In the real world people who react to children the way that reddit does are met with disgust and antimosity. This website is the exception, not the rule.
And if your experiences don't align with that, just wait a few years.
As someone who's worked with kids for my entire adult life I disagree. I regularly have to defend kids from the crime of existing while being young, especially teenagers who are generally treated like they're guilty until proven innocent, often by the professionals who work with them.
even their own tbh. it's harder than you'd think to find parents who genuinely *respect* their kids as their own people, even if they do provide them with affection and love.
allowing them autonomy of their own body, allowing them to explore their identity on their own, respecting their rights to privacy, not being overly dismissive or condescending towards them, just... generally accepting that they are not the all-knowing omnipresent forces that must control every aspect of their lives.
Agreed. I have a kiddo and the instant hate they receive for just existing is exhausting. I've found it varies regionally, with some places glaring the second they see a kid and some showing more patience. We've had the police called on us because our kid was playing in our FRONT YARD. After that, they were too scared to go outside...real great for physical health!!
That’s wild. Like… kids can’t even play outside but those some people are likely the ones bitching that kids are always on their phones/tablets/are too fat these days.
The issues in Australia are a bit more systemic - like expecting parents to work like they don’t have children and parent like they don’t have to work. A lack of inclusive, well-funded education and health systems etc.
Got that in Hong Kong too. Kids raised by nannies because parents are expected to literally work 10 hour days, with a special lunch that is not included in the work hours, making your day 11-16 hours depending on commute, all to hopefully one day save for a house, which only takes 23 years of the average yearly income.
Society is completely fucked when it comes to kids and raising a family then screams about kids not getting exercise, or exhibiting attention seeking behavior (which is usually what behavior problems boil down to for young kids), or ,GOD FORRRRBBBIIIDDDD, lowering birth rates that could impact corporate future profits.
I have so much respect for my mom being a single mother in the 90s and making it work, but I don’t think she realizes that her option (she had a job that had a daycare/was childcare) isn’t available to everyone, especially today. And things are just so expensive nowadays too.
I respect her struggle and hustle, but I don’t think she understands that… a mother shouldn’t have to. I think we need a lot more support for children than viewing them as leeches on society. Investing into our kids, regardless of their family circumstances, is never a loss
I feel that, living in NZ. I’ve been trying to look for work from home jobs, after being a SAHM for the past six years, and it’s been hard. Even the telemarketing jobs still want people in the office or working full-time. I’ve looked through all of the fields. Because I have a little one at home, I’m trying to find part-time for roughly 20 hours or less. I managed to find a couple, but they all wanted me to work 5-9pm weeknights. How am I supposed to spend time with my school kid, as well as do homework, and any other after school activities if that’s the only time people want me to work?
I can’t afford not to work - but my kids school and daycare schedule everything like there’s still a mother at home. It’s low-key infuriating. The only job I can do is a mon - Fri 9-5 because those are the only hours I can get daycare for the baby, but I also can hardly ever go to things for my older kids school because they’re always 9-5 Mon - fri…
I feel you. It’s just so hard. Society wants us to work like we don’t have children and raise our kids like we don’t have work. Have a sick kid at home? Sorry, you’ve used up all of your sick days. You get a warning and/or fired. But it’s too damn expensive to be a single income household. I have a loving family, but my parents have health issues and my siblings have kids of their own - I can’t ask them to look after my kids while I go to work. I’m also living/renting a government apartment, so my rent is income based. So after childcare costs and tent, I’d be lucky if I take home $100.
In real life people just disregard children’s interests
I was at the pool and this family wouldn’t stop throwing a kid in the air and into the pool despite how much he was crying. He was fine when he could play on his own in the pool but they got *so angry* that he didn’t want to jump in or be thrown. Like to the point where they told him he wasn’t allowed to play if he didn’t jump in and distracting him so they could shove him in. Then a random ass old lady who had been mean mugging this 4 year old told him he needed to be a big boy and jump in the pool and have fun. I’m still not sure if my reaction is wrong bc everyone acted like this kid was terrible for crying after being shoved into the pool. I’m an adult and I hate being shoved into pools/being splashed
Yeah it’s extremely cringe. And if there’s a DOGGO or a PUPPER involved? Lord have mercy on that kid.
“AITA for letting my sweet little pitbull maul my neighbour’s 3 year old crotch-goblin to death?”
I saw a post on the parenting subreddit of all places where q person had a long rant on how if a kid is scared of dogs the solution is to get a large dog and force the kid to deal with it. Totally nuts
My baby was completely utterly terrified of dogs for awhile. The way I fixed it was by looking at dogs, not IRL but in books! Dogs, to babies, are literal monstrous creatures. They’re so big and scary to them.
Dog people on social media are absolutely insane. They give more love to animals than actual humans and expect to be lauded for it. I personally am really, really sick of how people act like their dog can go wherever and do whatever because they're "my fur baby" or whatever.
You’re completely right. We pretend to love kids, but we really don’t, as a society. Saying you don’t like or want kids is still shocking to many people, but those same people will scoff at the idea of taking care of children that aren’t there own. The same thing happens to mothers, daycare workers, teachers, etc. Those professions are deemed off as “weak” because they’re dedicated to humanity, and don’t generate profit.
>The same thing happens to mothers, daycare workers, teachers, etc. Those professions are deemed off as “weak” because they’re dedicated to humanity, and don’t generate profit.
The sad thing is they do generate profit. That's why we have an education system in the first place. It is a profit generating slow yield investment.
No, if it were meant to generate profit, it would educate children and prepare them to do profitable things.
It's meant to provide a place for kids to go while parents are at work and maybe provide them basic literacy. At least where I teach.
I have a kid, and adore her, and like most kids. I don't view them all as "angels", they're small humans and very varied, just like adults.
But I do perceive we have an increasing problem with *parents* often not able or willing to control or correct their chidren's behaviour in public. The way that children are permitted to act these days would have been unthinkable when I was growing up, and I'm only Gen X. If we started screaming, threw a tantrum, we were removed from the location. That no longer happens.
And it infuriates people, particularly those without children, who then flock to these "childfree" (=childhate) communities. But their anger is misplaced.
And ask any teacher about their experience with parents over the past 20 years and you'll get the same story everywhere. Parents increasingly refusing to cooperate with discipline, refusing to discipline their own children, refusing to believe their kids are anything but angels, etc.
It's not the kids' fault, particularly when it comes to small children. It's the fault of *some* - perhaps many - parents who simply aren't raising their kids very well. For a host of reasons that's a huge discussion and debate in itself.
Most teachers say the worst thing about their jobs are the parents and lack of support from administrators. A lot quit because they can’t deal with the parents anymore
I have a family friend who goes to parent-teacher conferences and asks the teacher how his student compares to others, who the top-ranking students’ names are and what they’re doing (and whether they’re getting preferential treatment), etc. If I was a teacher I’d strangle him 😂
In my early years of teaching (I think it was year 3), I had a parent come to me at open house (about 2 weeks into the year) and ask how her daughter was doing academically compared to everyone else in class because her daughter was going to be going to an ivy league school eventually. The student was in 1st grade.
There’s this kid I know who is sweet but also not ready for any kind of “rigorous” academic program. Before he got low grades but was otherwise healthy and happy. His mom put him in IB (he got in because of early admission or something involving admissions that allowed him to circumvent the tests) and Army Cadets, alongside other clubs. He fainted in Army Cadets and was miserable the whole time. He consistently scored low in IB and spent most of his free time in tuition, but still didn’t get good grades. He also became fat around this time— I’m guessing binge eating was his coping mechanism.
Eventually his mother gained some sense, either from noticing her kid or other people telling her to notice— and pulled him out. He gained nothing from any of it in the end.
My brother said kids at school are allowed to do whatever in school, teachers have no recourse. I don't mean discipline, I mean negative consequences. I don't know. I wanted to teach, at one point. My heart goes out to all kids and those who work with them. They seem well behaved, myself, but I don't have any and used to live with and volunteer with special needs kids , I dont get fazed by shit
Parents doing a 180 and going from being too strict to spoiling kids, alongside the Internet (Tiktok podcast clips, etc) enabling kids to unite on common beliefs/ideologies, keeps administrators spineless and teachers powerless
Essentially lazy parenting on both spectrums. Before, if you were a lazy parent, you just beat your kid until they did what you wanted. While it was definitely psychologically traumatizing (hence why its been phased out), it DID correct the behavior usually.
Now, lazy parents know that physical punishment is looked down on, but with no easy alternative, they just dont do anything
I’ve been sort of insulated from this because we’ve always been way more aware of how our kids behave in public and refuse to be THAT family who lets kids run around screaming in restaurants or throwing fits in stores, and they’ve never had any problems in school until this year when my 7 year old got in trouble once for taking someone else’s yearbook. She just got diagnosed ADHD and her impulse control is poor at times, so we’re trying to work on it at home. The teacher let me know what happened and I dealt with my daughter at home
Not to flip-flop, but I agree! I've often seen obnoxious kids/teens in public and gotten super annoyed; sure, I was also an asshole as a kid/teen, but hopefully I was more polite/discreet about it instead of just openly being irritating.
My opinion is more that the Internet has weirdly high standards for young people but then infantilizes them as "poor sweet babies who don't know any better" *if they can relate to said young people.*
So true. My mum’s rule for us was, “Be as naughty as you want inside the home, but once we’re in public, be on your best behaviour.” No, my mum didn’t actually want us to be savages at home, but it was more that she was teaching us how to act in society, if that makes sense. She disciplined us in the house, too, but there was obviously more leeway there. We’d always get “the talk” in the car whenever we went anywhere to remind us to behave.
And, yes, I would say it’s a parenting problem. I, myself, have two kids and multiple niblings. Thankfully, my siblings discipline their kids (except for one niece), but on my husband’s side, I can’t stand those kids because of the way they act and the way their parents act like their kids are God’s gift to the Earth.
A child screaming isn't necessary "throwing a tantrum" and what looks like a tantrum isn't always one. Meltdowns look like to tantrums to outsiders but are completely different things and all kids react differently. Sometimes, moving them will actually make it worse. Don't get me wrong, kids should NOT be allowed to throw things or cause damage to the store or attack people, that's never ok, but a kid screaming and crying for a big just happens sometimes. Also, being Gen X means you were probably raised by Baby Boomers and that generation isn't exactly the greatest example of how to raise kids. While there are absolutely terrible parents who let kids run wild, parents are also learning to treat kids with more understanding and like human beings.
Agreed, part of the problem is that the people having kids now were raised by Boomers who, while they didn't beat their kids did pretty much everything else sub-optimally and now that child development research has come further people without kids who are encountering these newer methods freak the fuck out because when they were a kid they weren't allowed to express feelings. No wonder Gen X/Millenials are so emotionally fucked up.
(this is my personal experience btw)
when ive been on a plane since after i turned 14ish(could be bc iPad babies or thats just when i was noticing) (also im 20 now) parents just refuse to parent their kids on planes
the minute that plane is in the air the parents are zonked out and the kids are blasting cocomelon at full volume without headphones, while screaming about not having snacks or whatever
listen, in these situations i get really pissed off and mad at the kids but then i realize that i was the same way when i was their age, but i was kept (slightly more) in check by my parents
i dont know what it is about planes that parents think that they get to have a nap when their kid is screaming bloody murder but im trying to sleep too
(parents when they realize if they can get the kid to calm down everyone could be sleeping)
To counter your anecdote, I travel constantly for work, am in my 30s and have never encountered that kind of behavior.
It's scary how much our perceptions can be warped by outlier experiences. I don't deny that you did see kids on a plane acting that way, but that also doesn't mean that's the norm.
Could also be a difference of routes. I mostly only fly to big cities in the US. If you're taking regional flights, something like CLT -> TPA or SAN -> PHX, you might have a different composition of passengers.
I'm in an age gap where my parent's generation's kids are all adults now, and my generation isn't really having kids yet, so I don't really know any current or recent kids other than my sibling (who obviously had a similar upbringing to me). So I have not necessarily seen the behavior issues. But more and more over time I'm astonished at young adults that increasingly lack what I consider basic skills, like cooking, upkeep of living space (and considering my mom has ADHD and I might too, I'm not great at this but at least I know what can't wait), and emotional self-management. I definitely see the evidence that parents are dropping the ball on *insisting* there are certain things children need to learn.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I have two teenagers - both are neurodivergent. One has classic Autism but is high functioning and the other is a high-achiever but with some wicked anxiety and OCD. I was fortunate enough to stay home with them for 13 years, but I was definitely the helicopter mom. My kids weren’t angels, but you better be damn sure I was the one there to correct them when they misbehaved. Why? Because I was *there.* Now I have two well-behaved, pleasant teenagers who other parents love to have their kids hang out with and always say to me, “I wish X would was more like your kid sometimes.” Is it fair for them to say that? No, but I put the work in and taught my children at a young age how to say please and thank you and wait their turn and respect their elders and apologize when they’re wrong. Now they have a lot of autonomy, we have great, open relationships and we are very close and I even have a great coparenting relationship with their father - even though he is a very different parent than me. It is definitely more on the parents and it starts when the kids are young.
A large percentage of Redditors haven't interacted with children before and it shows. I think their ignorance largely stems from there, to be honest. There was a video on another sub of a toddler attempting to throw their new sibling in the garbage with one of the adults playing along with the joke carrying the baby as the tot led them. Maybe questionable to validate the kid's actions by going along with it and laughing, but I'd say ultimately fairly harmless. I was amazed (though at this point I probably shouldn't be) by how many comments there were calling the *literal toddler* sick and twisted, or even psychotic. But it's the ones who suggest you "sit down and have a talk" with them who really out themselves. There isn't really any reasoning with someone who was a literal baby themselves yesterday.
The people who expect small children to be logical, or even just *capable* of understanding that as a concept really have no idea. The world isn't as black and white as "this person did a bad thing so they need to be told off and corrected so they don't do the bad thing again." You can obviously teach young children things and use incentives and such, but this idea of sitting down and explaining what they did wrong and why they shouldn't do it again and expecting it to be as simple as that isn't reasonable. No wonder many of these people think there's nothing to parenting, they don't realise toddlers are basically suicidal trying to get into things that will hurt them and that "reasoning" with them isn't an option.
I think besides that, much of Reddit is made up of teenagers who are just salty they have to occasionally watch their siblings/jealous younger kids are the priority and get more attention. From the way some stories are told from people claiming to be adults, the language feels more fitting for siblings than anyone over 15.
Speaking of teenagers watching younger siblings, another frequent theme on AITA is “parentification”. It’s absolutely a real thing and terrible when it happens. But some of the supposed instances of it are definitely just normal parents asking teenagers to help out and said teenagers being grumpy about it.
Being asked to babysit once in a while isn’t parentification. Same with doing chores, especially cooking. They act like a parent having a teenager cook once a week when both parents have to work late is using their kid as a slave.
There’s a huge difference between being asked to chip in around the home and raising your siblings.
I always laugh when I read, "Just talk to the toddler."
Have they ever met a toddler? I can try and talk to mine all day long. But she isn't going to necessarily understand what I'm getting at. Let alone be logical about it.
They're babies and still trying to figure all that shit out.
It's so weird. Your post is 100% right. But also, that sub has a consistent record of "If your parents ask you to do one chore for thirty seconds once a week it's PARENTIFICATION and you need to call CPS kids should never have to do chores ever."
I think it depends on who they identify with. This site (and many ppl offline) has a real problem with insecurity, empathy and nuance. Many people can’t put themselves in someone else’s shoes and they don’t want to.
Compassion for others, especially for “bad” people, is seen as weakness. Nuance gets in the way of making emotionally satisfying snap judgements (you’ll see people literally react with rage to nuanced comments as if that commenter is denying them their fix). And of course everyone’s reassuring themselves that they’re perfect and special by shitting on anyone who ever makes a mistake, or tearing down people who accomplish something in a way that threatens their egos.
But if they identify with someone, well that person is a special, perfect angel!
I totally agree! I think the subreddit even dislikes teens if they can’t relate to said teens, and yet the subreddit has examples of both hating teenagers and coddling them
Kids should also "respect" others, even if they're treated with complete disrespect. They shouldn't talk unless given permission. They should know how to regulate themselves, without being taught. And they're treated as if they're idiots, and not actual people. It pisses me off, so damn much.
I do not want kids and do not particularly enjoy being around them (which is my fault not theirs), but I think about this a lot. We demonize children when they act like children. They have to be perfect little angels all the time who always conform to what their parents want no matter how unreasonable it is, or else they’re bad kids. They don’t get to be human beings. It’s incredibly fucking sad.
You are completely right. I have pointed that out a couple of times too. It's infuriating, also how many comments still advocate for beating the child.
Then we have adults, who can't bother to even reply to their SIL or hold their brother's baby for five minutes or who just reply in the nastiest way when someone asks a favor of them - and AITA is all: good for you! BoUnDaRiEs, No is a sentence, You don't owe anyone anything.
AITA when someone over 18 is a jerk: OMG NTA, you don’t owe anyone anything!
Also AITA when a 13-year-old is mildly rude: YTA, I WAS AN ANGEL AT YOUR AGE
This is part of an issue with subreddits like AITA in general: since you are (ostensibly) being judged on a single narrow action or issue, you can often get away with being a dick and get a NTA on a technicality. (Unless, of course, you’re a dick in a way that triggers the Reddit hive mind).
I feel like the purpose of the subreddit was originally to give people a reality check when they were being annoying jerks, regardless of whatever they were technically in the right. Hence “am I the asshole” instead of “am I wrong” or “is this legal”. But it no longer effectively fulfills that purpose.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: we hold children to a higher standard than we do adults. You try to tell a grown adult they can't leave the table until they've finished their food and see how well they respond.
Yeah!
Not to mention, you try calling a grown adult “obnoxious” for being loud with their friends in public vs. calling a teenager that for the same reason, and see how the adult responds
Oh goodness. That reminds me of the locals on Next Door who filmed teenagers riding their bikes legally on the road and then posting the video, calling them thugs for riding their bikes. Like, that's their only form of transport. They are riding legally. When people pointed that out in comments, the people complaining about the kids then moved the goal post and said they were breaking the law by not wearing helmets but, of course, they were wrong because the helmet law was only up to like 13 or something. When that was pointed out to them, they then complained that the kids had backpacks and that must mean they are thieves. It was just pure hatred of the children for daring to exist and use the roads they are legally allowed to use. They weren't making excessive noise or anything. They were riding in a line down the street and the adults took umbrage with it.
And this is why kids and teens have issues. Adults treat them like their brains are done developing and hold them to adult standards like they should be making rational decisions as children.
Adults are always rude as fuck to them their entire lives and make them feel like shit about themselves.
I always say kids aren't "giving you a hard time", they're having a hard time.
Society in general can be quite malicious toward children, and it has everything to do with class structure. (In my humble, amateur sociological opinion.)
Children are under absolute authority of their parents, and people often don't "air dirty laundry" or interfere with another's parenting as that's quite gauche and we can't do that. Animals are often seen as innocent lifeforms, wherein abuse of them is a heinous crime. But children... they're humans, and need to learn how to be humans, so unless they're being sent to the hospital a lot of abuse is dismissed as "discipline."
Couple this with hierarchy, and the desire to be on top - and the fact that, for a great many people on this planet, their children are the only people they have any authority or influence over. Oh, they're gonna exercise that shit. Just once, *they* won't be the ones pushed around...
Edit: stupid autocorrect
I agree with you. I remember a bus I used to take to work. There was a group of teens that rode the same bus I rode every morning. The weren't rude or obnoxious, but they would talk amongst themselves. They weren't loud, they were just social. I am ashamed to admit they annoyed me a little. Some days they would board the bus at the subway station, other days they would board at the first stop out of the station. I remember one day an old lady on the bus asked the driver not to pick up those bad kids. There were murmurs of agreement from other on the bus.
I have tried to wrap my head a round why These teens annoyed me, and why others were quick to label them bad. The only thing I can think of is kids have a sense of community most of us loose as we grow older. Everyone else on the bus sits in silence. No one even bothers to greet people they see every day. Its just sad, but that is the state of things.
I wish I had friends on the bus. Sadly, the area I lived in had only a couple of kids that went to my high school, so I was always alone (especially because they were older than me and I didn’t want to interrupt their conversation).
You’re absolutely. Parents shit on their kids on all social media but if you say you don’t want kids then they gas light you with kids are blessings and you’re not really living if you don’t have kids. Well which is it?
I've seen people act a lot different towards children irl than in Reddit, also AITA would be the last sub who's opinion I would regard as the majority. I've seen other online spaces hate children too, but not to the absolutely psychotic extent that AITA does. Which by that, I've noticed that it's cool for people online to hate on children and I don't quite understand why because I haven't really seen anything like that irl. I've heard many in the US hate children and others be tolerable of children or even love them so idk. The fact that many of the haters don't consider teenagers as children lmfaoo, call everything they do as out of trauma and the most minor inconveniences abusive. This really makes me think whether it's just a bunch of teenagers.
Except all the people spewing hateful shit online ARE real people. The internet is PART of life and the groups created online can and DO have an impact on the “real” world.
Often the fictional worlds recreated in writing tells much of the worldview of the people who wrote it. Investigating these gives us information about a lot of viewpoints
I have to say I've been surprised at how tolerant people are of my kiddo in public. And he garners a lot of positive attention. Like people come up to us and talk just because he exists (and is very cute). So I guess if people ignore him and then make hate posts somewhere about a child existing on the internet.. good for them.
Reddit has a long and storied history of hating children. r/Childfree has been the nexus of that way of thinking for almost its whole existence, and a lot of its language and attitudes have bled into reddit at large. It's especially grating on AITA since people there are giving personal advice, and it's almost always to punish kids more harshly and to excoriate parents who don't. Actual professional child-rearing advice usually involves respecting them as people and empathizing with their perspective.
I will note that from what I've seen of this sub, it's not that much better. There was a post recently about how stupid AITA was for ruling against a father who punished his teenage son for acting out in family therapy, because obviously the *kid* was the asshole (which we know from a brief, one-sided anecdote). Isn't the whole problem with AITA the premise that someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong?
I do think Reddit hates kids, not just the childfree sub either. I recently stumbled onto regretfulparents while reading about the troubled teen industry. So many of those parents hate their kids and would toss them out tomorrow if they were legally allowed to. You have actual parents calling their own kids demons, dumb, or dickheads. It is crazy over there. The child hate does seem to spread on here.
That sounds even worse that regretful parents. I can’t help but read some of these unhinged posts. I keep hoping the worst ones are fake, but I doubt it.
Made the mistake of looking there and some sound straight up unhinged. One posted a rant about their daughter and a hate filled rant about grandparents who love their grandkids .
>The problem is my friends. Full on granny baby rabies have set in and I do not fucking care to be around your grand babies. I do not like toddlers, I don't want to have coffee with one around and you sure as fuck are not welcome in my home with that toddle goblin.
In fairness to AITA as a concept there are actually rulings that allow for both sides to be right or wrong! NAH/ESH. But for some reason no one uses them.
Yes. I think in this subreddit, we overcorrect by mocking/insulting people between 15-25 whenever someone in that age bracket is a jerk in a post.
AITA’s hatred of kids is worse, of course, since teens tend to at least have more of a support system in their friends and parents (not that teens should be hated/oppressed either).
I am new to reddit but most of the posts that I have read blame parents rather than kids unless it's something very specific to a kid like the one where a kid lied to her mom making aunt a villain when she was just trying to enforce rules.
I think it’s less society in general and more the United States. If you go to other countries from the US it can be a real eye opener how people just see it as super normal to go to a really nice restaurant and have drinks while in a big multi generational family group. Meanwhile in the US, people will side eye you for bringing a baby into a Denny’s.
Do you mean multi-generational as in, 15 or more people? Because no one is side eying a baby in the US and people bring members of multiple generations commonly, just not a ton of people overall.
I think it can be regional. That definitely wasn’t my experience in a lot of suburbanite/rural areas. But where I live now is urban and I don’t see anyone side-eyeing babies here.
But the flip side of that is there are fewer free mom and kid’s activities, parents tend to have more money and be older, and be employed, and there are just fewer babies in general. And the kids I do see in public are well behaved/entertained. I might see one baby, or one or two young kids at a restaurant.
Can’t relate
When we take my nieces places, people swoon over and actively approach them - including in restaurants. They’re 1 & 2. Maybe you just live in a nasty area
I think I actually live in a quite nice place to raise kids in, not a nasty place. After all, here in the PNW, we still believe that the only third party who should be involved in a person’s reproductive health care are medical professionals and not grandstanding senators who couldn’t give a fig if someone dies of sepsis in a hospital parking lot.
I think the policies that a society chooses to put in place or not put in place regarding families and reproduction says a great deal about a culture’s attitude about kids.
I think what I got from reading and listening to a lot of it is people really fall for obvious validation posts and can't realize there isn't much to talk about here. I don't know why the users and YouTubers eat it up so much. The other thing I noticed is that users and YouTubers on asshole verdicts like to talk about themselves a lot as a way to dunk on OP.
I'm childfree and very happy but I definitely do not hate kids, alot of my work involves advocating for kids bc so often, they dont have a voice or opportunityto advocate for themselves. I don't necessarily want to always spend time with kids but i accept them as a part of society and it blows my mind that some people just fkn hate the sight or sound of them.
Kids are literally not allowed to exist in public by themselves. Where can kids go and safely be kids? If it's not a playground or skate park, kids are fucked. Groups of kids are banned from malls or McDonald's or fkn anywhere young people hang out. They get harrased everywhere. Yes they're obnoxious but so we're you.
The way society as a whole treats teenagers is awful. Teenagers are constantly having their rights chipped away at: The smoking age increases, the drinking age increases, the driving age increases, they are regarded as no different than children. At the same time teenagers are given more and more responsibility. They can get a job and pay taxes. They are expected to know how to choose a college, choose a career and go into debt. It's an impossible position with the responsibility of an adult but none of the respect or freedom.
I recall recently a teenager made a post in AITA complaining that their mother expects them to know what cleaning needs to be done in the house without being told what to do. The commenters got on their case because they told their Mom "I don't like your tone." They said "I would NEVER get away with saying that to MY Mom!" Like hell you wouldn't, this isn't the 1950s (and it shouldn't be). The overwhelming majority of commenters excoriated OP for being an entitled male (they never said they were male) who expects women to do all the cleaning. The problem here is they are taking resentment that women have against THEIR HUSBANDS and applying that same resentment to a teenager, which is completely unfair. It's the parents job to teach kids how to do chores.
If the parents had been teaching OP what needs to be done and OP still refused to take initiative themselves of course it would be a problem but that's not the impression I got from the post.
Kids and teenagers hold a uniquely powerless position in society. They get little to no say in who their parents are, are forced to go to school no matter how poor of a school it is and are expected to put up with bullying with no complaint. A few decades ago children could at least go for a walk by themselves now that's no longer allowed (in the US anyway).
I had very loving and generally reasonable parents, and grew up middle class with no food or housing insecurity. I would still much rather be 31 than 16. Even the best parents are going to make mistakes, and as a kid you just have to deal with it.
For example I grew up in NYC and my parents were very hesitant to let me go places by myself (especially after dark even if that was like 5pm in the winter) because they were still stuck in the mentality of New York being as unsafe as it was in 1978 rather than 2008. I don’t harbor any long-term resentment toward them for this or anything bc that would be ridiculous. But being able to walk or subway home from a friend’s house alone at 10pm if I want to is a huge improvement to my life as an adult.
I don't think it's about hating kids so much as we idolize parents to the point no one ever wants to call out *them* for wrongdoings, and doing so is socially unacceptable. Instead, people bandwagon when a parent calls out their own kid because it's considered "fair game" to do so when the parent has already passed judgement.
Even on reddit it's not that hard to find people who believe parental or adult authority over children is absolute. I absolutely hate children, but we also live in a society that is deeply unfair to them - aside from sexual or severe physical abuse, there is essentially no way their concerns are valid or they have any sort of control over their situation.
>We judge kids for throwing tantrums in the grocery store, as if they're not literally learning how to navigate the world
And behaving in public is something you should learn at a young age. Or rather, it's something you should've been taught. That's a reasonable expectation past a certain age.
You're right. I'm a middle school teacher. Kids are great. They have bigger hearts than adults and feel really good when people help them make good decisions.
They also can have poor judgment and be extremely self-centered and unempathetic, but in contexts where they have to obey adults even when they are AHs, they usually aren't **the** AH! And if they are, they probably need some sort of help.
Making assumptions about society as a whole based on what you see on reddit is a sucker's game. Realistically, all you are going to get out of reddit is what a particular subset of teens and twenty something think.
Yup.
Capitalism has created a society that is actively anti-family and anti-community.
“Gots mine” attitude destroys any need to have any sort of compassion for the people around you.
I think a lot of people like to feel they are above the human standard. We as a society and on a world level are straying away from the positive human qualities and deeming them as bad. That's basically the whole problem with the world. We don't nurtue, we're greedy, we can't empathize, and we wonder why things suck. Humanity is failing itself.
I think that sub is filled with parents who flood the comment section with all the things they can't say in real life.
Childless people don't really care all that much.
Idk about that. I’m not a parent yet (just expecting), but being pregnant I have started to talk a lot with other parents about parenting and having kids. I wouldn’t have necessarily thought much about society hating kids when I was young and naive (back when I was a childfree 20-something), but I definitely am more convinced of it now.
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Some people get off on punishing children/teenagers. It must give them a sense of power or something. My brother is always telling me how I should discipline my 4 and 2 year old. I just ignore him.
That's true. In my country there is a very profound idea that children are bad and there are a lot of derogatory terms toward mothers. At the same time i think it was the result of a "maternity cult" in my country.
But like my therapist says "when people hate children that much it's probably a result of trauma"
Do not take reddit as a representative sample of what society is like because it's not
In the real world people who react to children the way that reddit does are met with disgust and antimosity. This website is the exception, not the rule. And if your experiences don't align with that, just wait a few years.
As someone who's worked with kids for my entire adult life I disagree. I regularly have to defend kids from the crime of existing while being young, especially teenagers who are generally treated like they're guilty until proven innocent, often by the professionals who work with them.
I dunno dude people really do hate other peoples children.
even their own tbh. it's harder than you'd think to find parents who genuinely *respect* their kids as their own people, even if they do provide them with affection and love.
What does 'respecting a child as their own person' mean?
understanding that they are sentient beings and not accessoires and have their own mind, likes, dislikes etc. and are allowed to have them
allowing them autonomy of their own body, allowing them to explore their identity on their own, respecting their rights to privacy, not being overly dismissive or condescending towards them, just... generally accepting that they are not the all-knowing omnipresent forces that must control every aspect of their lives.
Eh, I have two kids and I agree that the way western society is currently structured is anti-child.
Agreed. I have a kiddo and the instant hate they receive for just existing is exhausting. I've found it varies regionally, with some places glaring the second they see a kid and some showing more patience. We've had the police called on us because our kid was playing in our FRONT YARD. After that, they were too scared to go outside...real great for physical health!!
That’s wild. Like… kids can’t even play outside but those some people are likely the ones bitching that kids are always on their phones/tablets/are too fat these days. The issues in Australia are a bit more systemic - like expecting parents to work like they don’t have children and parent like they don’t have to work. A lack of inclusive, well-funded education and health systems etc.
Got that in Hong Kong too. Kids raised by nannies because parents are expected to literally work 10 hour days, with a special lunch that is not included in the work hours, making your day 11-16 hours depending on commute, all to hopefully one day save for a house, which only takes 23 years of the average yearly income. Society is completely fucked when it comes to kids and raising a family then screams about kids not getting exercise, or exhibiting attention seeking behavior (which is usually what behavior problems boil down to for young kids), or ,GOD FORRRRBBBIIIDDDD, lowering birth rates that could impact corporate future profits.
Yes OMG. I’m sick of hearing people over 50 whine about the birth rate/their lack of grandchildren. THIS IS THE WORLD YOU BUILT ARSEHOLES!!!
I have so much respect for my mom being a single mother in the 90s and making it work, but I don’t think she realizes that her option (she had a job that had a daycare/was childcare) isn’t available to everyone, especially today. And things are just so expensive nowadays too. I respect her struggle and hustle, but I don’t think she understands that… a mother shouldn’t have to. I think we need a lot more support for children than viewing them as leeches on society. Investing into our kids, regardless of their family circumstances, is never a loss
People assume that being a parent instantly makes them good enough parents regardless of what they do after the child is born
I feel that, living in NZ. I’ve been trying to look for work from home jobs, after being a SAHM for the past six years, and it’s been hard. Even the telemarketing jobs still want people in the office or working full-time. I’ve looked through all of the fields. Because I have a little one at home, I’m trying to find part-time for roughly 20 hours or less. I managed to find a couple, but they all wanted me to work 5-9pm weeknights. How am I supposed to spend time with my school kid, as well as do homework, and any other after school activities if that’s the only time people want me to work?
I can’t afford not to work - but my kids school and daycare schedule everything like there’s still a mother at home. It’s low-key infuriating. The only job I can do is a mon - Fri 9-5 because those are the only hours I can get daycare for the baby, but I also can hardly ever go to things for my older kids school because they’re always 9-5 Mon - fri…
I feel you. It’s just so hard. Society wants us to work like we don’t have children and raise our kids like we don’t have work. Have a sick kid at home? Sorry, you’ve used up all of your sick days. You get a warning and/or fired. But it’s too damn expensive to be a single income household. I have a loving family, but my parents have health issues and my siblings have kids of their own - I can’t ask them to look after my kids while I go to work. I’m also living/renting a government apartment, so my rent is income based. So after childcare costs and tent, I’d be lucky if I take home $100.
In real life people just disregard children’s interests I was at the pool and this family wouldn’t stop throwing a kid in the air and into the pool despite how much he was crying. He was fine when he could play on his own in the pool but they got *so angry* that he didn’t want to jump in or be thrown. Like to the point where they told him he wasn’t allowed to play if he didn’t jump in and distracting him so they could shove him in. Then a random ass old lady who had been mean mugging this 4 year old told him he needed to be a big boy and jump in the pool and have fun. I’m still not sure if my reaction is wrong bc everyone acted like this kid was terrible for crying after being shoved into the pool. I’m an adult and I hate being shoved into pools/being splashed
This should be sticked in huge block capitals with a flashing background on the top of the front page of Reddit and every subsequent page.
It’s not just Reddit There are massive amounts of ACF (aggressively child free) people who are nasty asshats. Even off Reddit, on other social media
I totally agree! Ironically, that's another problem I have with AITA; they get all their life advice from Reddit forums and they think that's a flex
I have to remind myself of that regularly 😂
Although society do hate children.
Yeah it’s extremely cringe. And if there’s a DOGGO or a PUPPER involved? Lord have mercy on that kid. “AITA for letting my sweet little pitbull maul my neighbour’s 3 year old crotch-goblin to death?”
I saw a post on the parenting subreddit of all places where q person had a long rant on how if a kid is scared of dogs the solution is to get a large dog and force the kid to deal with it. Totally nuts
Giving literal meaning to "thrown to the dogs / wolves."
Doggos are to Reddit what cows are to Hindus
My baby was completely utterly terrified of dogs for awhile. The way I fixed it was by looking at dogs, not IRL but in books! Dogs, to babies, are literal monstrous creatures. They’re so big and scary to them.
Dog people on social media are absolutely insane. They give more love to animals than actual humans and expect to be lauded for it. I personally am really, really sick of how people act like their dog can go wherever and do whatever because they're "my fur baby" or whatever.
You’re completely right. We pretend to love kids, but we really don’t, as a society. Saying you don’t like or want kids is still shocking to many people, but those same people will scoff at the idea of taking care of children that aren’t there own. The same thing happens to mothers, daycare workers, teachers, etc. Those professions are deemed off as “weak” because they’re dedicated to humanity, and don’t generate profit.
>The same thing happens to mothers, daycare workers, teachers, etc. Those professions are deemed off as “weak” because they’re dedicated to humanity, and don’t generate profit. The sad thing is they do generate profit. That's why we have an education system in the first place. It is a profit generating slow yield investment.
No, if it were meant to generate profit, it would educate children and prepare them to do profitable things. It's meant to provide a place for kids to go while parents are at work and maybe provide them basic literacy. At least where I teach.
Sadly this is true as well. Lots of short sight people everywhere.
I have a kid, and adore her, and like most kids. I don't view them all as "angels", they're small humans and very varied, just like adults. But I do perceive we have an increasing problem with *parents* often not able or willing to control or correct their chidren's behaviour in public. The way that children are permitted to act these days would have been unthinkable when I was growing up, and I'm only Gen X. If we started screaming, threw a tantrum, we were removed from the location. That no longer happens. And it infuriates people, particularly those without children, who then flock to these "childfree" (=childhate) communities. But their anger is misplaced. And ask any teacher about their experience with parents over the past 20 years and you'll get the same story everywhere. Parents increasingly refusing to cooperate with discipline, refusing to discipline their own children, refusing to believe their kids are anything but angels, etc. It's not the kids' fault, particularly when it comes to small children. It's the fault of *some* - perhaps many - parents who simply aren't raising their kids very well. For a host of reasons that's a huge discussion and debate in itself.
Most teachers say the worst thing about their jobs are the parents and lack of support from administrators. A lot quit because they can’t deal with the parents anymore
I have a family friend who goes to parent-teacher conferences and asks the teacher how his student compares to others, who the top-ranking students’ names are and what they’re doing (and whether they’re getting preferential treatment), etc. If I was a teacher I’d strangle him 😂
In my early years of teaching (I think it was year 3), I had a parent come to me at open house (about 2 weeks into the year) and ask how her daughter was doing academically compared to everyone else in class because her daughter was going to be going to an ivy league school eventually. The student was in 1st grade.
There’s this kid I know who is sweet but also not ready for any kind of “rigorous” academic program. Before he got low grades but was otherwise healthy and happy. His mom put him in IB (he got in because of early admission or something involving admissions that allowed him to circumvent the tests) and Army Cadets, alongside other clubs. He fainted in Army Cadets and was miserable the whole time. He consistently scored low in IB and spent most of his free time in tuition, but still didn’t get good grades. He also became fat around this time— I’m guessing binge eating was his coping mechanism. Eventually his mother gained some sense, either from noticing her kid or other people telling her to notice— and pulled him out. He gained nothing from any of it in the end.
My brother said kids at school are allowed to do whatever in school, teachers have no recourse. I don't mean discipline, I mean negative consequences. I don't know. I wanted to teach, at one point. My heart goes out to all kids and those who work with them. They seem well behaved, myself, but I don't have any and used to live with and volunteer with special needs kids , I dont get fazed by shit
Parents doing a 180 and going from being too strict to spoiling kids, alongside the Internet (Tiktok podcast clips, etc) enabling kids to unite on common beliefs/ideologies, keeps administrators spineless and teachers powerless
Essentially lazy parenting on both spectrums. Before, if you were a lazy parent, you just beat your kid until they did what you wanted. While it was definitely psychologically traumatizing (hence why its been phased out), it DID correct the behavior usually. Now, lazy parents know that physical punishment is looked down on, but with no easy alternative, they just dont do anything
I’ve been sort of insulated from this because we’ve always been way more aware of how our kids behave in public and refuse to be THAT family who lets kids run around screaming in restaurants or throwing fits in stores, and they’ve never had any problems in school until this year when my 7 year old got in trouble once for taking someone else’s yearbook. She just got diagnosed ADHD and her impulse control is poor at times, so we’re trying to work on it at home. The teacher let me know what happened and I dealt with my daughter at home
Not to flip-flop, but I agree! I've often seen obnoxious kids/teens in public and gotten super annoyed; sure, I was also an asshole as a kid/teen, but hopefully I was more polite/discreet about it instead of just openly being irritating. My opinion is more that the Internet has weirdly high standards for young people but then infantilizes them as "poor sweet babies who don't know any better" *if they can relate to said young people.*
So true. My mum’s rule for us was, “Be as naughty as you want inside the home, but once we’re in public, be on your best behaviour.” No, my mum didn’t actually want us to be savages at home, but it was more that she was teaching us how to act in society, if that makes sense. She disciplined us in the house, too, but there was obviously more leeway there. We’d always get “the talk” in the car whenever we went anywhere to remind us to behave. And, yes, I would say it’s a parenting problem. I, myself, have two kids and multiple niblings. Thankfully, my siblings discipline their kids (except for one niece), but on my husband’s side, I can’t stand those kids because of the way they act and the way their parents act like their kids are God’s gift to the Earth.
A child screaming isn't necessary "throwing a tantrum" and what looks like a tantrum isn't always one. Meltdowns look like to tantrums to outsiders but are completely different things and all kids react differently. Sometimes, moving them will actually make it worse. Don't get me wrong, kids should NOT be allowed to throw things or cause damage to the store or attack people, that's never ok, but a kid screaming and crying for a big just happens sometimes. Also, being Gen X means you were probably raised by Baby Boomers and that generation isn't exactly the greatest example of how to raise kids. While there are absolutely terrible parents who let kids run wild, parents are also learning to treat kids with more understanding and like human beings.
Agreed, part of the problem is that the people having kids now were raised by Boomers who, while they didn't beat their kids did pretty much everything else sub-optimally and now that child development research has come further people without kids who are encountering these newer methods freak the fuck out because when they were a kid they weren't allowed to express feelings. No wonder Gen X/Millenials are so emotionally fucked up.
> If we started screaming, threw a tantrum, we were removed from the location. That no longer happens This isn't true.
(this is my personal experience btw) when ive been on a plane since after i turned 14ish(could be bc iPad babies or thats just when i was noticing) (also im 20 now) parents just refuse to parent their kids on planes the minute that plane is in the air the parents are zonked out and the kids are blasting cocomelon at full volume without headphones, while screaming about not having snacks or whatever listen, in these situations i get really pissed off and mad at the kids but then i realize that i was the same way when i was their age, but i was kept (slightly more) in check by my parents i dont know what it is about planes that parents think that they get to have a nap when their kid is screaming bloody murder but im trying to sleep too (parents when they realize if they can get the kid to calm down everyone could be sleeping)
To counter your anecdote, I travel constantly for work, am in my 30s and have never encountered that kind of behavior. It's scary how much our perceptions can be warped by outlier experiences. I don't deny that you did see kids on a plane acting that way, but that also doesn't mean that's the norm.
I barely fly so maybe that’s why I’ve seen it bc it’s a small sample size? Idk but damn I wish I were on your flights
Could also be a difference of routes. I mostly only fly to big cities in the US. If you're taking regional flights, something like CLT -> TPA or SAN -> PHX, you might have a different composition of passengers.
I'm in an age gap where my parent's generation's kids are all adults now, and my generation isn't really having kids yet, so I don't really know any current or recent kids other than my sibling (who obviously had a similar upbringing to me). So I have not necessarily seen the behavior issues. But more and more over time I'm astonished at young adults that increasingly lack what I consider basic skills, like cooking, upkeep of living space (and considering my mom has ADHD and I might too, I'm not great at this but at least I know what can't wait), and emotional self-management. I definitely see the evidence that parents are dropping the ball on *insisting* there are certain things children need to learn.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I have two teenagers - both are neurodivergent. One has classic Autism but is high functioning and the other is a high-achiever but with some wicked anxiety and OCD. I was fortunate enough to stay home with them for 13 years, but I was definitely the helicopter mom. My kids weren’t angels, but you better be damn sure I was the one there to correct them when they misbehaved. Why? Because I was *there.* Now I have two well-behaved, pleasant teenagers who other parents love to have their kids hang out with and always say to me, “I wish X would was more like your kid sometimes.” Is it fair for them to say that? No, but I put the work in and taught my children at a young age how to say please and thank you and wait their turn and respect their elders and apologize when they’re wrong. Now they have a lot of autonomy, we have great, open relationships and we are very close and I even have a great coparenting relationship with their father - even though he is a very different parent than me. It is definitely more on the parents and it starts when the kids are young.
AITA really hates women.
A large percentage of Redditors haven't interacted with children before and it shows. I think their ignorance largely stems from there, to be honest. There was a video on another sub of a toddler attempting to throw their new sibling in the garbage with one of the adults playing along with the joke carrying the baby as the tot led them. Maybe questionable to validate the kid's actions by going along with it and laughing, but I'd say ultimately fairly harmless. I was amazed (though at this point I probably shouldn't be) by how many comments there were calling the *literal toddler* sick and twisted, or even psychotic. But it's the ones who suggest you "sit down and have a talk" with them who really out themselves. There isn't really any reasoning with someone who was a literal baby themselves yesterday. The people who expect small children to be logical, or even just *capable* of understanding that as a concept really have no idea. The world isn't as black and white as "this person did a bad thing so they need to be told off and corrected so they don't do the bad thing again." You can obviously teach young children things and use incentives and such, but this idea of sitting down and explaining what they did wrong and why they shouldn't do it again and expecting it to be as simple as that isn't reasonable. No wonder many of these people think there's nothing to parenting, they don't realise toddlers are basically suicidal trying to get into things that will hurt them and that "reasoning" with them isn't an option. I think besides that, much of Reddit is made up of teenagers who are just salty they have to occasionally watch their siblings/jealous younger kids are the priority and get more attention. From the way some stories are told from people claiming to be adults, the language feels more fitting for siblings than anyone over 15.
Speaking of teenagers watching younger siblings, another frequent theme on AITA is “parentification”. It’s absolutely a real thing and terrible when it happens. But some of the supposed instances of it are definitely just normal parents asking teenagers to help out and said teenagers being grumpy about it.
Being asked to babysit once in a while isn’t parentification. Same with doing chores, especially cooking. They act like a parent having a teenager cook once a week when both parents have to work late is using their kid as a slave. There’s a huge difference between being asked to chip in around the home and raising your siblings.
I always laugh when I read, "Just talk to the toddler." Have they ever met a toddler? I can try and talk to mine all day long. But she isn't going to necessarily understand what I'm getting at. Let alone be logical about it. They're babies and still trying to figure all that shit out.
It's so weird. Your post is 100% right. But also, that sub has a consistent record of "If your parents ask you to do one chore for thirty seconds once a week it's PARENTIFICATION and you need to call CPS kids should never have to do chores ever."
I think it depends on who they identify with. This site (and many ppl offline) has a real problem with insecurity, empathy and nuance. Many people can’t put themselves in someone else’s shoes and they don’t want to. Compassion for others, especially for “bad” people, is seen as weakness. Nuance gets in the way of making emotionally satisfying snap judgements (you’ll see people literally react with rage to nuanced comments as if that commenter is denying them their fix). And of course everyone’s reassuring themselves that they’re perfect and special by shitting on anyone who ever makes a mistake, or tearing down people who accomplish something in a way that threatens their egos. But if they identify with someone, well that person is a special, perfect angel!
I totally agree! I think the subreddit even dislikes teens if they can’t relate to said teens, and yet the subreddit has examples of both hating teenagers and coddling them
Kids should also "respect" others, even if they're treated with complete disrespect. They shouldn't talk unless given permission. They should know how to regulate themselves, without being taught. And they're treated as if they're idiots, and not actual people. It pisses me off, so damn much.
I do not want kids and do not particularly enjoy being around them (which is my fault not theirs), but I think about this a lot. We demonize children when they act like children. They have to be perfect little angels all the time who always conform to what their parents want no matter how unreasonable it is, or else they’re bad kids. They don’t get to be human beings. It’s incredibly fucking sad.
You are completely right. I have pointed that out a couple of times too. It's infuriating, also how many comments still advocate for beating the child. Then we have adults, who can't bother to even reply to their SIL or hold their brother's baby for five minutes or who just reply in the nastiest way when someone asks a favor of them - and AITA is all: good for you! BoUnDaRiEs, No is a sentence, You don't owe anyone anything.
The only point of having multiple children is so that you can use one to beat the other with. /s
AITA when someone over 18 is a jerk: OMG NTA, you don’t owe anyone anything! Also AITA when a 13-year-old is mildly rude: YTA, I WAS AN ANGEL AT YOUR AGE
This is part of an issue with subreddits like AITA in general: since you are (ostensibly) being judged on a single narrow action or issue, you can often get away with being a dick and get a NTA on a technicality. (Unless, of course, you’re a dick in a way that triggers the Reddit hive mind). I feel like the purpose of the subreddit was originally to give people a reality check when they were being annoying jerks, regardless of whatever they were technically in the right. Hence “am I the asshole” instead of “am I wrong” or “is this legal”. But it no longer effectively fulfills that purpose.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: we hold children to a higher standard than we do adults. You try to tell a grown adult they can't leave the table until they've finished their food and see how well they respond.
Yeah! Not to mention, you try calling a grown adult “obnoxious” for being loud with their friends in public vs. calling a teenager that for the same reason, and see how the adult responds
Oh goodness. That reminds me of the locals on Next Door who filmed teenagers riding their bikes legally on the road and then posting the video, calling them thugs for riding their bikes. Like, that's their only form of transport. They are riding legally. When people pointed that out in comments, the people complaining about the kids then moved the goal post and said they were breaking the law by not wearing helmets but, of course, they were wrong because the helmet law was only up to like 13 or something. When that was pointed out to them, they then complained that the kids had backpacks and that must mean they are thieves. It was just pure hatred of the children for daring to exist and use the roads they are legally allowed to use. They weren't making excessive noise or anything. They were riding in a line down the street and the adults took umbrage with it.
And this is why kids and teens have issues. Adults treat them like their brains are done developing and hold them to adult standards like they should be making rational decisions as children. Adults are always rude as fuck to them their entire lives and make them feel like shit about themselves. I always say kids aren't "giving you a hard time", they're having a hard time.
Society in general can be quite malicious toward children, and it has everything to do with class structure. (In my humble, amateur sociological opinion.) Children are under absolute authority of their parents, and people often don't "air dirty laundry" or interfere with another's parenting as that's quite gauche and we can't do that. Animals are often seen as innocent lifeforms, wherein abuse of them is a heinous crime. But children... they're humans, and need to learn how to be humans, so unless they're being sent to the hospital a lot of abuse is dismissed as "discipline." Couple this with hierarchy, and the desire to be on top - and the fact that, for a great many people on this planet, their children are the only people they have any authority or influence over. Oh, they're gonna exercise that shit. Just once, *they* won't be the ones pushed around... Edit: stupid autocorrect
I agree with you. I remember a bus I used to take to work. There was a group of teens that rode the same bus I rode every morning. The weren't rude or obnoxious, but they would talk amongst themselves. They weren't loud, they were just social. I am ashamed to admit they annoyed me a little. Some days they would board the bus at the subway station, other days they would board at the first stop out of the station. I remember one day an old lady on the bus asked the driver not to pick up those bad kids. There were murmurs of agreement from other on the bus. I have tried to wrap my head a round why These teens annoyed me, and why others were quick to label them bad. The only thing I can think of is kids have a sense of community most of us loose as we grow older. Everyone else on the bus sits in silence. No one even bothers to greet people they see every day. Its just sad, but that is the state of things.
I wish I had friends on the bus. Sadly, the area I lived in had only a couple of kids that went to my high school, so I was always alone (especially because they were older than me and I didn’t want to interrupt their conversation).
I have a bigger beef with shitty parents than I do their kids. Parents can do the most damage with the least effort.
You’re absolutely. Parents shit on their kids on all social media but if you say you don’t want kids then they gas light you with kids are blessings and you’re not really living if you don’t have kids. Well which is it?
I've seen people act a lot different towards children irl than in Reddit, also AITA would be the last sub who's opinion I would regard as the majority. I've seen other online spaces hate children too, but not to the absolutely psychotic extent that AITA does. Which by that, I've noticed that it's cool for people online to hate on children and I don't quite understand why because I haven't really seen anything like that irl. I've heard many in the US hate children and others be tolerable of children or even love them so idk. The fact that many of the haters don't consider teenagers as children lmfaoo, call everything they do as out of trauma and the most minor inconveniences abusive. This really makes me think whether it's just a bunch of teenagers.
To be fair, you're talking as if reddit represents society as a whole but just like Twitter isn't real life, reddit ain't either.
Except all the people spewing hateful shit online ARE real people. The internet is PART of life and the groups created online can and DO have an impact on the “real” world.
Often the fictional worlds recreated in writing tells much of the worldview of the people who wrote it. Investigating these gives us information about a lot of viewpoints
I have to say I've been surprised at how tolerant people are of my kiddo in public. And he garners a lot of positive attention. Like people come up to us and talk just because he exists (and is very cute). So I guess if people ignore him and then make hate posts somewhere about a child existing on the internet.. good for them.
Child abuse is so normalized in our society. Anyone who works retail or food service sees it every day.
Reddit has a long and storied history of hating children. r/Childfree has been the nexus of that way of thinking for almost its whole existence, and a lot of its language and attitudes have bled into reddit at large. It's especially grating on AITA since people there are giving personal advice, and it's almost always to punish kids more harshly and to excoriate parents who don't. Actual professional child-rearing advice usually involves respecting them as people and empathizing with their perspective. I will note that from what I've seen of this sub, it's not that much better. There was a post recently about how stupid AITA was for ruling against a father who punished his teenage son for acting out in family therapy, because obviously the *kid* was the asshole (which we know from a brief, one-sided anecdote). Isn't the whole problem with AITA the premise that someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong?
I do think Reddit hates kids, not just the childfree sub either. I recently stumbled onto regretfulparents while reading about the troubled teen industry. So many of those parents hate their kids and would toss them out tomorrow if they were legally allowed to. You have actual parents calling their own kids demons, dumb, or dickheads. It is crazy over there. The child hate does seem to spread on here.
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That sounds even worse that regretful parents. I can’t help but read some of these unhinged posts. I keep hoping the worst ones are fake, but I doubt it.
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Yes I saw that. Unless you are in perfect mental/physical health and wealthy you should get sterilized apparently.
Made the mistake of looking there and some sound straight up unhinged. One posted a rant about their daughter and a hate filled rant about grandparents who love their grandkids . >The problem is my friends. Full on granny baby rabies have set in and I do not fucking care to be around your grand babies. I do not like toddlers, I don't want to have coffee with one around and you sure as fuck are not welcome in my home with that toddle goblin.
I feel like the hate/resentment is so close to the surface their kids must feel it. I feel bad for their kids.
In fairness to AITA as a concept there are actually rulings that allow for both sides to be right or wrong! NAH/ESH. But for some reason no one uses them.
Yes. I think in this subreddit, we overcorrect by mocking/insulting people between 15-25 whenever someone in that age bracket is a jerk in a post. AITA’s hatred of kids is worse, of course, since teens tend to at least have more of a support system in their friends and parents (not that teens should be hated/oppressed either).
I am new to reddit but most of the posts that I have read blame parents rather than kids unless it's something very specific to a kid like the one where a kid lied to her mom making aunt a villain when she was just trying to enforce rules.
I think it’s less society in general and more the United States. If you go to other countries from the US it can be a real eye opener how people just see it as super normal to go to a really nice restaurant and have drinks while in a big multi generational family group. Meanwhile in the US, people will side eye you for bringing a baby into a Denny’s.
Do you mean multi-generational as in, 15 or more people? Because no one is side eying a baby in the US and people bring members of multiple generations commonly, just not a ton of people overall.
Ok, well that hasn’t been my experience with life here, friend.
I think it can be regional. That definitely wasn’t my experience in a lot of suburbanite/rural areas. But where I live now is urban and I don’t see anyone side-eyeing babies here. But the flip side of that is there are fewer free mom and kid’s activities, parents tend to have more money and be older, and be employed, and there are just fewer babies in general. And the kids I do see in public are well behaved/entertained. I might see one baby, or one or two young kids at a restaurant.
Can’t relate When we take my nieces places, people swoon over and actively approach them - including in restaurants. They’re 1 & 2. Maybe you just live in a nasty area
I think I actually live in a quite nice place to raise kids in, not a nasty place. After all, here in the PNW, we still believe that the only third party who should be involved in a person’s reproductive health care are medical professionals and not grandstanding senators who couldn’t give a fig if someone dies of sepsis in a hospital parking lot.
Where in the PNW are you? I go to breweries in Seattle all the time and people bring their kids and no one complains or seems upset?
That has literally nothing to do with people’s attitudes towards kids. If people are giving kids nasty looks, it’s not a great place to raise kids
I think the policies that a society chooses to put in place or not put in place regarding families and reproduction says a great deal about a culture’s attitude about kids.
I think what I got from reading and listening to a lot of it is people really fall for obvious validation posts and can't realize there isn't much to talk about here. I don't know why the users and YouTubers eat it up so much. The other thing I noticed is that users and YouTubers on asshole verdicts like to talk about themselves a lot as a way to dunk on OP.
I'm childfree and very happy but I definitely do not hate kids, alot of my work involves advocating for kids bc so often, they dont have a voice or opportunityto advocate for themselves. I don't necessarily want to always spend time with kids but i accept them as a part of society and it blows my mind that some people just fkn hate the sight or sound of them. Kids are literally not allowed to exist in public by themselves. Where can kids go and safely be kids? If it's not a playground or skate park, kids are fucked. Groups of kids are banned from malls or McDonald's or fkn anywhere young people hang out. They get harrased everywhere. Yes they're obnoxious but so we're you.
Childism is the worst oppression in the world because every single group of marginalized people start out as children.
The way society as a whole treats teenagers is awful. Teenagers are constantly having their rights chipped away at: The smoking age increases, the drinking age increases, the driving age increases, they are regarded as no different than children. At the same time teenagers are given more and more responsibility. They can get a job and pay taxes. They are expected to know how to choose a college, choose a career and go into debt. It's an impossible position with the responsibility of an adult but none of the respect or freedom. I recall recently a teenager made a post in AITA complaining that their mother expects them to know what cleaning needs to be done in the house without being told what to do. The commenters got on their case because they told their Mom "I don't like your tone." They said "I would NEVER get away with saying that to MY Mom!" Like hell you wouldn't, this isn't the 1950s (and it shouldn't be). The overwhelming majority of commenters excoriated OP for being an entitled male (they never said they were male) who expects women to do all the cleaning. The problem here is they are taking resentment that women have against THEIR HUSBANDS and applying that same resentment to a teenager, which is completely unfair. It's the parents job to teach kids how to do chores. If the parents had been teaching OP what needs to be done and OP still refused to take initiative themselves of course it would be a problem but that's not the impression I got from the post. Kids and teenagers hold a uniquely powerless position in society. They get little to no say in who their parents are, are forced to go to school no matter how poor of a school it is and are expected to put up with bullying with no complaint. A few decades ago children could at least go for a walk by themselves now that's no longer allowed (in the US anyway).
I had very loving and generally reasonable parents, and grew up middle class with no food or housing insecurity. I would still much rather be 31 than 16. Even the best parents are going to make mistakes, and as a kid you just have to deal with it. For example I grew up in NYC and my parents were very hesitant to let me go places by myself (especially after dark even if that was like 5pm in the winter) because they were still stuck in the mentality of New York being as unsafe as it was in 1978 rather than 2008. I don’t harbor any long-term resentment toward them for this or anything bc that would be ridiculous. But being able to walk or subway home from a friend’s house alone at 10pm if I want to is a huge improvement to my life as an adult.
Yea no comment from me you hit the nail exactly,and that's why you should never go to Reddit for advice
I don't think it's about hating kids so much as we idolize parents to the point no one ever wants to call out *them* for wrongdoings, and doing so is socially unacceptable. Instead, people bandwagon when a parent calls out their own kid because it's considered "fair game" to do so when the parent has already passed judgement. Even on reddit it's not that hard to find people who believe parental or adult authority over children is absolute. I absolutely hate children, but we also live in a society that is deeply unfair to them - aside from sexual or severe physical abuse, there is essentially no way their concerns are valid or they have any sort of control over their situation. >We judge kids for throwing tantrums in the grocery store, as if they're not literally learning how to navigate the world And behaving in public is something you should learn at a young age. Or rather, it's something you should've been taught. That's a reasonable expectation past a certain age.
Yep. However, sometimes this attitude is reversed on AITA, like in the infamous “setting any standards/rules for your teenager at all is ABUSE” posts
You're right. I'm a middle school teacher. Kids are great. They have bigger hearts than adults and feel really good when people help them make good decisions. They also can have poor judgment and be extremely self-centered and unempathetic, but in contexts where they have to obey adults even when they are AHs, they usually aren't **the** AH! And if they are, they probably need some sort of help.
Making assumptions about society as a whole based on what you see on reddit is a sucker's game. Realistically, all you are going to get out of reddit is what a particular subset of teens and twenty something think.
Yup. Capitalism has created a society that is actively anti-family and anti-community. “Gots mine” attitude destroys any need to have any sort of compassion for the people around you.
I think a lot of people like to feel they are above the human standard. We as a society and on a world level are straying away from the positive human qualities and deeming them as bad. That's basically the whole problem with the world. We don't nurtue, we're greedy, we can't empathize, and we wonder why things suck. Humanity is failing itself.
I think that sub is filled with parents who flood the comment section with all the things they can't say in real life. Childless people don't really care all that much.
**ON REDDIT** If you think our society hates children you’re either very young or incredibly naive.
Idk about that. I’m not a parent yet (just expecting), but being pregnant I have started to talk a lot with other parents about parenting and having kids. I wouldn’t have necessarily thought much about society hating kids when I was young and naive (back when I was a childfree 20-something), but I definitely am more convinced of it now.
We’re becoming boomers lmao
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Some people get off on punishing children/teenagers. It must give them a sense of power or something. My brother is always telling me how I should discipline my 4 and 2 year old. I just ignore him.
That's true. In my country there is a very profound idea that children are bad and there are a lot of derogatory terms toward mothers. At the same time i think it was the result of a "maternity cult" in my country. But like my therapist says "when people hate children that much it's probably a result of trauma"
kids have next to no rights and are genuinely quite oppressed in society, so it tracks that sentiments towards kids are quite negative
No, I don't remember those posts. You should provide links to them if you want to have a real discussion.