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

children running a pizza pub for dogs

http://cdn3.bigcommerce.com/s-uccqetzglt/product_images/uploaded_images/maggie-w-label.png

former xp

https://images3.newscred.com/Zz1mZWYzODI0ODNlMGE2NTg1MDFiOWE3YmUxNGZhMDU3Mg==?height=480&width=800

the smile of a dog who knows who the good boy is <3

surprised you don't consider it an insult to call a dog "boy"

I find it exhausting to perform the emotional dance of keeping their attention and interacting w them for a few hours much less the next 25-30 years. Maybe it's less tiring when you know them well and you don't have to perform but for me it's all emoting and trying to read them 24/7.

This is illuminating, but also at odds with my experience.

You know that saying that dogs have owners and cats have staff? My children are on their best behavior for others (to them, a babysitter or teacher is an authority figure). They tend to treat me as staff.

lol yes that's even more terrifying

A propos of upthread I know ppl with kids who you can still have a conversation with while the kids amuse themselves, and then I know ones where the child is used to interrupting by yelling and demanding immediate attention and the parent obliges every time, which isn't about the nature of children as much as boundaries and compromises parents make. It's still extremely tedious though.

My mother did a good bit of hand-wringing to me on the phone last night over her grief in not having more grandchildren. She says out of the 4 kids she birthed, you'd think she'd get more than one grandson out of it, and I especially should hurry up and give her grand-daughters to dote on. I'm like, sure, figure out how I'm going to ship them to you to be raised and you're going to explain to my dad that in your retirement years of leisure you decided to be a parent all over again.

A propos of upthread I know ppl with kids who you can still have a conversation with while the kids amuse themselves, and then I know ones where the child is used to interrupting by yelling and demanding immediate attention and the parent obliges every time, which isn't about the nature of children as much as boundaries and compromises parents make. It's still extremely tedious though.

the nadir i've witnessed of the latter was one friend talking about her mother's breast cancer to another friend (with toddler), and mid-sentence the latter just...switched her attention to her child with no warning or acknowledgement

most conversations are not as serious as that, fortunately, but the tendency to abruptly abandon conversations when children wander up is pretty common in parents

please allow me to repeat myself: parents are now and have always been the real enemy.

Especially when they want become GRANDPARENTS. the horror.

Especially when they want become GRANDPARENTS. the horror.

the tendency to abruptly abandon conversations when children wander up is pretty common in parents

And without any "excuse me" etc. Parenting totally erodes people's manners and they act like oh well it's because I'm a dad now! Sorry, no, not acceptable. Chew your food first, then talk, and don't use your kid's vernacular when talking about yourself. It's not funny. You're the grown-up.

I genuinely believe that there is a certain subset of people who welcome the birth of their offspring with no small degree of joy that they can now engage in public improprieties reserved only for breeders. And they're horrible people and I feel like I can spot them from all the way across the biggest playground in my city.

special circle in hell reserved for adults who say "I have to go potty" about themselves

i think the issue of there existing kids that have shitty lives is somewhat separate to lex not being delighted by being around kids (probably in fairness likely to be kids that dont have shitty lives)

i speak as a former kid with a shitty life and not as a general fan of lex but this got a bit ridic tbh

curious as to why lex was so inundated by under-sevens in the first place

i think the issue of there existing kids that have shitty lives is somewhat separate to lex not being delighted by being around kids

oh sure it is i agree . lex is prob talking about rich kids in london but instead he frames it as "why would anyone have kids? you can't talk to them, they interrupt you, they are loud and annoying , fuck these monsters" etc

and tombot otm re parents not kids

i agree with those hypothetical questions tho

i love kids and i love to give them back and i love to judge parents as soon as an otherwise adorable bundle of potential person irritates me in the slightest

why would anyone choose to own on in 2016 tho i mean its a terrible idea.

curious as to why lex was so inundated by under-sevens in the first place

― mookieproof, Tuesday, December 13, 2016 5:39 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

got a few too many friends with them now (luckily plenty without, and without any intentions of having them, as well). the various social gatherings all only got good once all the parents and children left. the worst offenders were strangers though, may i never again end up in a christmas fair like the one populated by apparently 5 million screaming toddlers running straight into you from all directions and their awful parents

they can smell sneer you know

i totally understand people not enjoying the company of children and never wanting to spawn, but what kind of Christmas fair isn't going to be a child magnet? or at least a parents-dragging-their-unwilling-and-unhappy-kids-around magnet?

i've learned my lesson! i was expecting at least mulled wine and snacks and somewhere reasonably peaceful to sit. there were none of these things. i lasted 10 horrendous minutes

lex pictured at left:
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia-cache-ec0.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F51%2Fdd%2F85%2F51dd85b5d75559cdd99bdf85925fb74a.jpg&f=1

mulled wine makes parenting so much easier, and then so much harder

totally forgot Mordy wrote those Jacob Two Two books

i actually think i know one of his kids (or maybe it's his nephew)

i think the issue of there existing kids that have shitty lives is somewhat separate to lex not being delighted by being around kids

dunno really. a lot more abuse probably happened in the era of "kids should be soon and not heard".

getting irate about kids interrupting or barging in on conversations seems pretty childish in itself. yeah i prefer if i can talk to adults but equally kids need attention more than me and might not understand it if they don't get it.

*seen and not heard

the kids are OK. and here's why.

the "hating children = misanthropy" thing is interesting, I feel like there is also a particular kind of misanthrope who is very sentimental about children and prefers children to other adults. (kind of like misanthropic animal-lovers I guess?)

you're thinking of Tony Soprano

roald dahl

tho dunno if he was a shit to his kids as well as wives

lol, Dahl and Spike Milligan were the specific two I was thinking of, but I think it is a real phenomenon

I thought they both disliked children?

Dahl definitely.

I think Dahl identified with children, certainly, particularly in terms of fear and distrust towards adult humans

getting irate about kids interrupting or barging in on conversations seems pretty childish in itself.

what is this exaggeration? irritated ≠ irate

the "hating children = misanthropy" thing is interesting, I feel like there is also a particular kind of misanthrope who is very sentimental about children and prefers children to other adults. (kind of like misanthropic animal-lovers I guess?)

― soref, Tuesday, December 13, 2016 6:47 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

all the stuff upthread about children being the perfect pure embodiment of various human attributes seemed misanthropic to me. like adults' qualities aren't good enough or something!

would be weird if dahl turned out to be a misanthrope as he is the source of one of the fictional examples of children-disliking misanthropes cited earlier as evidence of er something

jenny diski on dahl: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v16/n08/jenny-diski/stinker

RD is my dad's mum's sister's husband's brother -- he had a v bad rep in our wing of the family (i never met him tho i met the sister and the husband once)

xxp yeah, this idea that children are superior to adults because adults are all compromised and fall short of some dubious ideal of purity (not accusing any of the children-defenders on this thread of thinking this way or being misanthropes)

don't think it's wrong to try and discuss the differences between children and adults itt - it wasn't framed in terms of superiority either. it's not about superiority, it's about power and expectations.

if you look back at what i said, i said children seemed to have both a capacity to be more innocent but also to behave in a more base, destructive way. but that's minus any real power, screaming for a second dessert or something, which kind of goes to the heart of it for me. there's a power imbalance between adults and children. we shouldn't expect them to behave better than us.

personally i look at myself and imagine i was probably similar to the child i see running amok for five minutes, or just as self-centred, or just as lacking in self-awareness. perhaps some people look back at their childhood with a certainty they behaved perfectly, perhaps they look at their current selves with that certainty - that must be nice.

misanthropy towards adults is at least based on some sort of equal system of choice and power, though there's still too much revelling in it, or too much assumption in popular culture that hating things means you are clever. but you know, the world right now is not built very well to stop people feeling misanthropy for legitimate reasons.

like a child approaching a parent to interrupt a conversation with another adult - who in that situation needs the attention?

if this thread is actually about bad parenting, then fine. but judging children for being children is essentially pretending you were never a child.

this idea that children are superior to adults because adults are all compromised and fall short of some dubious ideal of purity

J.D. Salinger to thread

babies are cool

i was playing with my 6 year old nephew this weekend and have surprisingly warmed up to kids that age

but ya small doses

i can put up with dogs longer because they don't have to be babied so much and aren't as smart

tyread is actually about xcomparing kids to animals

like a child approaching a parent to interrupt a conversation with another adult - who in that situation needs the attention?

if one of the adults is talking about her mother's terminal cancer, they take precedence over anything other than an actual emergency

that anecdote sounds like the parent's fault, not the child's.