Why can't I look away?

You know when you see something really terrible or gross or that makes you horribly, horribly angry, like a car accident or surgery on television or B!ll O'Re!lly, and while you know you should look away or move on you just can't?

Well, that's how I feel about the Childfree forum on a hobby-related on-line community I'm a part of. I was browsing through all of the groups when I noticed this one. *It's a new site, there aren't so many groups that you can't look through them all* I don't know what possessed me to read it, but I did. What can I say, maybe I'm a reading masochist?

This forum was set up, as far as I can tell, to bash children and parents. They say they're there to rant about experiences, but all I've read is a lot of hateful words and name calling. Let me back up to say that I fully support people's right to free speech and I know that this group isn't meant for me and I should just STOP READING.

But. I'm just not sure why, in a community that's supposed to be about making connections, it's acceptable to have a group whose sole purpose is to bash another group within the community.

Parents are not an oppressed group (well, we could get into a whole debate about the lack of adequate support in American culture for working parents, health care, childcare etc. but that's another blog post) like say, African-Americans or homosexuals. If there was a group on this community that was solely about gay bashing or that was dedicated to commenting about their negative experiences with African-Americans it would be SHUT DOWN. Why is okay to bash parents with words like "breeders" or to say things like, "The world would be a much better place if I could hit other people's children?"

There are quite a few groups on the site that are about parenting and children, but not a single one of those is about bashing those without children. This got me thinking - the site is predominantly women although there are quite a few men on there too. If the men had groups to support themselves (and they do) and then some of the women set up a group called "We Hate Men," would this be acceptable within the community because the men had a support group?

I realize that it's not my place to post to the Child-Free group and so I'm posting it here:

I say this to all the child-free by choice adults out there - I support your decision to not have children. I'm glad, if you don't want them, that you don't have them. There are plenty of parents in the world who are TERRIBLE and there are those who don't want the kids they do have. Neither of these are good situations. But don't criticize my choice to have children.

Don't ask the question, "why would you want to bring a child into this world." An enormous part of parenting is helping your child to grow into a responsible citizen and be part of the solution. I want people who want to change the world to have children - they're the best hope we have to make a difference in poverty, injustice, hunger, public health.

Don't expect me to keep my children at home because they might interrupt your dinner or not walk fast enough to get out of your way. I want to raise children who can contribute to society and behave in a kind, conscientious way. In order to do that I have to bring them out in public. That's how it works.

I'm not excusing people not supervising their children or allowing their children to be disrespectful of others, but children are CHILDREN. They need the space to behave in an age appropriate manner. It's not okay to expect your child to behave herself at dinner at 9pm when it's her bedtime and she hasn't eaten yet, but if I want to take my child out to dinner at 5 or breakfasts and he's sat there and eaten and played and needs to get up and go outside or shrieks for a second - DEAL WITH IT! It's totally appropriate behaviour, I did it too when I was 2 years old, so did everyone!

I leave you to your forum - I am going to try to stop reading, it only makes me angry, but I ask you this - in an online community what are the rules? Should groups like this be okay?