Poll: How do you feel about children?

[Bakuryukun]

I'm not very fond of children in general. Specifically, I am not fond of thinking about what my wife and I would have had to give up these past 11 years if we had children instead of finding a doctor willing to sterilize my wife when we were in our early 20's.

We enjoy being able to do what we want to do, when we want to do it. Our friends with children do not have this luxury. It's not so much that I "hate" children - I don't - but I prefer my life the way it is. People told us we were going to change our minds when those "biological urges" hit but we honestly never did. If you ask my wife or myself now what the best decision we could have made in our relationship is, it was the decision to not have children.

A few interesting links about the happiness (or lack thereof) that children bring to your life:

http://www.newsweek.com/2008/06/28/having-kids-makes-you-happy.html (Notice the title is tongue-in-cheek because the study found that having children subtracts from happiness in married couples)

Or this quote:
"As Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University wrote in Time magazine, "Studies reveal that most married couples start out happy and then become progressively less satisfied over the course of their lives, becoming especially disconsolate when their children are in diapers and in adolescence, and returning to their initial levels of happiness only after their children have had the decency to grow up and go away."

See the whole article here:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700119798/Studies-say-children-subtract-from-happiness-so-what-do-we-really-feel.html

So perhaps the secret to our long and happy marriage - I was 21 and she was 19 when we tied the knot; and we're still together and in love - was that we never had kids.

Food for thought.

So people became less happy when they had to do something hard and stressful and unselfish? *shock*

 

[Eldarion]

I love children.

I'm sorry, but if looking at the little bundles of joy doesn't just make you happy then.....you are a bad person.

How can you people be so heartless?

Welcome to the escapist, home of the misanthropes.

[sub]Seriously, for a site that is technically a form of social network, we have a ton of anti-social members. It's not just kids they hate; it's people in general.[/sub]

I noticed. I'm going back and reading the thread and MY GOD. Its like a trend here. Everyone is a cynical, cold-hearted, antisocial.....person.

Hopefully its a phase that will pass.

 

[PureChaos]

generally i like them. i was going to be a primary school teacher but going to university and analysing the education system put me off. would still like to work with kids but career took a random direction a couple of years ago. i also wanted to have 3 kids but listening to some of my colleagues regularly moaning about their kids has put me off that a bit too so may just have 1, maybe 2

 

[Gigano]

Much like humans in general, it differs from individual to individual; though generally I don't really concern myself with them.

Some are endearing, while others are a bother, and most can probably be either depending on the situation. Wouldn't want to have responsibility for a kid though, can't walk away if annoyance starts then (well, at least not as easily).

 

[jonyboy13]

I despise the little Devil spawns.
Enough people act like them anyway, no point in having both>>"

 

[The Gnome King]

Sure - but if doing something hard and stressful makes you unhappy, why do it? And unselfish? How is raising biological children unselfish? If anything, having children is the single most damaging thing most people will ever do to our overstressed Earth's environment.

http://www.infowars.com/new-york-times-children-bad-for-environment/

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/having-children-brings-high-carbon-impact/

I think my wife and I making the responsible choice to make ourselves happy (thus spreading happiness to others) was extremely unselfish, not selfish.

There are plenty of children in this world that need good homes. Unselfish in the extreme would be adopting one of these babies. Also, I don't think that we would make very good parents. Selfish would be inflicting my parenting style on a child I didn't want.

 

[Treblaine]

90% the source of annoyance in kids is from the Parents. My experience working in a hospital is if there parents are all right then the kids will be too as even if they are little brats then the parents are somehow able to reign them in.

When I see the kids acting out and doing dumb shit my rage is directed at the parents, I pity for the kids, they deserve better than to be deluded that their attitude and actions are acceptable.

You cannot consider kids without the parental factor, they are the source of and solution to all problems. Even if they aren't around their guidance and the impending punishment for their misbehaviour will ultimately rule their actions far more than their own internal logic and beliefs.

 

[GameMaNiAC]

Aww. C'mon, guys. You were once young too!

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Depends on if the kid is a whiny little bastard or an awesome mini-man. Some kids are indeed awesome, while some are whiny, entitled, spoiled pieces of refuse that will grow into fullsized whiny, entitled, spoiled piles of refuse.

MY OPINION HAS BEEN GIVEN! FEAR ME!

 

[Leg End]

Heh my daughter started eating sushi at 3, watches anime, her first knock knock joke was from animaniacs and her favorite game is Super Mario Bros. 2 on my WII and at 5 she made a cosplay for a anime con...As well she learned there we no monsters in the dark using the NVG from my MW2 collectors edition, I can see daddy and my kitties but no mosters. And she loves disney princess but Tigers make everything safe and better cause monsters are afraid of tigers... She loves Slayers, Batman the animated series and one piece. But only Funimation, when shown the 4kids dub she said "Daddy this is stupid I wanna see the real One piece." after one showing...

She's the little bad ass I want defining the new era.

That kid is a bad ass and i'll never think twice about her...ever.

It's a whole new game when yer kid is that awesome.

She gets a win in my book.

Fuck. Yes.

OT: I LOVE THEM.

I plan to adopt several daughters(because there is pretty much no chance in hell that they will be biological).

They will grow up with what I grew up with. Vidya, Animu/Toonami and a nice helping of badass.

Unless they don't want to. :/

But, I will love them forever and ever... dearly... ;~;

EDIT: This just turned into a "wait, what were we originally discussing?" post, didn't it? XD

 

[liveslowdiefast]

yeah i can't stand having one next to me on the bus for 20 mins, let alone 18 years, and have you seen how much money they vaccum up over the years £200,000 in pounds not dollers. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/feb/23/child-cost-inflation source)
So no i don't particaualy care for them.

 

[Mr Shrike]

Personally I despise children.

They vomit, they cry, they speak in broken English (at least, the ones that I know do) and they get on my nerves.

To put it bluntly, I should never be allowed to work/spend long periods of time with children. It will not end well, probably for me.

 

[robot slipper]

90% the source of annoyance in kids is from the Parents. My experience working in a hospital is if there parents are all right then the kids will be too as even if they are little brats then the parents are somehow able to reign them in.

When I see the kids acting out and doing dumb shit my rage is directed at the parents, I pity for the kids, they deserve better than to be deluded that their attitude and actions are acceptable.

You cannot consider kids without the parental factor, they are the source of and solution to all problems. Even if they aren't around their guidance and the impending punishment for their misbehaviour will ultimately rule their actions far more than their own internal logic and beliefs.

Amen. I have a kid and think he is great, and most of his little friends are pretty ok too. I just can't stand kids who are badly behaved because of the parents. It's bad parenting that produces bad kids, and thats not the kid's fault.

One incident that always sticks in my mind was one day where we were at the park in the sand pit. Some kid had built a nice little sandcastle, and all of a sudden a kid who looked about 5 (and therefore should have known better) ran up and kicked the kid's sandcastle over. Cue crying from the sandcastle-builder. The mother of the little shit did not reprimand him at all or make him apologise, and said to the sandcastle-builder's mum "Oh, he didn't mean to do that", to which the other mum replied "I think he did.". The little shit's mum just kind of laughed and no more was said. Not teaching your kid to apologise when they've done wrong to someone else is just utterly shit parenting. That and the kind of parenting that produces a lot of the teenagers I see today who have never been told "NO" and have been given everything they want.

 

[Voration]

I like kids, want a few sometime in the distant future as well. The reason I like kids (especially small ones)is they are so blunt about the questions they ask and the comments they make. A childs ability to play with limitless energy makes nostalgia raise its head.

A baby's laugh is generally a highly amusing thing to hear - I think this commercial demenstrates this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIlJw5h_eNc

 

[Treblaine]

Personally I despise children.

They vomit, they cry, they speak in broken English (at least, the ones that I know do) and they get on my nerves.

Ever met a drunk adult?

This for the above reasons are why I don't drink (or at least don't drink to the typical excess as is expected in my country).

 

[Dogstile]

Oh I hate most kids. They're annoying, messy and stupid. If someone used the argument "you must have hated yourself as a kid" they would be right. I did. Still do in fact.

Kids are messy and I think it would be doing them a kindness to not bring them into the world, personally.

 

[Mr Shrike]

Personally I despise children.

They vomit, they cry, they speak in broken English (at least, the ones that I know do) and they get on my nerves.

Ever met a drunk adult?

Yes, I have, unfortunately.

This is also why I stay away from alcohol and various other substances as much as I can. I value my co-ordination of bodily functions too much!

Captcha - derermine pplarr. lolwut

 

[DeadEy3]

Wow, a pretty balanced spectrum on this vote.

 

[XHolySmokesX]

I would like kids maybe some time down the line, but only if im in a relationship and at a point in my life where its what i want to do and not something i feel i have to do.

I don't like being around kids and babies, it's awkward becasue they want your attention and when you can't understand them and they make a fuss about wanting to play on your Ds or something i just want them to go away and leave me alone!

I guess it would be different if they were your kids however...