Two opinions can be held simultaneously.
Disliking bad parenting is valid because children don't have the agency to affect or remedy it themselves, while not wanting or liking children as an adult is just a personnel & subjective opinion.
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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It can change, too.
When I was just out of college, I wanted kids "someday" (but was afraid of parenting badly).
Same when I met my wife, but she felt conflicted.
Fast forward a couple of years, she definitely doesn't want to have kids.
I'm at peace with this path. I'd rather stay with my wife and have no kids than get divorced and try to find someone else who does want kids. My wife is amazing.
People looking at me when my toddler cries and shouts and tries to run away instead of behaving perfectly in a restaurant.
People looking at me when my child behaves perfectly in the restaurant because theyre watching Ms Rachel on my phone (see above)
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Parenting in a nutshell.
Honestly there should be child free restaurants and airplanes.
I’m glad you made the choice to have kids but I didn’t and I don’t want to deal with them when I’m out.
You’ve never been in a restaurant that’s 21+?
Well yeah, keep those things at home in their cage where they belong.
Yes, I hate both children and parents. The only people I tend to like are adults without kids.
seems pretty simple to me
People are just awful.
Amen. Parents and children, especially!
It's always tempting to consider 'the internet' as a uniform group, but it's a bunch of little groups smashed together.
Actually, watching meta commentary about reddit following the APIocolypse and other push factors is what cemented this for me. Comparing discussions here v. , say, Kiwi Farms (visiting their forum was enlightening for this purpose but otherwise a mistake), both groups generally agreed that reddit sucked, but for diametrically opposed reasons.
Reminded me a lot of the bunny-duck illusion - grossly oversimplifying, but one group saw a racist duck, the other saw a woke bunny, both said fuck that animal.
In fairness those could be two different groups of people.
I'm not interested in having kids myself, and of course if other people feel the same that's OK, but a lot of people don't want other people to have kids, period. If someone wants to have 10 kids, go ahead, as long as I don't have to babysit 😀
Your excluding a good segment of the population if you are basing it on those who frequent Lemmy’s forums.
Kids likely don’t frequent forums like Lenny. Parents are usually too busy to care about said forum.
That just leaves childless adults. Which is likely why you see such a bias
I think you’re underestimating how many parents may be here lol
Kids likely don’t frequent forums like Lenny.
"Kids" being people of what age? Because I started regularly posting to web forums at the age of 10 and if Lemmy had existed then, I might very well have joined it.
Parents are usually too busy to care about said forum.
You mean "busy" on their phones?
Posted in /r/teachers today by a teacher (but, I've occasionally observed the same at my local park):
I took my own children to a park, there were about 8-10 kids running around between the ages of 1 and 6. The children were feral. The parents were on their phones the entire time. None of the bad behavior was noticed, let alone corrected. A three year old boy sat in a tunnel and screamed and pushed anyone who came near. Mom was oblivious. She wasn’t watching her kid, she was on her phone. Another girl (about 5) was being extremely rough around some of the toddlers (kicking towards them, jumping over a one year old at one point). Her dad didn’t correct the behavior. He didn’t see it. He was on his phone. I could go on. Besides the occasional glance, parents were completely disengaged from their children.
The internet is not a reflection of reality
"well, technically"
I think of it as a funhouse mirror. Everything online reflects something in the physical world, but there are a lot of distortions.
It is, as there are definitely things you can infer about reality from it. In this case, ideas espoused on places like reddit are indicative of how certain sets of people (e.g left wing liberal millenials, who enjoy their computer time, and aren't religious) feel towards children.
The things to bare in mind (which you hint at) are just: A) no matter how many people you see on the internet, it's still a very very small fraction of real people in ththe world, or even in your own nation. And B) biased sampling - specific groups of people flock to certain sites, feel like eharing their views on the matter, feel strongly enough to share their views on it over and over again.
There's a diametric difference between the ideologies/feelings of both groups though.
I only hate kids when they were raised by shitty parents.
Just like I only hate dogs raised by shitty dog owners.
And? Yes, internet despises.
Heh. Anything on the internet invites comment. Who comments? People who feel strongly about the topic. Yep, it fits.
I saw a really interesting video on this recently, actually.
Daniel Mackler: An Analysis of People who don't like children
He's an ex-therapist. Video is pretty short. He posits that people who didn't like who they were as children dislike children.