stardreamer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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childfree2017-06-09 03:58 pm
stardreamer) wrote in childfree2017-06-09 03:58 pm
My space, my rules.
My house is for adults only.
We have an annual Chocolate Decadence party, and I routinely tell people that our house is not child-safe; as we have no young children ourselves, it doesn't need to be. Once I had to tell someone that her older children (~8-10) were not welcome because the previous year they had traumatized our timid cat, chasing him around the house and trying to pick him up, and he didn't come out from under the furniture for a week! I don't feel like a jerk about this. I'm not a public entity, and I have the right to make rules about what is or is not allowed in my space. My friends are polite; people with young children who can't afford a babysitter send their regrets.
The writer of the linked article has much less tolerance for children (especially teenagers) than I have. She wants her gatherings to be of and for adults only, having the kind of conversations that bore kids to tears, and not having to worry about what someone else's kid is doing in her kitchen, or about monitoring herself and her friends for "appropriate" language. She is not a jerk for doing this. She has the same right that I have to make rules about what is or is not allowed in her space.
This whole thing is very reminiscent of the arguments about smoking 30 years ago, where smokers insisted that they had the right to bring their pollution everywhere they went and other people just had to put up with it. And although it will be a long time before you see any significant percentage of public establishments saying "no children", people are perfectly within their rights to make that rule in their own homes.
We have an annual Chocolate Decadence party, and I routinely tell people that our house is not child-safe; as we have no young children ourselves, it doesn't need to be. Once I had to tell someone that her older children (~8-10) were not welcome because the previous year they had traumatized our timid cat, chasing him around the house and trying to pick him up, and he didn't come out from under the furniture for a week! I don't feel like a jerk about this. I'm not a public entity, and I have the right to make rules about what is or is not allowed in my space. My friends are polite; people with young children who can't afford a babysitter send their regrets.
The writer of the linked article has much less tolerance for children (especially teenagers) than I have. She wants her gatherings to be of and for adults only, having the kind of conversations that bore kids to tears, and not having to worry about what someone else's kid is doing in her kitchen, or about monitoring herself and her friends for "appropriate" language. She is not a jerk for doing this. She has the same right that I have to make rules about what is or is not allowed in her space.
This whole thing is very reminiscent of the arguments about smoking 30 years ago, where smokers insisted that they had the right to bring their pollution everywhere they went and other people just had to put up with it. And although it will be a long time before you see any significant percentage of public establishments saying "no children", people are perfectly within their rights to make that rule in their own homes.
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I think the smoking comparison is very true.
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But yeah the comparison is fair (and hilarious).
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Occasionally we have invited friends and their kids over for an afternoon barbecue in the garden (the kids could run around in the garden, so it was fine). But if I'm honest I prefer just adults.
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My house my rules. Something a parent of all people should totally understand. Hah