How could anyone not like children?

When I was a kid (a child from birth to age 18) I didn't like other children except for the rare one who was kind enough to be my friend. I thought they were foolish, over emotional, rambunctious, dangerous, rude, thoughtless, and often cruel. I avoided them as much as possible (with the exception of that rare one I called friend) and tried to spend most of my time learning from the adults - my parents and teachers. Most people thought I was a very obedient, well behaved, angelic child until my teen years when I began to assert myself more and it seemed rebellious. Now I know that was a necessary stage and transition into my adult life.

I've been officially an adult for 35 years now. I still have temper tantrums. I still cry like a baby when the emotions are out of control. I still don't always have the answers or know exactly what to do or say in every situation. And I still don't like children. It's for different reasons now. I can tolerate their behaviors, and I can tolerate the snot running out of their noses, or their dirty knees, or their obsession with playing in the mud, but I still can't tolerate their cruelty.

When I was a child, my whole family drank and smoked cigarettes. Occasionally they tried other party favors, but for the most part that's how they dealt with life and it was "normal" to all of us kids growing up with them. I didn't like the smoking when I was a child. I thought it smelled bad and looked stupid. But after I began smoking as an adult, the Surgeon General's warning and the society began to become cruel and vicious to smokers unlike what I had to tolerate as a child. I was buying cigarettes for 75 cents out of a dispenser machine when I was 9 years old for my mother. She was smoking a pack of cigarettes per day in her office at her desk; While I was in school all day tolerating all the other brats and trying to fulfill all of the expectations that the teachers had of me. While I was trying to follow all the rules in school and at home. While I was trying to survive being painfully shy and afraid of bullies, and afraid that if I hung around the wrong people I would do something wrong and disappoint my drinking and smoking family. They had a way to cope with their stress. What way did I have? Chocolate donuts and Chef Boy R Dee? Yeah, which only led to more stress when they all thought it was cute to call me Fat or Chubby. Ugh.

So once I was turning adult, I joined the smokers. I was going to be just like my mother. Successful, thin, and able to deal with any stress by simply lighting a cigarette. And through the years, society has become crueler and crueler to smokers. The prices of cigarettes are sky high, the places where we can smoke without being harassed are few and far between, and the attitude towards us is cruel and atrocious. Especially from parents and chidren. "Oh no, stay away from that monstrous smoker. That's a gateway drug. You'll become a drug addict if you associate with them. I can't wait until they all die of cancer as the Surgeon General has promised." That's what society says to us as they laugh all the way to the bank with our money.

What does any of this smoking history have to do with why a person (like me) likes or doesn't like children? I'm getting to that. You see, it's one thing to be smoking a cigarette around another adult. We're both of smoking age and we both have a choice. But when a smoker lights up in front of a child, it's more damnable. It's like "oh my God, you're trying to kill that child with second hand smoke" YOU MONSTER! And the whole time we (the monsters) are remembering our childhoods when this was not only "normal" but we were expected to tolerate it with shut mouths. Saying anything snide about it could end up with a good arse beating. Who grows up thinking that the whole world is going to flip the script on you? I didn't. In the future, if all cars become stick shift and there are no cell phones, the millenials will know how I feel.

So no, I don't like children. Because I felt like I waited a very long time for the freedom to make my own decisions. 18 years was a very long time. I had to do everything that everyone told me to do for 18 years. And I don't want to give up my hard earned freedom just because there is some kid around. I'm not going to watch what I say just because there's a kid around. I'm not going to quit smoking just because there's a kid around. I'm not going to edit my life or my personality just because there's a kid around. I did that for my parents for 18 years and I won't do it for some kids that I owe nothing to.