The office where I work is closed, but because I need the money, because there’s still work that needs to be done, and because the document review I’m doing is online, I got all the secret codes so I can work from home.
And, dammit, wouldn’t you know it’s a nice day out.
Which means that the kids from the daycare center that’s right outside my window are out in the yard, screaming their heads off. Well, except that one kid, who makes all these weird guttural howls. I suspect that may be the same kid who brandished a hockey stick at me and Junebug one day as we were walking by his house and howled, “I WANNA KILL THE DOG!”
And people wonder why I don’t want kids.
I don’t entirely understand people who say they “hate” kids. (Not that you did, but I’m on a side rant here.) Kids are just smaller, less-socialized people. You’re not going to hate all kids that you meet any more than you’re going to hate all adults that you meet. (If you do hate every adult that you meet, that’s a different problem.)
I understand people who like or are indifferent to kids, but don’t want to have any. I just don’t get the people who say they hate all kids.
In case I don’t get back online — Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, all that crap.
You’re not going to hate all kids that you meet any more than you’re going to hate all adults that you meet.
I’m not going to like every adult I meet, either. Somehow, though, even though it’s acceptable to take adults on a case-by-case basis, I’m supposed to like every kid I meet just because I’m a woman.
I think when a lot of people - women anyway - say that they hate kids, they mean they don’t like looking after kids. Looking after kids is hard work but it’s supposed to come as naturally to women as shopping and being illogical. (-;
Actually, I think it’s a generalized cultural expectation that any adult is supposed to like children, but probably expected to a greater degree of women. I’m a man, and when I mention that I don’t want children, about 80% of the time, the reaction I get is one of surprise, since having children is one of our cultural markers of adulthood.
I don’t like or dislike children anymore than I do adults. I do know that the wife-and-kids life, which is great for several of my friends, is not the one I want.
Back from Christmas (it was pretty okay, but now the cat is bugging the crap out of me to give him the wet food treat he missed while we were away).
I agree a bit more with Linnaeus — I do think it’s a generalized cultural expectation that all (straight) adults want to have kids, and therefore love kids, with that extra dollop of pressure that everyone loves to pile onto women.
Though I suspect the reason you hear people say they hate children is to avoid the following conversation:
“So when are you going to have kids?”
“Oh, I’m not going to.”
“Well, why not? Are you infertile? You can adopt.”
“No, I’m not infertile. I just don’t want to have kids.”
“But kids are great! Go ahead, have one — you’ll change your mind.”
“I won’t change my mind. I don’t want kids.”
“Oh, everyone says that before they have kids.”
Etc. until you want to scream.
All short-circuited if you instead reply, “I hate kids, so I won’t be having any.”
Mnem,
I hear you. I am starting to adopt the same tactic, for exactly the same reasons.
As an added benefit, once I make this known, people really DO keep their kids away from me (ie cow-workers who feel the urge to shove their screaming, leaky crotchfruit in my face when I’m trying to work, etc).
On another note, I think that for every person who becomes an instant Mary Poppins/Mr. Rogers after having a kid (after saying they would never procreate) there are 1,000 others who think oh fuck, what have I done. One of my co-workers married rather young by today’s standards and promptly sired 4 kids in very, very quick sucession. Now he’s almost my age, which puts the oldest one around 8 or 9, and man, this guy does EVERYTHING to avoid going home at night and to steal some adult time. This usually means binge drinking with some of the younger guys 10-15 years his junior.
On the nights when I grab a bite to eat somewhere in Manhattan after work, if it’s not a sushi-counter-style thing or a diner I tend to eat at the bar (just because most places are bitchy about giving a lone diner a table). Let me tell you…I work near Grand Central and EVERY SINGLE TIME I dine alone, I get chatted up–not hit on, chatted up–by obviously married guys. They talk about their houses and their kids and how they just missed the umpteenth train home. And part of me knows that they are not looking for a mistress or anything like that 90% of the time; rather, they are going home maudlin drunk and poorer from eating prepared food AFTER having spoken to a grown-up rather than eat at home in a house full of screaming kids and having the only other adult present talk about said kids and domestic management.