Edit, 4th July 2010. Hello everyone dropping by from CF Hardcore, which I understand was created when the usual LiveJournal Childfree community just wasn’t hardcore enough in its hating of children (“crotch droppings” I understand is a phrase some of you like to use for children, people like you used to be). I understand one of your own members was so upset about the hatred of children within your community that they donated a toy to a children’s charity for every hateful thing you said about children, back in 2005. Must have been a lot of toys! Just to clarify matters for you, as you seem not to want to read the post in its entirety before you comment. No one wants you to have children when you clearly don’t want to. We just want our children, and all children, to be respected fully as people. Thanks.
Sorry, no children allowed.
How often have you seen a sign like this? No children allowed. I’ve written before that not only does this discriminate against children (obviously) but also has a knock on effect in discriminating against the carers of children, who by and large are female.
It’s interesting to me as a feminist that many of the reasons given in support of child free spaces are very similar to the reasons given for excluding women from male spaces which, even until very, very recently, were totally legal.
Men spend all day with women; they need somewhere they can go and relax away from women at the end of the day
A lot of the language used in these places isn’t suitable for a woman anyway
Why would a woman want to come into these places in the first place? It would be very boring for them!
Listen, I don’t like women. In fact I chose not to marry or partner with a woman. So why do I have to have women shoved in my face?
These kind of places are dangerous for women. Plus we’d have to install another toilet and we just can’t afford that!
And so on. The more militant child free would tell you “but there IS a difference! It is acceptable to discriminate against children in this way because, unlike women and men, who people only thought were different, children actually are different than adults and do display some annoying characteristics that I want to get away from!”
It’s this reasoning that is used to justify all discrimination against children. Children are different than adults.
Over time this has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination against children. From sending children out to wet nurses (and no, these aren’t the milk producing angels you might have in your mind; wet nurses were very poor women who often had far more children than they could ever produce milk for; the children were often not nursed at all but were fed pap and gruel and swaddled and put on pegs for hours on end) which was often a death sentence, to justifying the regular beating of children (which tradition still continues today in that it’s perfectly legal here in the UK to smack a child).
The history of child rearing is one massive train wreck and although we have improving, here in the UK, there are still many throwbacks to the days when children were almost another species, not quite human.
I’ve mentioned the smacking, which is a major thing. Also, we still see it as acceptable to shut children out of many public places. We still see it as acceptable to force a baby to cry unattended for up to hours at a time so we can get some sleep. We still see it as acceptable – even, a good thing – that children who attend school must stay there at all times and be accountable for. If they are not interested in a subject they must still learn it. It’s good for them. If they would prefer, for example, to get a job, that option is not open to them. If their learning style is different from the mainstream – it’s tough. It is acceptable to talk down to them; their attempts at learning are often mocked and derided; shouting at them, tutting at their normal behaviour, glaring at their parents, saying “no” to all their requests without actually considering whether or not their reasonable…
This is all acceptable.
Now, before I carry on, I do want to make something clear. Often, I’ve heard discrimination against children couched in the following terms:
“You wouldn’t say that about a black person”
For a start, I’m a white woman, so even if that was the case, it wouldn’t be my place to say it. But secondly (and Renee says it so well here) this kind of sentence assumes that there is No More Racism. Which plainly is a nonesense. So in order to explain how children experience discrimination, we have to do it without further marginalising other groups that experience oppression in their daily lives.
So why am I using the comparison with women, as above? Well, I am a woman, and although there is still a hell of a lot of discrimination against women (some groups much more than others) I feel that it is something that society is at least aware of. I feel that we’re gradually working towards an awareness of sexism and misogyny and how if affects our daily lives, even if we’re still not completely sure what to do to combat it.
I also feel that it is my place to make this particular comparison. I am not downplaying the discrimination that I, as a woman, face; rather I’m using it, as it exists, to show you how the ways that children are treated are in fact discriminatory.
So, with that cleared up, what is the justification for the anti-child bias?
It appears to be, as I mentioned earlier, that they are different. But also, there is a part of it which is this: “I was a child and I experienced this, therefore it is not discrimination, otherwise that would mean I’d have to accept that I was discriminated against, and that might make me angry.”
Children are different. But they are also not one big homogeneous group. It is a continuum from baby to young adulthood. Essentially, all children are adults in learning. Strangely enough though, all adults are – to some extent- adults in learning, too; we never stop learning, it is just that the rate of it slows down as we get older. We develop more in the period birth-one year than we do in the period 30-35, for example. All people are people in learning, just different stages of knowledge accumulation. It really isn’t “them and us”. They are us. Some people may require more care and attention, especially early on in their lives, but they are people still, and should be treated with no less respect than others our own age.
Which brings me to the title of this post.
I’ll be honest. I don’t like the phrase “child free” one jot. But I understand wh it was coined; a swift “fuck you” to the legions of people who insisted that the only way to be fulfilled was to have a child or children, and those without, the “childless” were slightly pathetic and incomplete in some way.
“Childless” implies that the state of having children is one which is the norm, and to not have children is a kind of “loss”. However, “child free” does the exact opposite; implies children are some kind of a dreadful burden and in doing so discriminates against them.
And here’s the thing; you’ll never truly be child free. Because children are everywhere. As they should be. As people in learning, they have as much right to exist as anyone else. But it’s not just that. There’s an old truism that you should be kind to the people you meet on the way up, because you’ll see them again on the way back down. Or the oft-quoted phrase, “be nice to kids; they’ll be wiping your arse in the nursing home one day.” Cliches, maybe, but there is a lot of truth in them.
You’ll never truly be child free because learner people are all our responsibilities. I’m sorry, but they are. Because nursing home staff or not, the children of today are the adults of tomorrow. If you shut them out, you are training them up to shut others out.
Children will treat the world how they are treated. What you model towards them, they will model towards the world. This is not just parents; parents and guardians have a huge influence, but the world at large also dictates to our children how they behave in future. If they grow up in a world where it is perfectly reasonable to hit a person in learning, to shut them out, to ignore their cries, to talk down to them, to shout at them, to force them into institutions where they just do not want to be…
… then this is the kind of world they will create for you, once they get in charge.
What a fantastic post. It got me thinking about when I studied in Italy when I was a little older than the average student in my program and I could’ve very easily imagined a sign that said “no 19 year olds allowed” given the embarrassment some of my classmates created for our program. Years later I came back to Rome, this time with my husband and 17 month old son. I couldn’t get over the warm welcome for a toddler in even the nicest looking restaurants…candles lit, glassware/pottery everywhere, you get the idea. You have me thinking how perfectly well behaved my little guy was–that whole visit, and I was never once made to feel he wasn’t welcome. It doesn’t matter what age a person is, behavior can be charming or deplorable. Making areas child-free only reinforces the idea that children are unruly or somehow ruin the vibe for the other adults. In my circles, if the child isn’t ours it is hardly on the radar what the child’s behavior is! And to have a sign like this totally insults the parents, of either sex, that they might not be responsible for the actions of their children. Certainly some parents may check out, but most will make sure their child is acting appropriately…and eating/drinking/enjoying the establishment and thus they will spend more money. Everyone wins! Just like the Roman bar owners who win by welcoming the American 19 year olds–but hopefully with much less broken glass to clean at the end of the night
Thanks again for being out there!
Okay, I might be having a different culture type moment. I have never seen a sign like that. What kinds of places over there are “child free”? I’m commenting in the dark a bit, because I’m not sure what types of places you are talking about. Somehow I have a feeling that you are not talking about pubs and whore houses.
I do believe that places that sell only alcohol should be adults only just because I think it could be dangerous for a child, and sometimes adults need to be able to let loose in an environment where there are no little people around.
Also I think it is reasonable to expect that If I’m paying a significant amount of money for a fancy romantic dinner in a very fancy restaurant, that there will not be children yelling and screaming and throwing food around.
Now having said that, I believe the solution is not to ban children from fancy restaurants all together, rather to have “family” sections. Like we do over here. I know that my son is a real little gentlemen. He’s great at restaurants and I wouldn’t hesitate to take him to the fanciest of the fancy restaurants. I also know that no matter how great he is he may have a meltdown or a tantrum. He’s only three after all. I can understand that people who are not parents or do not have their children with them could have their evening ruined by this.
Do your restaurants not have family sections?
I have never seen a sign such as the one shown here. I have been at places that are obviously anti-child as shown by their lack of high chairs, booster seats, facilities, and childrens menu.
Oh, wait, When I joined my gym, they did say no children allowed, but I think that’s because if you are busy exercising then you are not watching your child and some of those machines are really dangerous. I think that is pretty reasonable, because I would never bring my son to the gym, there’s nothing there for him, and I wouldn’t be able to work out if he was there.
I’ve never heard “child free” before (except in terms of “Child free labor” which is absolutely a good thing!)
I believe where ever there are children there should be someone making sure the children are safe.
So am I part of the problem or are things really that different over there?
S.Brykczynski – I live in the UK too and have to admit I haven’t seen a sign like that other than on the doors of newsagents (usually along the lines of “No under-16s unless accompanied by an adult” or “No more than two under-16s allowed in at a time”) but I get the sentiment, a lot. It’s in the dirty looks, the stage-whispered comments, the outright insults from people without children in a space where they don’t want them to be. It’s happened to me when I’ve taken my son to Wetherspoon’s (a pub that serves food and has a family section), even when he is behaving well but happens to be speaking or laughing loudly, or gets upset for some reason or another, and immediately I’ve received nasty stares and heard people say things like “Bloody kids” or “can’t she control her kid?”
Also I think it is reasonable to expect that If I’m paying a significant amount of money for a fancy romantic dinner in a very fancy restaurant, that there will not be children yelling and screaming and throwing food around.
…
I can understand that people who are not parents or do not have their children with them could have their evening ruined by this.
That’s the thing – I can’t understand that, and I do to some extent think that this sort of thinking is part of the problem. If someone doesn’t like children and doesn’t want to be around them, they can always stay at home. As Ruth says, it’s not always useful to compare oppressed groups, but in this case it might work – I am a woman. I am aware that there is a huge swathe of the population which doesn’t like women. Would it then be right for them to demand that there be woman-free restaurants so they can have their precious woman-free meal in peace from “women’s grating voices” and “women’s high-pitched, annoying laughter”?
I’ve been in restaurants where a group of adults has been particularly noisy and even annoying; students, people on work nights out, etc. I don’t immediately say “students shouldn’t be allowed in restaurants/this restaurant”. I think “well that’s a bit annoying but I am in a public space and if I wanted to be away from students/people on a work night out/whoever I could have had a nice meal at home.”
An Indian friend of mine recounted a story to me the other day of something which happened to her recently. She got on a bus and heard an old lady say, not-quite-whispering, “Oh my god, they’re everywhere! You can’t get away from them can you?!” quite obviously referring to my friend and the colour of her skin. This was upsetting to her, and quite rightly. She told me this story because I had been talking with her about the way children are oppressed, and how people feel quite happy to expound the “they should be seen and not heard” theory, and how that will make children uncomfortable and upset – especially because unlike my friend, they don’t necessarily understand why people hate them so much and so unreasonably.
Children too are human beings, and it isn’t fair to make them feel unwanted simply because of who they are. They can’t help being children any more than any oppressed group can help being part of that oppressed group, and yet it is still seen as reasonable to discriminate against them simply because they are children.
Anji-
I totally understand where you are coming from. I will try to explain why I said that a little bit better so that you may understand where I’m coming from. I am a stay at home Mum. I have one son, and he is three years old. While we are not completely poor, we certainly do not have an abundance of cash. So when my husband and myself go out to a fancy restaurant, it’s a big treat for us, we arrange for a baby sitter to be with my son so we can have some time as a man and woman, instead of a Mum and a Dad, something we do usually only twice a year. I have neither the skill nor the time to prepare a meal such as we go out for at home.(also part point of going out to a restaurant for us is to have someone else do the work for me.) I simply can’t have this kind of an evening at home. Also, our place is does not have the same romantic atmosphere as a candle lit restaurant, and it would be ruined for me, if there were children running around, screaming, and throwing food. It would not be ruined by a child enjoying dinner with his family, eating his food and laughing at something funny. My evening would be ruined by teenagers/ adults/ retirees running around, scream, throwing food, or being drunk and disorderly.
Having an evening just to ourselves, is very special and I think it is necessary to sustain a happy marriage; it makes me happy which in turn makes me a better Mum. Sometimes I think that yeah, it is a little selfish, but I am more than just a Mum, I’m a woman too. At any rate, the restaurant that we go to does have a family section.
I have witnessed all kinds of behavior from children in restaurants, and when I see children screaming over and over again, being violent, being disrespectful to thier parents/ staff at a restaurant, making a huge messy with their food and being generally unpleasant, I don’t think “there should be no children allowed in here.” I am more likely to wonder why the parents are allowing that sort of behavior. I am of the opinion that the problem is not with the children but with the parents. Of course my son has had melt downs in public places. If I can’t calm him with in a few minutes and we are in a restaurant, I take him outside or to the bathroom so that no one else has to hear it while he gets a hold of himself. I consider this to be a courtesy to the other patrons. Obviously there are exceptions to this, and even the most beautifully behaved child will have a meltdown from time to time. This is completely understandable, and I know that it happens, I have no problem with a child having a melt down it’s to be expected, but I do have a problem with the parent reacting to the melt down by yelling and screaming at the child or hitting the child and prolonging the melt down rather than finding out what is causing in and helping to solve the problem. I also have a problem with parents dragging children out to public places late at night past the child’s bed time. I’ve seen it many times, the child is obviously over tired and can’t cope with it and the parents react by yelling. This is unfair to the child and also unfair to the other patrons. There are obviously exceptions to this, I know that from time to time it may be necessary.
I don’t hate children, or not want children around, I spend the majority of my waking time in the company of my child and other children. My boy can be heard from miles around, and I think that’s normal. He’s starting JK in the fall and even though it’s only 2 1/2 hours I’m sure I’ll miss him a lot.
Perhaps I feel this way because discrimination against children doesn’t happen so much over here, or perhaps I unconsciously avoid the types of places where we would not be welcome, so I don’t really know what it’s like.
It’s funny you mention your Indian friend because my Dad is Indian also! He’s actually from a country that no longer exists, (It’s where Karachi is now) My Mum is British and as white as white gets. I have more my Mum’s skin tone, so I’m considered “white”. Even in a country as wonderfully accepting as Canada, I hear a lot of disrespectful things about Indians, and it really really hurts. You’re friend is right, no one deserves to be treated that way. Had I been on that bus I certainly would have given that woman an earful! As I also speak out against children being treated with violence or disrespect.
Does that make sense?
(I could write a whole lot more but the boy has just declared I’ve spent enough time on the computer and I must go, please forgive any typos, I have no time to proof read just now!)
If your evening is so readily ruined by you (or the restaurant) being unable to control the not-like-you patrons, I would suggest hiring in caterers. They even take away the dirty dishes.
I have long assumed the sole reason no one wants a 4yo in a nightclub is because no one wants to have to explain why the adults are acting like such utter imbeciles. It can’t be because they’re afraid they’ll accidentally serve one… and it can’t be because they’d be too noisy or too rowdy…
I think I wouldn’t want a four-year old in a nightclub because they’re open late at night, noisy, and full of drunk people. It’s not good for the child, and the people there aren’t attending to spend time with children
But You don’t care, much, about logic and facts. You just want to feel righteous.
Forcing people to stay in their house if they don’t want to hear wailing is worse discrimination than them wanting children to stay quiet or have them removed until they calm down.
Nicely written, Ruth, and you make some very good points. You’ve reminded me of something of John Holt’s that I read recently and I’m going to find the link in a minute, but for now:
S. Brykczynski – all you are doing is reinforcing Ruth’s argument. You are discriminating against children in a way I should think you would not dare discriminate against another (adult) person. You don’t want kids “ruining” your nice night out? Tough. Kids are part of life, as Ruth says. Kids live here too, and they should be afforded the same rights that you are.
I think in the main the huge anti-child bias in society comes from the idea that children are a “nuisance”. That they are inconvenient little attention-seekers whom any sensible adult would avoid having to spend time with. I think the working men’s clubs analogy is a good one – women were treated much the same until very recently – Don’t let the little lady in here, she wouldn’t understand our ways – the attitude is basically the same in both cases ie being extremely condescending to the one being discriminated against. There is also another similarity in that, again until relatively recently, it was seen as perfectly okay to give the wife a beating if she stepped out of line/didn’t have your supper ready/whatever. That was socially acceptable not so long ago, just as giving a child a smack for “misbehaving” is now.
Women’s rights may have moved forward, albeit painfully slowly, and as we all know we have had to fight tooth and nail for every little improvement. Children’s rights, wrongly though perhaps logically, lag behind even women’s rights, because children and women are inextricably linked. It’s the women who are pregnant and give birth, and overwhelmingly women who do the child-rearing. There for the powers that be will see children’s rights a secondary even to women’s rights, which we know they barely take seriously anyway.
What I’m saying is, whatever improvements can be gained for children’s rights, we are likely to have to fight even harder (since the children can’t be expected to do it for themselves), and wait even longer, to see any improvements.
This denial of children’s rights filters through into our every day discourse – women speak of their desire to get their children into nursery/school so that they can have that time back for themselves. When even mothers use this type of language, we have a very very steep climb before we can gain for our children the rights they should be enjoying.
Right, found the Holt link now.
John Holt’s “Escape from Childhood.” I haven’t read the book yet, but there is a very good review of it here http://www.naturalattachment.com/wordpress/2009/04/17/escape-from-childhood-a-review/
which I think everyone should read.
Especially consider (from a page linked to in the review):
“Holt laid out several specific rights he thought all children should have. They included:
* The right to vote
* The right to work
* The right to own property
* The right to travel
* The right to choose one’s guardian
* The right to a guaranteed income
* The right to legal and financial responsibility
* The right to control one’s learning
* The right to use drugs
* The right to drive
* The right to control one’s sex life.”
Forgot to say, what you said about the phrase “child free” is spot on, and I’d never really thought about it like that before. It does rather imply that a “child” is something undesirable that you wish to be “free” from. Like “Debt free,” or ” disease free”.
That phrase is incredibly insulting to children, just on its own.
The child free do wish to be free of children and it is a desirable state. In my life a child will be a burden. In the unlikely event I should get pregnant (I have the Mirena IUD) I would get an abortion without a second thought.
You should be glad I am not having children. I would resent it for ruining my life and that is no good for any child. That is in fact the last result of anyone exasperated with a child free person is them saying “I’m glad you’re not having children.” They why do you have such a problem with it. This is a good thing.
So yes, I am damn happy to be free of a child just as I will be happy in two years when I finish paying my consolidation loan and I will be debt free.
I like my freedom and I will not give it up. I am not selfish. Those against the child free are the selfish ones in expecting me to conform to what you think I should do and don’t give me my duty as a woman bullshit. I have been told as some women can’t have children and want them I should be obligated to have one. The infertility of some person I don’t know doesn’t effect my life in any way just as me not having a child has no bearing on their life.
I will let you live as you want. All I ask is that you give me the same consideration.
I am, personally, extremely grateful for you not having children.
One of the worst experience it is possible to have as a human is to know oneself to be unwanted.
Thank you for knowing yourself well enough to avoid this now-avoidable tragedy.
It’s completely fine if you don’t want children of your own. The point of the writer is that many of the child-free treat children poorly, discriminating against them, and, by extension, their caregivers which are, by and large, women! Don’t want kids? Don’t have kids! But don’t be horrid to children or those who do choose to have kids. I mean, you do want to have cardiologists and ontologists and gynecologists in 30 years, right? Kids. That’s where those come from. If, as a society, we don’t provide education for our children and honor those who do choose to have, raise and provide care for them, we doom ourselves.
We absolutely will never be child-free, whether we have them ourselves or not.
The right to drive? Is he MAD?! Han he never SEEN the children in mini-cars at Legoland?!
On a more serious note, even adults don’t have the RIGHT to drive, they have to pass tests and then can have their licenses taken away for breaking any rules, some not even directly related to driving. The same applies to a ‘guaranteed income’, hands up anyone who has one of those.
Deb:
I’m not looking for a fight here, and I think we are on the same side. I can tell you are very passionate about this issue and I can appreciate that passion. I am not in any way advocating for restaurants that do not allow children. But I wonder if you had a chance to read my reply to Anji? Because you said:
You are discriminating against children in a way I should think you would not dare discriminate against another (adult) person. You don’t want kids “ruining” your nice night out? Tough.
and in my reply post I said:
It would not be ruined by a child enjoying dinner with his family, eating his food and laughing at something funny. My evening would be ruined by teenagers/ adults/ retirees running around, scream, throwing food, or being drunk and disorderly.
So I did in fact say the exact same thing about adults. When There are adults “ruining” my experience in a restaurant I don’t insist they be removed or advocate they not be allowed to eat in that restaurant. I ask to be moved to another section. Which is in my opinion a very reasonable response. The same as I do when I am out eating with my young son, and there are other children ruining his dining experience.
I think that all people young and old should be aware of other people around them and try to respect them no matter where they are.
I’ve never seen a sign like the one on your page. I wish there were.
For those of you who don’t like the term “childfree” — tough. Get over it. Some of us who are childfree use the term EXACTLY because we DON’T like children, and we are happy to be free of them.
And guess what? We don’t have to like them.
Alex, of course you don’t have to like them. Nobody has to like anybody. But actively disliking somebody simply because they happen to be part of an oppressed group, and advocating their oppression? That makes you a bigot whatever way you paint it.
Erm, doesn’t that mean that you don’t like the person you once were? Or did you emerge from your ma’s fanjo a fully grown adult?
Crikey, I’m not one of the militant child free, but I’d be happy to go back in time and make one exception…
S. Brykczynski – I’m not looking for a fight either and I apologise, I shouldn’t have gone off at you like that. Sorry.
Alex, if you don’t like children, you must be looking at a site called “Mothers for Women’s Lib” purely to troll. What a sad waste of everybody’s time. Now fuck off.
Ruth, I’ve never heard the word ‘fanjo’ before, it must be one of those awesome Northern euphemisms that we don’t get down here. I think it might be one of the funniest words I’ve ever heard. Yes, I’m secretly twelve.
I disagree with the idea that it’s discrimination to have places — restaurants, public entertainments and so on — that are child free.
Why? Because in order to ALLOW children, you have to deny all sorts of adult topics, adult activities and adult language or you could wind up with censors arresting you for drinking around them or offering sex to a companion or just for telling them off. If an adult gets annoying, you can speak rudely to them to get them off your back.
Try doing that to a child. No way. The parents can easily wind up turning on you and possibly calling in the law for your hurting their spoiled brat’s feelings. Oddly, it’s the parents of the worst bullies who wind up defending them right or wrong — and they do take advantage of that special protected status.
When they can be treated like anyone else I wouldn’t mind their being around. This includes getting them out of the premises if they’re screaming, wrecking my stuff or interfering with what I’m doing.
I chose not to have children. I do have grandkids and love them, but do not expect to take them to places where I’m going to cruise for a date. It’s all ludicrous — but as long as children are that overprotected then I don’t want to have to go back to the level of censorship demanded by an “all ages” activity in every area of life. I want places where I can ignore the net nanny and the rest of the censorship gang.
Of course I don’t approve of that censorship FOR children either, but getting them into adults-only clubs is a way to shut down any adults-only clubs like your local cruisy gay bar.
If they’re included in all aspects of life in some cultures, those cultures do not set them apart that they can only hear certain things and only certain activities can take place around them. Keep in mind it results in young writers unable to read their own works if they happen to be erotic, despite the fact that legality for actual sex comes first. Good way to ensure teen pregnancy, they can do it but they can’t read about it to know protection’s a good idea.
I largely agree with this post (inspite of being Child Free myself). I do think that Debs@7 is really wrong though – we use “child free” to say a big FUCK YOU to all the people who think women *should* or *must* have children and are to be pitied if they can’t (I hate those people, btw) (as the OP mentions, in fact).
I don’t want to discriminate against children, and I’m happy for children to share public spaces with me (sometimes they annoy me, but sometimes adults annoy me to, avoiding annoying people can be hard). I think it would be really silly to hate all children – I don’t want to be a mother, I don’t want to raise children myself and I’d probably hate the day-to-day tasks of doing so but I don’t actually hate *children*. It seems a weird thing to say really.
I wouldn’t be opposed to allowing children everywhere I allow adult acquaintances in my life; however sometimes someone will read “dress code: fetish or formal wear; Please bring copious alcohol” on party directions, bring their child and then *complain* about the kinky clothing, the booze, the swearing… not all spaces are going to be “child friendly” by the definition of all parents – from the glass ornaments to the dressmaking pins scattered on the table, from talking about sex to in-depth technical discussions of computers… you might not want your child to be in my house.
So sometimes I’m tempted to say “no children” but what I really mean is “this house is not set up for your child, these people are not going to avoid the conversations they want to have to please your child, if this is going to bother you then please do not bring your child” (we will, generally, talk to any child, for a bit, but just as no individual adult gets to be the centre of the conversation all evening neither will any individual child be)
I don’t like people who are intentionally child free. I don’t discriminate against them, and I don’t voice my opinion about their lack of children, but I rarely enjoy their company. My reason is that the choice not to have children goes along with other choices, which I find annoying. being around them.
That being said, I do carefully avoid them. I never, ever divulge my reasoning, but I gently stay away, preferring to keep company with people who have not made this choice.
I don’t ever say a word about it, or in any way make them feel uncomfortable. I also have never once jumped into a conversation with one of them to tell them why I have children, yet they seem compelled to tell me that their lack of children is by CHOICE, as though they have done something more evolved than my decision to “spit out rugrats” as it was once put to me by a childless person.
They have every right to be without children. I have every right to not like or approve of this, as long as I keep my face shut and mind my business about it.
Oh…never once have I asked to be seated in a section where there were no childless people who might spoil my evening.
My motto is “Do your thing and mind your business while you’re about it.”
Whoops, I’ve made a typo. Meant to say “My reason is that the choice not to have children goes along with other choices which happen to annoy me.”
Apologies for any confusion.
This is very strange. If I was in a fancy restaurant and a child started screaming and throwing things and running around, I would complain, and I would be very angry with the caregiver for allowing the child to become a part of my experience, requiring me to pay attention to it. One cannot simply ignore very loud noises.
If I were in a fancy restaurant with extremely loud adults acting rambunctiously, I would certainly complain, and I would certainly hope that if they didn’t knock it off, they be kicked out.
Why are you acting like there’s something wrong with expecting a certain type of behavior in certain public spaces? That’s absurd. If children were given the “right” to go wherever they wanted and act in any manner they felt appropriate — which would often be light years different from most adults view of appropriate, because small children don’t yet have to ability to reason, which is the backbone of a civilized society– then it would cause many adults to feel that they were not allowed in public places.
I’m sorry, I find this idea ridiculous. Of course there isn’t a reason why a child acting in the same manner as adults in a restaurant that is not explicitly “family-oriented” is fine. But I’ll be damned if I’m supposed to be totally fine and just suck it up when someone’s kid is shrieking and wailing uncontrollably.
Also, to make this comment even longer: I was at a coffee shop one Sunday night, blogging. My boyfriend was with my doing homework, and the place was filled with other 20- and 30-somethings by themselves or in pairs, doing other work. It was very, very quiet in there. Then, the infant behind me started crying. The crying got louder and louder. It went far beyond the point of “now this is starting to affect other people in this public space,” and she just sat there, occasionally saying “shhhh” to the infant.
Every single person in that room — there were plenty of them– was perfectly respectful at first. When it had become abundantly clear that the woman was more interested in hanging out at the coffee shop and finishing her crossword puzzle than respecting 20 other people’s right to sit in the quiet atmosphere, where they went because it was quiet, and they needed quiet spaces to work in, EVERYONE LEFT. It was the most ridiculous and rude action I’ve ever seen a parent do. There was no reason for her to remain in the coffee shop with her now SCREAMING baby for that long. After a couple of minutes, when it is clear that not only is your baby’s behavior infringing on the reasonable right of the others to not be harassed in public, but it will likely not stop, you need to take your child elsewhere.
It seems that you are saying that in that situation, everyone in that coffee shop shouldn’t have been upset, and should have respected the screaming infant’s right to be there.
FYI, no one even said anything to the mother. They just left in droves, which was a clear message in and of itself.
April. On your blog sidebar you have a link to a site showing people how to check their privilege.
I suggest you check yours before coming back here. Thanks. Bye.
http://shutupsitdown.co.uk/2009/11/16/the-adult-privilege-checklist/
Sorry for overly showing my privilege. I still don’t get it. Either way, I’ll refrain from commenting further unless/until I do.
Thanks.
Comment edited for ableist language.
Bye, Sharky!
Wow, what an ignorant couple of comments you made about the childfree movement!
We don’t hate kids, we just don’t want them for ourselves.
How about you try educating yourself instead of being a git?
Unfortunately many people who ID as childfree really do hate kids and take great pleasure in denigrating them. Ever heard the phrase “crotch droppings”? It’s something I’ve only ever heard from the childfree.
I didn’t see suzy corrected for being really bigoted against the child free. What does she know of our reasons for being so? Well, since she doesn’t know everyone of us, she’s just decided that none of our reasons are okay and we’re shitty people.
So it’s not okay for the child-free to say that we don’t hate kids, because some do, but it’s perfectly okay for suzy to imply that we’re all really shitty people no matter our reasons.
You know… some of our reasons may be because of inability to care for children of our own, reasons that are no business of suzy’s. But I suppose it’s A-OK to just judge us and call us selfish. It’s certainly easier than to consider us humans.
Jemima, Suzy’s post was quite clearly a joke, a parody of all the things childfree people say about children.
I never said it wasn’t okay for the childfree to say they don’t hate kids; I was simply pointing out that denying any chilfree people hate kids is untrue because it’s quite clear that some do.
My apologies then. I’m a little sensitive about being called not-a-woman for not having children, and less than human for the disability that is part of the reason for it.
I didn’t catch the humour.
I’m sorry that you have been called a not-woman for not having children. I think (hope!) that that’s not what anyone here is implying. Personally as a parent I have great respect and admiration for childfree people, because being a parent shows me how damn hard/draining/frustrating this job is. I’d hate to see anyone do it who wasn’t 100% happy and willing to do so.
Not your mis-step to apologise for, but thanks
And I have great respect for those who do choose to be parents. And by that I don’t mean choosing to birth a child, but rather the choice to parent hir. Sometimes giving birth is not a choice, but reflects a lack of choice.
Parenting, or at least the good and responsible kind, is always a choice, and I know it takes a lot of work. My mum did all of it herself, despite my father being there the whole time. Shit, she’s still doing all the parenting even though my brother and I are grown, hehe. She’s the one who can lend us money when we need it, she’s the one who can empathise, when we need an ear. Our father? Hmmm he’s only just noticed that he needs to be a parent in order to maintain relations with his children, and now that he divorced my mum no one’s doing it for him. If it hadn’t been for them being a couple I would have long since lost touch with my dad, now that they’re no longer a couple, he’s struggling to maintain the self-image of Good Dad. It’s really rather pathetic. He’s never realised just how much work goes into being a parent. It’s probably why he never understood why mum never felt much like going out, always tired etc etc.
Maybe one day I’ll be able to be a parent, if that happens maybe I’ll also be willing to try. For now, I remain happily childfree, and not so happily disabled.
Nice pre-word you have there! XD
All I have to say is, I know the word will always have children in it, but I hope that reasonable discipline will eventually come back into parenting fashion.
I don’t have a problem with children, just with parents who do nothing to teach them proper behaviour (and actually? I have very little problem with that! I chalk it up to Australia being more sensible than America.).
No, I’ll never be truly child-free. But I certainly do hope that the children who will grow up to become the adults who will wipe my arse in old age, will also have been raised to respect people with disabilities. Such as issues with being touched, and issues with loud noises.
You know… such things that means that a person ought to just stay at home.
That was a very disablist thing to say, Anji. Disability happens in children as well as adults, and sometimes it is another child not being able to handle sensory stimuli such as loud noises. I really do hope that you’ll respect that parents of children with such disabilities might wish to bring them to a quiet place in public, rather than keep them at home, because their disability inhibits the free expression of the abled chldren.
I have the dubious pleasure of being autistic. I was once an autistic child. I cannot handle being touched, I couldn’t back then. I spent my own 7 years birthday bawling my eyes out because my classmates touched me and shouted loudly and I could not put to words that I did not want them to, because it hurt my senses. My disability was not discovered till I was 25, and I never had a single fulfilling relationship with my peers, because they were neurotypical and I had a disability that made me unable to handle their close proximity.
But I guess I should’ve just stayed at home and never invited anyone to celebrate my birthday with me, yeah?
Sort of like what I’m doing now as an adult, who can hardly go anywhere without needing three full days of rest afterwards. I just stay at home. I don’t have a job, I don’t have a partner, I live in my mum’s guest room, so technically I don’t even have a home to stay in, ’cause it’s not my home. I am dependent on people with cars to pick me up, or on being able to borrow my mum’s, but she has a job, so she needs it. Why? Because public transport can immobilise me for the better part of a day, and what’s the point of taking the bus to town if it means you won’t be able to move from the spot on the sidewalk where you got off?
…
I love children. I love sitting outside, listening to happy children play and laugh in nearby gardens. Their laughter and happiness is contagious, and it brings me a little of the joy I never had as a child myself. But I have no desire for any of my own. That lack of desire is likely caused by the very visceral sense that another person being 100% dependent on me 24/7 for the first months and years (that period depending on whether there’s a co-parent) would actually drive me to suicide. My mental resources couldn’t even last a day.
My reasons for not having children is none of suzy’s business, but she reserves the right to judge me for my choice anyway. And you have the gall to correct someone else for not wanting to be lumped in with a generalisation.
I love children. I teach older children to role-play 2½ hours, 20 weeks a year. I have filled in for my mother’s music classes. I have a sort of wish and a hope that I might one day learn some skills and find a partner so having a child or two might be possible without sending me over the edge of self-destruction. But before I have a very real sense that children is a plausible and survivable option for me, I cannot allow myself to develop a desire to have them. The disappointment would bee too great, and it might break me. ‘Cause my life has been one long line of things wanted to but couldn’t do. Like having good relationships with friends, partners, family.
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Um, Jemima? Would you please show me where I said anything like that in my post?
The whole point of my post is that people have the right to choose with whom they keep company, and it’s nobody’s business why they make said choices. The counterpoint to that is that the same people also have a social obligation not to comment on the choices of others.
Care to tell me why that could be offensive?
“My reason is that the choice not to have children goes along with other choices, which I find annoying.”
Assuming that the choice to not have children ALWAYS goes with those other choices, which you find annoying, is judging people for something which you assume goes along with one choice they’ve even if that may not be the case. And you assume these choices are always connected, no matter people’s reason for making that choice.
“They have every right to be without children. I have every right to not like or approve of this, as long as I keep my face shut and mind my business about it.”
I really like how keeping your face shut and minding your business includes proclaiming that you do not like nor approve of the choice to not have children. Thus telling us that our choices are simply not okay, thus implying that we are shitty people.
The comment about reasons was because I generously assumed that you’d forgive a child-free person for being thusly if there were really good reasons for being so. I may have been too generous – if that is so, I apologise very much. But if the reasons do make a difference, then you have also decided that people need to divulge their reasons to you, lest you judge them with your disapproval. That’s where I came from with that part of my comment.
But it hardly matters, as I have – up above – been informed that the comment I referred to was a parody. I didn’t find it funny at all and therefore didn’t realise that it was a parody. I apologise for troubling you over that, but here at least, were my explanation for why I said what I did. Hope it makes sense to you.
Thank you for your thoughts. While I disagree with your interpretation of my words, I recognize that you have every right to believe as you please.
Have a great day.
Yes, well, not catching the parody-aspect of it obviously skewed my entire reading of your comment.
x_x
I’m sorry for having wasted your time.
You didn’t waste my time. It is always interesting and informative to hear other peoples views.
I am keeping my answers short because I don’t want to say anything that might be misunderstood or sound sarcastic.
I truly appreciate your comments and only wished to understand better what you meant. Again, thank you. I mean it.
I respect everyone’s right to have children or not have them, whichever they think is better for them.
As a young person with a child, it is damn near impossible to find something to do that stimulates both (my son and I) of our interests. He really loves music, and really likes seeing it live and his uncle is in a band that plays regularly in our area. Being that my son has heard his uncle play music many times, he’s always asking when we can go see them play. However, it is unlikely that the answer will ever be “sometime soon” because local music is generally played in bars, at clubs, or somewhere that may say “all ages”, but that will straight up ask us to leave when I try to take him in. I would never ask the people around us to say, cut out the swearing (even though we don’t swear around him) or put their drinks down around my child. Those things are a part of our culture. All I ask is that I am shown the same respect and not asked to take my child elsewhere. He has just as much right to go see local music and dance to his uncle’s music as I, or anyone else does.
That, I think was the point of this article. Not necessarily that all social settings be revamped to be “child friendly”, but that people not exclude children from things that their parents deem okay just because they might “harsh your mellow” or something. Some of my non-parent friends have said things like, “well, I don’t want that kid screaming when I am trying to (fill in the blank)”. Don’t think that just because we love our kids means we totally love their temper tantrums! Often, kids are behaving this way because they don’t know how to phrase themselves to say, “Man, this food was greasy and now, my tummy hurts!” Their emotions are still totally in control of their every action and they don’t have the vernacular yet to express them. It’s gotta be frustrating! They melt down, often, because they don’t feel understood or listened to or because they don’t know how to say, or even define, why they’re feeling yucky. So, when grown ups then complain that this “horrid child is just ruining everything” their budding emotions get belittled. I mean, don’t you remember how hard it was when you were 5 to be heard or feel respected? I sure do.
How ironic… the author accuses all the child-free of tarring all children with the same brush.
You are guilty of the very same tarring with the very same brush
Angry much?
Whoever said all CF ppl hated kids? Talk about generalizing. Then by that logic I could say all parents are fat and lazy who let their kids run around and not care what they do. But I know that isn’t fair to good parents.
And yes, we’ve all heard the same arguments time and time and time again (You were a kid once too…I’m glad you aren’t having kids….) Believe me, we are not phased by them. If anything we should be angry….society treats you like a leper if you say you don’t want children, as if you are not allowed to make choices for your own life.
Just remember this: most parents don’t like any kids except their own in the first place and your kid has just as good a chance of growing up to be childfree also.
I think the author of this needs to spend more time with her kids and less time up on the cross.
I hate kids. I really do.
Where are these magical, child free places?? You must tell me. As a 25 year old female, I would pay through the damn nose to find even a single restaurant that was child free. I would happily welcome childfree businesses and locations.
Nothing worse than being forced to listen to someone else’s wailing crotchfruit -.-
Sing it sister
This is so fucking bat shit crazy. Look if I dont want a child in my place of business thay mean no children, I have my reasons. There loud, smell like shit and piss, and I dont want some parents giving me the look of disappointment when I curse or talk about a woman I want to fuck so hard she will walk funny for a week.
I’m fine with kids being allowed everywhere as long as the parents of those kids don’t mind their kid hearing the c word. Get mad and I can come up with a big, long, fancy rant about how you are discriminating against me too.
Judging by your post it seems that you’re arguing that we should treat children and give them the same rights to choose where to be, what to do, etc as adults (because currently when they do NOT have all of these rights, they are discriminated against according to you). What is your view on statutory rape? It seems such a definition does not exist in your ideal world because if a child should be allowed to drop their education and get (or not) a job, why shouldn’t they choose to have sex with an older man or woman if they’d like to? I’m just trying to figure out what your point is with the list you made in your post of what I thought were perfectly logical “rules” placed onto children (eg kids having to finish their education, etc).
Humans at all stages of life are both good and bad. It is hard not to discriminate one kind or the other. I mean, I would consider myself to be a person merely without a child (by choice) rather than “childless” or “childfree,” who hopes to some degree that he/she/it respects those with children and the children themselves. There are always going to be people who have children and those who do not. Obviously I have my opinions on child discrimination, which I cannot define in words because this is a rather broad matter for me to comprehend. Perhaps I could say that the parents who make the decision to have children at least try understand where their child is best suited in society and adapt so they may grow up well without as much discrimination, but know that discrimination will exist, and for those who choose to not have children, they also try to understand that there will always be children, and learn to adapt as well so that they may be part of a suitable environment for the young humans who are learning and growing like all of us. To me I feel empathic to people of all ages/genders/races and try to understand too many points of view at once (and it is hard to understand because I am only human myself), even though people have not understood that about me. I like to feel connected with people, and often cannot tell the difference between my “blood family” and “other people.” I am not social though. I think everyone’s point is valid on some level. Thank you for the thoughts on the matter. I know this comment is a bit broad, but all the opinions have helped me.