it gets to both of you. Suggest that if you're friendship is worth it you can both agree to disagree on this one and try keep said subject to yourselves because other than that you'll just both twart each other with your passionate opinions on such a sensitive matter.

brown*eyed*girl

TempestSabre wrote:

This issue isn't about kids being nice or not. Its about two people having completely different opinions. If you can't agree to disagree then you'll like reach a similar impasse in the future on other issues. Wheres the fun in that?

You got there before me on the agree to disagree suggestion. Many a time I've had to use this with family friends. Sometimes we won't all agree and both sides can be right i.e. right decision for that person.

TempestSabre

...But where did this veneration of childbirth come from? I missed that meeting. Childbirth is wonderful, childbirth is a miracle. Wrong. It's no more a miracle than eating food and a turd coming out your ass. You know what a miracle is? A miracle is raising a kid that doesn't talk at a movie theater....

Cabaal wrote:

sums everything up nicely if you ask me, its natural but its far from a miracle

Thats gross, offensive and inane. :mad:

On a purely physical/medical level its a complex difficult process, and can be life threatening.

...One in 16 women die in pregnancy or childbirth in Africa, compared with 1 in 4600 in the United Kingdom...

...Around one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage – an estimated 250,000 miscarriages in the UK each year. A further 1 in 100 pregnancies is ectopic – a life-threatening condition...

:rolleyes:

Trinity

Having grown up in a pretty bad area i have to say no not all children are innocent and wonderful.

for various reasons, upbringing, family background, poverty, drugs, peer pressure or basically having parents that are useless i.e dont give a damn about them, they are left wandering the streets and allowed to do whatever the hell they want. That innocence and sense of wonder is knocked out of them at a young age. Not really their fault, its not nature its nurtured.

then have have the little princesses from the good backgrounds who basically have never been taught respect and consideration of others. again not really their fault.

but some are nice and can bring a lot of joy into peoples lives! Its a personal choice and not everyone wants that responsibility.

Back to the issue of your friendship again it boils down to respect and i would never get into a heated debate with a friend over a difference of opinion as thats all it is. You say your opinion, she says hers you each respect that opinion, drop it and get yourselves a cup of tea.

Sounds like your friend has this romantic idea in her head, she sounds pretty dreamy, let her have her dreams

she'll get a bite in the ass when shes cleaning ****ty asses, being told i hate you you ruined my life and generally when her world as she knows it turns upside down to make way for a little person with a big attitude LOL

as for the others again its all down to a matter of respecting others opinion and yes in my opinion, growing a living being inside my body from an egg you cant even see is miraculous. I almost died myself! But i created life, he can see, feel, smell, think. I made him from nothing inside my own body! I think thats pretty damn miraculous but if you dont and you have never experienced it and never will if you are male ha well thats your opinion and i respect that also.

TempestSabre

Trinity1 wrote:

Having grown up in a pretty bad area i have to say no not all children are innocent and wonderful.

for various reasons, upbringing, family background, poverty, drugs, peer pressure or basically having parents that are useless i.e dont give a damn about them, they are left wandering the streets and allowed to do whatever the hell they want. .....

Thats not exclusive/specific to children? Theres the same kind of Adults. If thats someone's logic for not liking kids you might aswell apply the same sweeping generalisation to everyone and simply say you don't like people. End of.

brown*eyed*girl

TempestSabre wrote:

Thats not exclusive/specific to children? Theres the same kind of Adults. If thats someone's logic for not liking kids you might aswell apply the same sweeping generalisation to everyone and simply say you don't like people. End of.

Exactly - I know people I knew as kids who were little terrors but are great adults now and vice versa. The way a person (either baby, toddler, adult, child, OAP) is down to lots of things ie. genes, the type of rearing they got, friends, family, where they live, where they went to school, if they were bullied, abused, etc. etc. Also you have some people who even despite having horrendous upbringings still manage to rise above it all and have a great life including bringing up nice children. This subject is not just black and white there are way too many grey areas in between on how children/adults turn out.

Trinity

Thats exactly my point to the OP from my first post about the broad sweeping statement of 'not liking children'

i said it was not pc and tarring them all with the same brush i was just trying to empathise and agree that some kids are not nice.

when i go to visit my mother there is this one boy in particular who cannot pass my mothers house without throwing rocks at her window! this has been going on about 4 years and the little fecker is only about 10! No reason for it at all other then he is a little deviant.

there are some children that are well not nice kids but there are some wonderful ones too. the point i was making was that generally when children are not nice it is not their fault but to say you dont like children is like saying i dont like human beings. they are little people. and we all start off as kids dont we!!

brown*eyed*girl

Nightwish wrote:

I am the very same as you OP. I dont like children at all. I dont see how they are a miracle in any way. There are hundreds of them born every day in this country, so as its an everyday occurance, its not special. I think your friend is being completely OTT. Its your choice to not want kids. I see it too, that you are frowned upon by society because as a woman, you do not have any maternal instinct in you. Many people say it to me that I'll change my mind a few years down the road, but I doubt it. I'll be quite content looking after my dog and husband! You are not alone in your views OP!!!

So you're saying you don't like children at all? Not one child on this planet do you like or not one child being born is a miracle. Ok so you don't want children of your own, that is your personal choice, but if you're sibling had a child you wouldn't like that child or think your little niece or nephew is a miracle or not special.

Marksie

TempestSabre wrote:

If you can't agree to disagree then you'll like reach a similar impasse in the future on other issues. Wheres the fun in that?

TempestSabre wrote:

Thats gross, offensive and inane. :mad:

TempestSabre wrote:

Sweeping generalisation of that nature are inane.

Indeed where is the fun in that

Talliesin

shoegirl wrote:

The thing is, my other friend [...] is trying to convince me that there is something wrong with me, and that I really should be having counselling to "cure" me of my "problem."

It's easy to dismiss such a person as an idiot. However many otherwise quite intelligent people are simply incapable of understanding people making different lifestyle choices to them. They can generally understand choices based on finance (e.g. they neither consider homeless people not having a fortnight in the Canaries every year to be weird, nor billionaires living in mansions and eating out at expensive restaurants regualarly to be weird) but really are incapable of understanding any other choices.

Personally they just irritate me far too much for me to be friends with any of them, but beyond irritation they can be quite dangerous if they are allowed into your life. Of course it's more important to keep them away from your children, but given the lifestyle choice in question here, that's not an issue for you.

zag

OP, you remind me of a couple I once knew, perhaps you are like them. They had intellectual interests, were very logical about their choices, enjoyed their adult lifestyle. They were in their thirties, and had no intention of children.

I can understand this, as, when people have children their whole life revolves around them, and the parents own interests take a back seat(or at least its harder to find the time, or the energy)while their free lifestyle is gone to some extent.

I think alot of people have children, (unknown to them) because it is the "done thing", and it's your "responsibility".

TempestSabre

marksuttonie wrote:

Indeed where is the fun in that

Since you've quoted out of context, what exactly do YOU mean by "that".

Nightwish

TempestSabre wrote:

Because theres an awful lot of pregnancies aren't successful. Thats why. You just don't hear that much about that side of it. Its often a life and death situation.

Lots of children born but none of them are yours. Big difference.

Lots of people aren't into kids that fair enough. Never used to be that interested myself. But you tend discover your own kids tend to be a lot more likeable then strangers kids.

Theres seems common idea from some people here, that all kids are badly behaved, and a torment to their parents. Thats not true. Sweeping generalisation of that nature are inane.

One sperm in a million meets an ovum and fertilises it. It happens everyday to people. People become parents daily. Its not a miracle. It maybe special for the parents involved but for me its nothing. Its just another kid in the world. I dont believe that all kids are badly behaved little brats. I've met many an angelic child, I just dont want to be expected to coo and join in the awe of the "miracle" that is someones kid.

BossArky

Someone posted earlier critising the OP for disliking kids but still working with them as a teacher.

Whoever said that should wake up and smell the coffee, welcome to the real world, a lot of people do jobs which they don't like. Think of all the people working in IT who will tell you how they hate the soul-less existance.

aidan24326

zag wrote:

OP, you remind me of a couple I once knew, perhaps you are like them. They had intellectual interests, were very logical about their choices, enjoyed their adult lifestyle. They were in their thirties, and had no intention of children.

I can understand this, as, when people have children their whole life revolves around them, and the parents own interests take a back seat(or at least its harder to find the time, or the energy)while their free lifestyle is gone to some extent.

I think alot of people have children, (unknown to them) because it is the "done thing", and it's your "responsibility".

I agree you with your last point there zag. Having children is one of the most things we're 'conditioned' into feeling we're 'supposed' to do. I know there are obvious evolutionary reasons why humans or any other animal would feel an urge to procreate, but there is also a strong social conditioning side to it aswell, particularly for women.

And it does take a certain amount of courage and conviction in one's own mind to make the decision to go against what the world expects of you. As women nowadays have more financial independence, more opportunities and more freedom to make their own lifestyle choices, it should come as no great surprise to find that some women are making the conscious decision to forego a life of motherhood in order to live their own life freely without the constraints that come with being responsible for three kids.

This was always likely to be a minor consequence of the changing dynamic of women's role in modern society. Many women 50 years ago might not have been in the position to have such freedom of choice. I expect there will be still be enough biological clocks a-tickin' to keep the homo sapiens factory in production. To those girls like the OP who are willing to buck the trend I say fair play for having your own mind. And tell the nonunderstanding friend to shut up.

Dave!

Sounds like your friend needs to shut the hell up and mind his/her own business!

If you don't want kids, then that's your own prerogative. Nothing right or wrong with it. Just personal preference.

shoegirl

zag wrote:

OP, you remind me of a couple I once knew, perhaps you are like them. They had intellectual interests, were very logical about their choices, enjoyed their adult lifestyle. They were in their thirties, and had no intention of children.

I can understand this, as, when people have children their whole life revolves around them, and the parents own interests take a back seat(or at least its harder to find the time, or the energy)while their free lifestyle is gone to some extent.

I think alot of people have children, (unknown to them) because it is the "done thing", and it's your "responsibility".

Well the last statement is definitely true, I remember an old acquaintance years ago who was pretty much mentally unstable making the comment that children were the ultimate fashion accessory after he and his girlfriend had one. People often have children for the most superficial of reasons, though I think for most people its just gut instinct or accident. I don't think people who really want children ever have to sit down and question their beliefs or desires - not in the way people who aren't interested in having children have to.

Which is my point - its totally challenged when you don't want children, but if you do, few people question it. Whats crazy is that I hear a lot of single women now talking about having a "right" to have children as if it were something that they were entitled to do, and think that just because there is now financial support from the state for lone parents, that they are "entitled" to "choose" to be lone parents as well! For me that totally undermines the really hard lobbying that is still badly needed to help out people who find themselves in that situation through no choice of their own.

A lot of people often insinuate that people who don't have/want children do so either because they cannot have children, or because they are "too selfish." The reality is for people like myself is that the instinct and the desire just isn't there. Undoubtedly, there are people who do not want their lifestyles changed by having children, but I don't think they are representative of everybody who doesn't want children - yet they are constantly portrated as the "typical" childfree person - as if everybody who didn't have children did so for selfish reasons. A single friend whose now over 40 and probably unlikely to ever have children was saying to me that what she also finds hurtful are assumptions why - the one that bothers her most is when people say to her "oh so you don't like children" as if that was the only reason why she wouldn't have them.

Its often quite complicated.

Marksie

TempestSabre wrote:

This issue isn't about kids being nice or not. Its about two people having completely different opinions. If you can't agree to disagree then you'll like reach a similar impasse in the future on other issues. Wheres the fun in that?

That is that.
Calling other posters inputs inane etc, seems to indicate you may need to take your own advice

TempestSabre

marksuttonie wrote:

That is that.
Calling other posters inputs inane etc, seems to indicate you may need to take your own advice

One thing is about dealing with a friend with which you have an impasse on a emotive topic. The other is anonymous poster talking tripe. I can't see the parallel. But then bad similes aren't my thing.

Marksie

TempestSabre wrote:

One thing is about dealing with a firend with which you have an impasse on a emotive topic. The other is anonymous poster talking tripe. I can't see the parallel. But then bad similes aren't my thing.

Doubt you could differentiate TBH . And it is only tripe in your eyes. which says more about your posts than the original posters

TempestSabre

Nightwish wrote:

...It maybe special for the parents involved but for me its nothing...

Theres the answer you are looking for. Its is special for people. Why would you not have empathy for that. Also often things are difficult but yet happen often. That does not mean they are not difficult.

People may not like kids, or not want to have kids thats and fine. Every ones entitled to their own opinion. But just because you see lots of kids and babies does not mean that its a trivial and everyday experience. People die all the time, but thats an extraordinary event for those effected by it.

TempestSabre

marksuttonie wrote:

Doubt you could differentiate TBH . And it is only tripe in your eyes. which says more about your posts than the original posters

It may come as a shock. But thats the thing about subjective opinion. Its subjective. I'd say many people, who can't concieve, carry a baby full term, have had a baby, buried a baby/child wouldn't think the simile makes any sense. Its like saying having a sprained ankle is the same as a heart transplant. Or...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Toni

Marksie

I have been reminded of one endearing trait of children over the last posts for some reason. That is their ability, if not getting their own way of having a dummy spitting, blue in the face temper tantrum. The one where their faces change from blue to red accompained by gales of tears until mollified.

Delightful

Marksie

TempestSabre wrote:

It may come as a shock. But thats the thing about subjective opinion. Its subjective.

Not that much of a shock actually, objective ones are usually more useful though . Mind you sometimes they are A**** retentive too

Trinity

marksuttonie wrote:

I have been reminded of one endearing trait of children over the last posts for some reason. That is their ability, if not getting their own way of having a dummy spitting, blue in the face temper tantrum. The one where their faces change from blue to red accompained by gales of tears until mollified.

Delightful

LOL i have seen adults do far worse when they cant get their own way

but it can be pretty funny, when its someones else kid for a change :-)

TempestSabre

Trinity1 wrote:

LOL i have seen adults do far worse when they cant get their own way

but it can be pretty funny, when its someones else kid for a change :-)

..its kinda reassuring too.

Trinity

TempestSabre wrote:

..its kinda reassuring too.

agree 100%

TempestSabre

As I've been told, the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Beruthiel

If you lot want to banter, take it to PM.
I want this thread back on topic!
B

Ickle Magoo

OP,

I know where you are coming from....I didn't particularly like kids even when I was one, lol! I don't like the unruly ones, I don't like slack parents, I don't like kids who run & shout & make mess...

I am now a mother of two & altho I am perhaps a little more tolerant of said children, I still don't particularly like them. Love my own but can totally understand why the world and lifestyle involved in parenting would not appeal to everyone....many times I have dreamt of my childfree days with glee & woken up to a squalk with a groan as realisation set in!

Think your friend needs a wake up call that not everyone in life thinks as she does....

TempestSabre

...my friend is making judgements about me based on her own prejudices, and some of them are very hurtful indeed...

Thats the core of the issue IMO. That its about kids is really a side issue. It could be about anything.

DublinWriter

shoegirl wrote:

So what do you guys make of all this? I am seriously thinking of just letting this friendship flutter into the dust, because really my friend is making judgements about me based on her own prejudices, and some of them are very hurtful indeed.

I think your friend is a bit of an idiot to be honest, she's probably using you as a proxy to masquerade her own guilt.

Funnily enough, several of my female friends have been dropping them like puppies dangerously late in life (from ages 38 to 42). It's like they're trying to make up for lost time; they are/were all very career minded.

I'm 36 and I am starting to feel that I should start to feel that I'm a freak for not wanting kids myself, however it doesn't really bother me. The longer I keep my fingers in my ears and go 'LA LA LA!" the older I'll get and the less probability there will be of me becoming a father.

Kinetic^

OP, you know what you want so there's no problem with it. To some people not having kids and not getting married is an exocutionable offence, everybody has choice and some people may not like it, but if they can't respect your choices then are they really your friend?

Pigman II

OP you sound perfectly sane to me.

I (like most people) know the world just wouldn't be right until some of my disgusting spawn has been delivered unto it so I plan to have kids someday.

However as I hate kids I also plan to have absolutly no input into their upbringing (beyond playing lego, football and video games with them) and have also planned to have the 100k it requres to raise a kid ready in advance so I don't get financial stress from them either.

The perfect dad if you will.

Black Swan

It's called choice. You don't have to have kids, or not want to be around them if you choose. It doesn't make you any less a person. I want to have only one. Some would challenge that. Who cares what they think about that? Choice! Enough said.