Dorothea Salo wonders about how it works that one is perceived differently by different people. She has enthusiastic admirers, and there are also people from the far end of the lunch table who dislike her writing or her forthrightness and opinions. And there are some who criticize her not for what she writes, but for what she is: childfree.
One blogger considers me anathema (is there a word stronger than anathema? if there is, this blogger would use it of me) because I don’t make any particular secret of not liking ill-behaved children and not wanting children of my own (ill-behaved or not).
Remember, Dorothy, you’re not anathema, you’re a notthemama.
I’ve never understood the hostility and scorn that is reserved for anyone that professes they don’t like children. I also don’t like Brussels sprouts, but I don’t get criticized for my avoidance of them.
I’m with British TV and film producer Verity Lambert, who once cheerfully claimed, “But I can’t stand babies–no, I love babies as long as their parents take them away.”
Well, as I didn’t mention in the post, the individual in question (I found out later) has a history of going off on people who express the slightest bit of negativity in re: chilluns. So I just happened to have walked into a minefield in that case. Happens.
As some excuse, there’s probably a genetic predisposition toward protecting children that comes into play.
On the other hand, genetics does not trump courtesy.
Protecting children??? Dude. I don’t eat ’em. I just don’t like it when they raise hell in my presence.
Excuse? Well, I don’t feel I need to be excused for not liking kids much. It’s as natural to me as breathing. 😉
But I would physically intervene if I saw a child or baby being mistreated, start hollering bloody murder for the cops, and so on. I can’t stand bullies and I can’t stand to see someone small and defenseless being bullied. There would be all holy hell to pay if I witnessed some kind of abuse happening.
I’d be able to comfort a lost child and look after them until a parent or guardian or someone in authority could be found, but I’d want to hand them over to someone instantly, if not sooner.
My husband and I were once asked a very serious question about whether we would take responsibility for young relatives if something horrible and unthinkable were to happen to their parents. After a lot of agonizing, we were compelled to decline. It caused a lot of tension in the family, but we just could not agree to it even in theory, even in the remote possibility it would happen. We felt that it would be miserable for us, and for the kids, because they would sense that they weren’t wanted. And the thought of being legally responsible just filled me with dread and despair. Not a happy thought at all.
Actually, the most vociferous critic of ill-behaved children and their lackadaisical parents I’ve ever known was my grandfather, the father of four children a year apart in age. It was always a point of pride for him that people described his offspring as the “best behaved kids on the block” (well, he laughingly admitted to me that he sometimes had to get after my mom to do her chores). But I guess today he would be accused of squelching his children’s creativity by insisting they not act like brats in public…