I really really don’t even like the idea of becoming a mother. And I do get all that “you’ll change your mind one day” and “you wont hate kids if they’re yours,” which is BS, but whatever.

The thing is, while I’d never ever want to be in charge of kids (infants terrify me the most–i do NOT have the ability to notice dangers like table corners and small toys) I have no problem with kids in public settings, with few exceptions (the kid that kicked the back of my seat for two hours between Chicago and Denver, for example–but all frustrations tend to get amplified at 40k feet in a small metal tube with wings–and in the greater scheme of things two hours doesn’t matter, nor did my discomfort). In fact, since I adore kids movies, the kids in the audience who are excited to see the movies and talk through them and giggle and are fun just add to the great atmosphere a movie like Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs deserves. On the other hand, the couple that chats all the way through Up In The Air don’t even have bad parenting to blame. And the man that tried to make me sell him tickets to Tropic Thunder for him and his five year old? At 9PM? I was so glad we had the rule ‘no one under 7 after 7′ in R rated movies. That late at night, and a movie with that much violence? You really want your (5!year old) child to see that, rent it and watch it at home. (general yous, btw, mostly just aimed at that guy.)

I fully agree that the worst thing about children in places like bars or others typically deemed “child free” is not at all that the adults aren’t getting their child free zone. Poor kids, that’s the bad thing. Who cares if adults are *forced* into the presence of kids (eyeroll), the poor kids should be asleep or having fun somewhere that’s not, well, a potentially hazardous environment.

Also about your kid-flipping-out-in-a-grocery-store thing? I guess I never understood the antagonism towards kids who flip out–though I think that may be because I remember BEING the kid who flipped out. I guess I just don’t see it as a big deal. It’s not even bad parenting. Kids will flip–it happens.

Leaving completely aside the fact that anyone who’s ever been in the waiting room of an urban hospital emergency room knows that sometimes, people get sick or injured who should not have access to an unescorted child.

America’s emergency rooms are primary healthcare for lots of folks who don’t have insurance. Many of those folks are pretty seriously sick from putting off healthcare, some of them with drug-resistant diseases, and as you point out, children’s immune systems are notoriously not resistant to germs. Children aren’t being kept out to protect their delicate sensibilities. They’re being kept out to protect their safety.

I do take her point about it being difficult to deal with emergencies with a child in tow. What I don’t understand is how her anecdote proves her point. Because when someone told her she couldn’t leave her child in an unsafe waiting room, she asked for alternatives, and was provided with a clean, safe, family-friendly space for her daughter to stay in.

The hospital apparently wasn’t a child-free space. She didn’t ask.

Description here.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708734

Seen here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT8aoYsch40

I’m not trying to be an apologist for her entire diatribe. It just seems unfair to dismiss her whole post based on a point she never actually made.

That said, I don’t think that Maia’s parenting style would be acceptable in most parts of the US, nor do I think it’s terribly healthy for a child to grow up without limits or lessons in situationally appropriate behavior. Claiming misogyny in the face of people expecting a parent to, y’know, actually parent their kid is not going to help her convey her message of children-as-people. Yes, children are people, but they’re not adults and they need to be taught how to behave before they’ll know intuitively.

I agree with Duncan that it’s not so much a matter of child-free spaces as it is child-inappropriate ones. Young children shouldn’t be taken to horror movies or noisy bars, particularly late at night when they should be sleeping.

i am saying this as a deliberately child-free (married) female. i can be uncomfortable with even other people’s children. but i like the point that children are people. if they are nice, i have no problem with them, any more than i have with people in general if they are nice.