To people who like or have children:

[Pineapple_Juice]

Why?

I'm not trying to be a bitch about it, I honestly want to know. I hate kids so much but I've begun to think there must be something wrong with me. I mean I HATE them. I'd like to take every child in the world and stomp on their face with a shoe that's got nails driven into the sole. That's gotta be weird.

I really wish I liked and wanted kids, but I just fucking don't and I feel bad because my BF would like kids a lot.

I dunno. I don't even know why I think they're so putrid, they just look disgusting to me and they annoy the shit out of me. One noise out of their mouth in a department store and I will walk briskly to the exit. ESPECIALLY if they're screaming. I just fucking hate them forever and I don't see why anyone would want to devote their entire lives to this stinking crying shitting money-leeching sack of guts.

Someone who likes kids: please tell me why. I really wanna understand. I want to like being around kids.

[Still Jack]

I want to know why people get all bent out of shape when I call their child "it". I mean, grammatically, IT is A child, therefore, I am correct, therefore they have no right to bitch.

edit: I agree with Pineapple, I hate children, especially the loud ones, If they can't keep the little mistakes under control, send em to the fucking adoption centre or something.

[SweetJane]

I like kids, but there are way too many of them. In southern Illinois pregnancy is like a contagious disease. "OH... you're working minimum wage at 23 and you have 5 fucking kids?!?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxHcx7FO8nI

Ain't He cute? NO HE AIN'T! He's just another burdon on the welfare state!

[Pineapple_Juice]

Yes but WHY do you like kids?

[SweetJane]

Originally Posted by Pineapple_Juice

Yes but WHY do you like kids?

I was a kid once. I was ignorant, poorly coordinated, and overly emotional once, too. I can't blame them for not having the skills to deal with the world, and I like to think that some of them will turn out to be decent human beings. So, I guess I like to see the potential for something better later.

Kids can be brutally honest, which I find hilarious in a lot of circumstances. In fact, I can spend a day babysitting and having a decently good time (mostly laughing at the kid's expense, but still...). They don't tend to have musical taste, so I can listen to whatever I want. Actually, I like kids for a lot of the same reasons that I like dogs.

They're not the most unpleasant inevitability in life.

[AsylumVoid]

As my mother said when her cousin was pregnant for the first time and asked her if childbirth hurt:

"Of course it hurts, but it doesn't compare to the 18 years of pain to come"

[Sendo]

I personally like some children. I like my younger sister (4) more than my younger brother (6), because he is obnoxious, loud, rude and violent while my younger sister is sweet, quiet, cuddly and thoughtful. It all depends on the kid's personality.

[HumanePain]

I think it depends upon how your brain is wired. I have an instinctive and protective reaction to the little things. My daughter sometimes gets a little peeved at how my grandson (2 and half years old) will, given a choice, come to me instead of her. When he hurts himself, he will come running to me calling "papa, papa!" This is because he knows I have a lot of patience and love for him. I am at the other end of the spectrum. The same goes for my wife's nieces and nephews, my nieces and nephews and my neighbor's kids.

I can understand where you folks are coming from, because it takes an ENORMOUS reservoir of patience to spend anything more than 30 minutes with one, and don't even talk about potty training.

But for me, when they hop on your lap and wrap their little arms around your neck and say "I love you!" it is all worth while. When there are so many toddlers in the world being murdered by their own parents, kidnapped and later killed just so a human monster can have an orgasm, and beaten or are starving daily, at least in my little part of the world a toddler can have a safe and protected childhood. Like I said, it's a parental thing. An instinct, to like children.

[Pantherlette086]

I honestly think it depends on the kid. There are too many parents raising bad kids. Instead of paying attention and playing with them, they ignore them. Sometimes the only way they get attention is to act up. I love kids, but I DO not want them.

[vindicatedxjin]

...I agree with panther, it totally depends on the kid. I absolutely cannot stand children who throw tantrums at a store because they can't get what they want, or little ones you don't obey what they're parents say. But I must admit there are a few little butterballs who I absolutely adore aka. My bfs little 2 year old niece who likes to watch me while I'm doing my makeup and hand me whatever I ask her to while trying to put lotion on me...she's the most sweetest, funniest creature ever.

[creature6]

Once upon a time we were those children that some despise and other like.

[vindicatedxjin]

Yep exactly...children are merely human, some you like, some you don't.

[Starke von Oben]

Anyone who hates children with such venom is either mentally unfit or incapable of baring them.

[vindicatedxjin]

Von Oben...I've missed you actually!

[gothicusmaximus]

I hate kids, though not any more than I hate adults. As such, I will never have them, but abide their necessity.

[Xxmasquerade_massacrexX]

some people like kids because they tend to give unconditional love, especially to their parents. there is something sweet about children, for about five minutes. until they start picking their nose or shitting their pants.

there are a few reasons i want to have children. a) it's their duty to care for me when i'm old and can't tell which direction is up. b) i can make them do my chores when they're old enough and they'll have no choice. c) (and this isn't really a reason anymore) but i wanted to have my ex's kids because i wanted to see who they'd become. you know? what they looked like, and what their interests were. i wanted to have little hims running around because at the time i'd have done anything for him.

ehh. i could take or leave them, really. if i could just miraculously have two thirty year old kids when i'm like sixty, it'd be fantastic. but i can't. so i have to pop 'em out and raise them so they can be at my beck and call when i'm too lazy to do whatever.

[SweetJane]

I also like kids, or at least empathyze with them, because I had a pretty shitty childhood (I like to add a disclaimer that I never blame my parents... I have great parents, but they work hard and being quiet was a neccessity when one worked days and one worked nights... so I didn't learn to communicate things very well when I was young). As a result I have a whole host of issues I had to work out later in life because all I could do was repress the memories. So, when I see a kid lashing out at a legitimately unfit parent, I can't help but realize that they probably feel the same anxiety and depression I experienced as a kid, but they have better tools for expressing those feelings... though not much better, and usually the kid is still ignored, niglected, or abused.

As for simply unruly kids, I see an asshole adult who should have had a fucking abortion or used contraception because they are abviously too stupid and/or too self-centered to raise a child.

[Saya]

I like them because they are cute, and some of them are funny and its fun to baby sit sometimes. I was a camp counsellor for a few years and while sometimes I wanted to pull my hair out, by the end of the week we would always be sad to see them go, we had so much fun.

That said I don't think I ever want my own, I suspect if I spent more than a week with a kid I would really pull out my hair. I find kids are nicer to me since the kids I baby sit rarely see me, so I'm a cool person they don't take for granted, unlike their parents.

[Geoluhread]

Remember that any description you give to children you apply to yourself because you were one of those kids not too many years ago.

Personally I don`t mind children.
I hate noisy children as I hate noisy people in general, and if a kid is screaming its lungs out, I blame the parent.

[Jaye Jang]

I can relate to everything I read here in one way or another. What you have with your kids is a love-hate relationship, sometimes you love them and sometimes you wish you could take them back to Kids-R-Us and get a refund. They ARE expensive and time-consuming, so Pineapple if you REALLY feel that way about kids, please have your tubes tied. No offense. Just a suggestion.

I was told for years I could not have kids, and I was actually happy about that. In fact, all the way up until my first- --and lastborn --the doctors kept telling me it was just a bad case of the flu!! Imagine my surprise, (and my ex's), when the flu turned out to be permanent. That is when my ex turned tail and ran, and I got the kid, a beat-up Chevy and a stack of bills (and those have not diminished by much). But having a kid changes you -- COMPLETELY --and that may be part of the fear factor. (That's what the rainbow is for, BTW. That's my girl's favorite thing, despite being goth and totally into black and blood red EVERYTHING, just like mom --she loves rainbows. So, the avatar is for her).

But anyway, back to kids. I had to help my parents raise my younger brothers and sisters so they could both work, so I totally did NOT like or want kids, since I spent most of my childhood rearing someone else's kids and felt I had done MY part. However, then this little person comes into my life. I thought about putting her up for adoption at first, believe it or else (after my spouse 'flew the coop'), but the FIRST thing she did -- at just two hours old, no less, was get into an argument with me AND SHE WON. (The 'argument' was about being a breast versus a bottle baby. The LaLeche League and I said 'breast'; the kiddo said, "No way, Jose." So, she flat old-fashiond REFUSED to breastfeed. We went a round in the nursery for two days,--and she eventually won. Turns out my milk was nutritionally deficent and was actually starving the little snot. So, it turned out she was right -- and she has been ever since, BTW. It's one of those charming/annoying traits of hers that has kept me intrigued ever since). But, that's what did it for me. I had always been of the opinion that babies are just annoying little ameboids that eat, sleep, and drool on themselves, and are only useful for perpetuating the species. Therefore, I felt they were necessary evils, sort of like telephones, and were good only as long as they belonged to somebody else. Then I had one, and the FIRST thing I discovered was that, even at only two hours old, children are actually little people with minds of their own. In fact, the one thing I have learned to really LOVE about my girl is that she is so much her own person -- and she is so radically different from me -- and I've been intrigued ever since.

[Solumina]

I like well behaved kids but I can't stand kids who obviously haven't been parented. As for why I like them, well they don't judge you, they aren't as self absorbed as adults (despite the fact that they know so much less of the world), they are loving and affectionate, and they have the ability to endlessly amuse themselves with the world around them (which is why I think anyone under 10 shouldn't have video games except maybe on car rides).

I don't think I will ever want to give birth but in about a decade I'll probably start to seriously consider adoption as I'm not really a fan of babies and there are a lot of kids in this world who really need a good home.

[honeythorn]

I utterly detest them. I do not find babies cute, I really abhor toddlers as they are annoying, noisy and invariably sticky/snoty/shitty and want to put their disgusting hands all over you.

The NHS are right bastards in that they won't allow a woman who has not given birth to have a sterilisation. You have to overpopulate the world still further to be allowed that privellege <_<

[Solumina]

Originally Posted by honeythorn

The NHS are right bastards in that they won't allow a woman who has not given birth to have a sterilisation. You have to overpopulate the world still further to be allowed that privellege <_<

There is good reason for that, your brain chemicals change over time and later make you much more likely to want to have a baby and it isn't exactly easy to reverse female sterilization (surgery with about a week or two of recovery before you can go back to work if you are just in an office if everything goes perfectly) but it is plenty easy to use birth control and avoid babies that way.

[Still Jack]

The only child I've ever really liked is my cousins child. His kid reminds me so much of myself it's almost scary. The kid's got red hair and all.

[HumanePain]

I forgot to mention the biggest plus of all about children:

They are TAX DEDUCTIBLE!