A couple months ago I posted on Threads “what is wrong with people who don’t smile or wave back at children?” and boy, did that send the internet into a fury. To be fair, there’s no shortage of people who hate kids on that platform so I should have known what was to come. The responses were all over the place from people telling me “the world doesn’t revolve around your children” and “not everyone thinks your kids are cute” to “why aren’t you teaching your kids not to talk to strangers?”
You would have thought I asked these people if they could come over and babysit for me (if you ever want to experience the population of people chronically online, putting out a post like mine is a good way to do it).
But let’s get back to the core of my message—reciprocity and kindness. Those are fairly simple concepts and they’re ones I teach to my children. Treat people kindly. Hold the door for the person behind you. If someone smiles, smile back. Are these really high-effort asks? Or have we totally lost the plot? These are things we understand and typically adhere to culturally so why does it not extend to children? Or perhaps, these people who have found themselves replying to my thread don’t have these values, even for adults, in which case, I would ask again, but why not for children? Why would the most innocent, vulnerable, and joyful demographic not be one you’d make an exception for?
Let me first say too, I do not by any means think that everyone should desire to have children. I am not the person who makes it their life mission to convince others how amazing kids are and that they should start a family. Having children is not a hobby that can easily be picked up nor put back down. It changes your life in every way possible and while I love it for myself, I know that it is not for everyone. I absolutely respect any person’s decision to remain child free but that decision doesn’t mean you have to be unkind to other children in passing.
Children are part of our society and they are humans just like you and I. They are people, just smaller, still experiencing the full range of emotions, and they’re learning. They are innocent. They are well meaning. They are excitable. They are full of joy and the one thing I am really stuck on is even if you yourself don’t have or want children, we all were once children. That thought lingers in my mind because really there are two scenarios. 1. People were kind to you as a child so wouldn’t you have learned to be the same way? Or 2. People were unkind to you as a child and don’t you remember how awful that felt? Why would you want to play that role in someone else’s life?This isn’t about thinking my kids, or any kids for that matter, are cute. This isn’t about “needing attention”. This is about human decency. I think a society that becomes comfortable with being inconsiderate, rude, or explicitly mean to children is one that has something deeply wrong with it. I cannot think of any population more deserving of our love, kindness, and protection than children and you don’t and shouldn’t have to be a mother to feel that way.
We live in a hyper individualistic culture and truly, I don’t think it was ever meant to be this way. I think about how though our world has become incredibly convenient and efficient, the trade off is that we’ve lost touch with our humanity. I think about how so many mothers have to pay for their village or they go without one entirely. I think about how our interaction with adults in real life is steadily declining in general. We use self check out at the grocery store. We place orders for delivery instead of going in and shopping ourselves. We get our food dropped off right at our doorstep with contactless delivery. The pandemic did a number on us and our socializing and no doubt, our increasing dependence on social media is playing a role but wow, if I had to name a final straw or a waving red flag, it would be when we become okay with being rude to children.
