you do not have to want to be a parent or caretaker. but you do have to see children as full human beings with an indisputable and universal right to a safe, healthy, and loving environment in which to grow up. and to be in all the public spaces you are. including the crying baby on the bus, and the toddler on the ipad in the restaurant, and the group of teenagers at the shops who may not be buying anything. and you have to be prepared to be a safe adult in whatever way you can. if you support any social-justice-oriented movement whatsoever—if you profess to be a feminist, or an environmentalist, or anti-carceral, or land back, or antiracist, or anything else—and then say you hate kids, your support for your cause has a great big hole at its center. and this is non-negotiable.
this is important because a lot of discourse about being child-free has evolved into people discussing how they hate children and don't want them to exist in public spaces. especially when it comes to not supporting tax-based funding for universal childcare, or parental leave for parents on the job because it's "not fair" for the child-free employees.
the kids that annoy you today will be the engineers, philosophers, and healthcare workers that will keep society running years in the future when you are disabled and dying, and you should want them to be happy, healthy, educated, and fed.
