Taking sides: Children vs. (non-human) animals

WHY would anyone choose to have a child instead of a dog

― lex pretend, Monday, December 12, 2016 10:59 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Less horrifying for the doctors mostly

jfc all of you

dog owners mostly do not expect everyone else to be equally enamoured of their pet, nor do they move through the world as if non-dog owners literally do not exist

― lex pretend, Monday, December 12, 2016 12:39 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol that is not my experience of dog owners

― Οὖτις, Monday, December 12, 2016 12:40 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

loooooool outic otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTZ5VpfzoW0

children stop randomly shitting + pissing (and shedding and slobbering) everywhere around the age of 4 or so. Dogs do it their whole lives.

They do not. You housebreak a dog, it's housebroken p. much forever unless a) very sick or b) very scared.

Anyway I echo imago's "jfc all of you." Kids are great, dogs are great, life is a fucking miracle in its diversity.

parents are e a s i l y the rudest people i encounter in public

it's not even close. cyclists, runners, dog walkers, couples, no one can touch parents for lack of pavement etiquette and refusal to acknowledge that there are other people in public spaces

every dog owner i've ever known is hyper-aware that others might not like dogs and very good at controlling them but the extent to which parents let their kids scream and run around and yell and generally bother other people is unbelievable

lex i think your perspective here is one of a dumb ageist

Do dogs find a good old folks home for you, or better yet put you up in their houses?

wait the only sort of "ageism" that actually matters is discrimination among adults, not someone disliking being around toddlers

http://www.rantchic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/kids-on-leashes-4.jpg

i have the impulse that kids are annoying etc but i try to fight it away, it makes me feel like a misanthrope. similarly some parents do appear lax or like they are happy for their child to be everyone else's problem, in public, but again i assume they know more about being a parent than me.

sometimes i look at the behaviour of children, their neediness, their self-centred greed, and it's like they are concentrated embodiments of all the worst traits of humanity. then on the other hand sometimes they seem like concentrated embodiments of our best traits, their curiosity, their imaginations, their ability to show love without a second thought.

last xmas my three nephews started trolling me about being bald, which was mostly hilarious and sort of sweet but did kind of remind me of like quintessential playground bullying, apart from the fact that i am 33 and i can deal with their high-pitched little barbs, plus it only lasted about 45 minutes or so, consisting of a chant of "you have no hair".

my sister intervened to explain that this kind of thing might upset a person, at which point my youngest nephew said "but i like to call you the bald man".

the next day my oldest nephew, who is like 10 years old, came and sat on my knee while i was watching telly, and in a fully earnest tone after staring at my one-grade all over for a moment said "you actually have some hair. it's not true that you have no hair. and you have a beard too."

plenty of adults embody humanity's best traits and also you can have a conversation with them/they don't scream seemingly non-stop/they don't launch themselves at you physically

If it weren't for children, there wouldn't be any grownups. So, no art, music, science, porn, vodka, pizza, internet, or bicycles. No you.

So this is kind of like saying "humans: classic or dud." Which is certainly a debatable question! But if you think there's something worthwhile about the species continuing, then somebody has to have some kids. Doesn't have to be you, of course. De gustibus and all that.

plenty of adults embody humanity's best traits and also you can have a conversation with them/they don't scream seemingly non-stop/they don't launch themselves at you physically

― lex pretend, Monday, December 12, 2016 1:24 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a sad post

i prefer dogs to children. i prefer dogs to adults tbh.

i was at a friend's house on saturday night and there were lots of dogs. one of them, an 11 year old pitbull called Findlay who've only met two or three times, came over for a pet from me and leaned against me for a hug. A little chihuahua sat on my lap for about half an hour. my idea of a good time

If it weren't for children, there wouldn't be any grownups.

Feeble imo.

lex seems p miserable - no laffs, no kids, only horrible club music to listen to, reliant on others for food

jim that sounds like a wonderful party :))))

I dont understand why people feel the need to disparage children. To me this feels like a kind of prejudice. Kids are mistreated all around the world and they are not equipped to advocate for themselves. What kind of monster would think it's important to express their "dislike" of a group like that?

This has nothing to do with whether people should want to have children. It would probably be better for the world to adopt some version of an antinatalist position tbh. All I'm saying is that children are people.

lex seems p miserable - no laffs, no kids, only horrible club music to listen to, reliant on others for food

you sound like my republican uncle

Sounds like the voiceover to an advert for some (weird) charity.

This has nothing to do with whether people should want to have children.

otm.

but actively hating kids is def misanthropic

ty treesh

antidog ppl itt maybe even worse tho

sometimes i look at the behaviour of children, their neediness, their self-centred greed, and it's like they are concentrated embodiments of all the worst traits of humanity. then on the other hand sometimes they seem like concentrated embodiments of our best traits, their curiosity, their imaginations, their ability to show love without a second thought.

this is very OTM

their ability to show love without a second thought.

Positively doglike.

is taking sides like which group do you prefer, or taking sides like who would win in a fight? either way i guess my answer is "most animals"

Evil guide dog excepted.

Now that Treeship has said all that needed to be said, this thread can get down to nattering.

Kids are mistreated all around the world and they are not equipped to advocate for themselves. What kind of monster would think it's important to express their "dislike" of a group like that?

otm, kids are the most vulnerable people in the world, they are utterly dependent on adults to take care of them and people exploit their vulnerability on a daily basis. "oh but they are loud and they irritate me" v cool opinion lex!

but i do like children a lot, no hatred there. babies are weird little amazing aliens. watching toddlers learn how to communicate and connect things together is living edutainment. 4-7 year olds can be the most fun people to engage with, when they're completely freaking out about who broke a toy or whatever. and even terrible adolescents are kind of amazing for the emotional split they go through, the realization that they're going to die and that their mom or dad is going to die, the first grappling with the idea that there might not be a god or that most people just worship the god or gods that they were assigned according to their place of birth, but also on the flip side their minds and experiences are rapidly expanding and they're kind of scoping out the boundaries of their lives, getting a taste of what their personal limits might be and how far they might able to go. it's all good.

on the other hand, you haven't LIVED if you haven't wrestled with a labrador retriever in the snow

obv that should be when they're NOTcompletely freaking out about who broke a toy or whatever

if someone out there really enjoys engaging with 4-7 year olds when they're freaking about who broke the toy, then that person is The Chosen One

tbh that wasn't very obvious

maybe lex is just angling for a DHS Administration of Children and Families post in the Trump admin

sometimes i look at the behaviour of children, their neediness, their self-centred greed, and it's like they are concentrated embodiments of all the worst traits of humanity. then on the other hand sometimes they seem like concentrated embodiments of our best traits, their curiosity, their imaginations, their ability to show love without a second thought.

wow, it's almost like they are ... people

the answer is : your own kids > your own pets > other people's pets > other people's kids

dogs are much easier, kids are more rewarding

it's like take sides - eating ice cream or training for a marathon. i find eating ice cream much more enjoyable than training for a marathon but i am not proud of the ice cream after it has been eaten u kno

may I suggest a different brand of ice cream, or perhaps making your own

wow, it's almost like they are ... people

or like all people are children, i guess.

for goodness sake it is not "monstrous" to be uninterested in or annoyed by children, or simply to prefer not to have them around ever

and i see way more everyday misanthropy directed at perfectly harmless subsets of adults. it's fine to be annoyed and vent! it doesn't make anyone a weirdo. though this kind of rabid proscribed positivity around children does feel quite alienating. i don't tell people who dislike dogs that they're monsters.

tbf lex is basically a giant baby

xp

come now, folks, we must remember that lex is the real victim here

Nobody is the victim

nah I'm cool

hating children is the ultimate stereotypical misanthropy in an adult. prob could name 50 books or movies with it as a theme in about two minutes.

101 Dalmatians has both!

yeah like dr alan grant but he learns to get on with children after his experience with animals that have escaped captivity and then at the end he is in a helicopter

shooting the shit with a 3 year old near or past bedtime can be terrifying or magical

Mr potty mouth

Breeze, if you please

still, this kid began a sentence with "in my case" about half an hour ago and I fuckin died it was so hilarious and great

― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Tuesday, October 9, 2018 8:24 PM (forty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

god I would just die

mine told me he was gonna take the skeleton out of my body

hahahaha excellent

i enjoy talking to kids now and then, and they don't bite

my niece is almost 12 now, i like getting laughs as stupidly as possible from her, but obv she's a teen-rebel-in-training

mine told me he was gonna take the skeleton out of my body

― kinder, Tuesday, October 9, 2018 6:26 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

listen

can I get this service from your child, I desire it frequently