The University of Idaho Argonaut

College students — and people at the university in general — often pride themselves on being accepting and tolerant of everyone, no matter who they are. We are so accepting that we don’t even tolerate signs of bigotry from those around us. Comments that are seen as racist or sexist are frowned upon and chided, and you can even report somebody for using “hate speech.” However, there is one type of bigotry that is perfectly acceptable and which won’t raise an eyebrow, even in polite circles: prejudice against children.

It is difficult to find a setting on campus in which you would be looked down on for saying something like “I don’t like children,” or “I can’t stand kids.” However, if you voice those same sentiments about any other group (blacks, whites, Mexicans, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Mormons, gays, lesbians, the disabled, the unattractive, or the overweight) then you are sure to receive glares, reprimands and a loss of respect. You will be labeled a bigot, a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a ‘fat-ist,’ a Nazi, or just a narrow-minded idiot. However, if somebody doesn’t like children then it is considered merely a “difference in personality.”

Children are not something to be preferred or not, as though they were pets. They are people. I will be the first to admit children can be annoying, demanding and use poor judgment, but that is also true of adults. Yet for some reason, nobody objects when someone expresses distaste for children. It is as though we think of children as optional, as though they are something to have if you like. To be honest, there is indeed an option: children or extinction. If you would like to see an example of what happens when an entire society decides that they don’t like children, look at any country in Western Europe. Currently, Europe is choosing extinction. As an illustration, if today’s birthrates continue, there will be no Germans in 200 years.

Though it is perhaps not thought about in so many words, the choice not to have children really is a choice of extinction. Have we lost so much hope in the future that we do not even have the desire to produce another generation to follow us? Would we rather just die and let the human race come to an end? One could almost call that despair.

As college students we don’t see children too much, and we don’t have to put up with them. That seems convenient, and it allows us to grow tired of them when they are around (say, when we visit family), but it is not a realistic way of life. It is probably also true that some of the distaste expressed for children is actually a dislike for the responsibility that having children entails. This is understandable, especially when, as college students, we are experiencing freedom in most areas of our lives for the first time. However, being understandable doesn’t make it intelligent.

I can’t force anyone to like or desire children, but if you don’t want any, what do you see for your life in 30 or 40 years? And what hope is there for the future? Are we content to curl up in a corner and die, leaving nothing behind? The choice not to have children is tantamount to saying “Let it end with me.”