Mondays on the Margins Postponed Because Someone Pissed Me Off

How do you feel when someone says "I hate kids"? I just read a review on Goodreads, and admittedly I'm not predisposed to adore this reviewer because she's kind of arrogant and seems to really fancy herself as a force to be reckoned with, and her sycophantic followers just feed into this. She said she hates kids used as plot devices, which is fine, but the whole statement is "I hate kids, and I hate kids used as plot devices."

Would you say "I hate Chinese people" or "I hate short people" the same way? Why is it acceptable for anyone to dismiss an entire segment of the population this way? It's not like kids can help the fact that they're kids. If we didn't keep making them, there would be no damned people left. I get that there can be a divide between parents and child-free people. I think it's valid for child-free people to express their opinions and concerns on how children behave in public spaces. But "I hate kids?" All kids? All the time? You HATE them?

It's not that I think everybody should love kids. It's not that I'm thinking 'oh, if you'd met mine you wouldn't say that.' Sometimes my kids ARE annoying. It's entirely possible that someone could meet them and not be completely enchanted. But hate them? Just because they're kids?

I guess it doesn't really matter. I'm probably being oversensitive. I've just seen this exact statement made a few times in the past few months, and I keep writing bitchy Facebook statuses about it and then erasing them. It's her review, I guess she can say whatever she wants, which is why I haven't responded there. But I'm kind of angry. I guess I don't like people who say they hate kids.