Why Do People Hate Kids? And How Is That Socially Acceptable ...

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I don't get why some people hate kids, and why that's a socially acceptable stance.

(John Picken, Creative Commons)

Why do people hate kids? And why is that hatred socially acceptable?

OK, maybe hatred is an overstatement. But I've been stumped lately by the vitriol against children, particularly young ones who make noise or messes, and particularly by people online.

(But isn't everyone meaner while hiding behind a screen?)

People complain that you take your antsy, Cheerio-eating children to church, or restaurants, where they might ruin the ambiance for those around them. Thank God I haven't yet had to take them on a plane. That seems to rile up anti-kid people like nothing else.

Because if you have children, you should obviously be confined to kiddie spots like Chuck E. Cheese.

Sure. Entirely logical. Because I've never had a meal spoiled by a loud-talking drunken grown-up.

I get that maybe if you're proudly childfree, you can feel like the world is overwhelmed with families, with "breeders," as they say.

Maybe kids are like dogs. When you own a dog, you love your dog, and generally assume all other people love dogs, that they totally think yours is adorable and want to pet him and don't care that he's running wild all over the park.

Parents think their kids are hilarious and clever and so post cute pictures of them on Facebook, spurring the ire of friends who don't care that it's the first day of school.

There's a blog -- and a book -- called STFU Parents that delights in mocking parents who overshare on social media.

But at least that's funny.

Unlike this post from the blog ChildFree Voices.

"There's good reason to hate what children represent, or, more to the point, hate parents. People who breed are selfish. Breeding is a truly villainous act, and one that, rather than ensuring the survival of our species, now ensures our inevitable destruction. Overpopulation is the greatest threat our species has ever faced, and one that has the power to send us back to the stone-age or extinction."

Seriously? I read to the end of this column, thinking surely it must be satire, a la Jonathon Swift's "A Modest Proposal." Because, ahem, the only clear formula for extinction is to stop procreation.

Besides, I happen to think having kids is about the least selfish thing you can do.

While child-free folk spend their weeknights sipping microbrews at happy hour, my husband and I feverishly twirli to the manic dance of the dinner-cleanup-bath-books routine. While they get to go on vacation, we pay for daycare.

Yet, my kids will finance their Social Security checks and keep the economy humming. And, you know, basically ensure the survival of the human race.

Already dropping birthrates in the United States and other developed nations are threatening global economic growth. That's because a third of economic growth is attributable to more people joining the workforce.

No babies = no growth.

"For the first time since World War II, we're no longer getting a tailwind," Russ Koesterich, chief investment strategist at Blackrock, the world's largest money manager, told CBS News. "You're going to create fewer jobs. ... All else equal, wage growth will be slower."

Maybe the issue is related to the fact that there are fewer kids now than in recent generations. Since kids are not so common, childfree adults interact with them less and are more able to group them into a faceless mass of misbehaving misfits.

Yet fewer kids mean parents are more able, and willing, to take them to adult venues, according to USA Today.

Automatic culture clash.

"Culturally in the U.S., the general public is encouraged to chastise parents and children for their completely understandable behavior," Trista Crass wrote in an XO Jane post called "If you hate kids you might really be a horrible human." "Parents CHOSE to have children and be in public, so we are basically asking for it."

Kid-hatred even has a formal –ism now.

Psychoanalyst Elisabeth Young-Bruehl dubbed it "childism," writing a book about prejudice against children.

I'm not sure I buy childism.

But, the thing is, prejudice is pretty un-PC these days. It's frowned upon to lump people together and hate all of them. So why is hating kids en-masse considered a hip stance?

I love this email to the New York Time's Motherlode blog.

"My children are not gremlins. They are not animals. They aren't malicious or out to ruin anyone's day. But they are people too — short people, often loud people, sometimes unreasonable people. That separates them from adults how, exactly?"

I'm really not sure.