Looking at the first page of "our little sanctuary," as a previous poster so condescendingly called it, I see:
4-Legged Kids (about pets)
Post a Picture of Yourselves (picture sharing)
Generalizations (the thread that I believe precipitated this thread)
Vacations (no explanation needed)
Forced into children's ministry (about a woman at the OP's church who didn't like kids and was being goaded into working the nursery)
I should have kids because (
in which we post facts about ourselves that would make us good parents IF we went down that road)
Worst Response You Have Ever Gotten From a Fellow Believer on This Subject (no explanation needed)
Breeder Bingo (where we share the bingos we've gotten)
Ever Been to Disneyworld? (no explanation needed)
I'm not seeing anything offensive there at all. With the possible exception of Breeder Bingo, which I think I explained pretty well
, there's nothing there that invites anything even approaching offense.
Here's what I think is going on (and someday I'm going to publish my theory and make a million dollars, so NO PLAGIARIZING ME): I think the problem is threefold.
1) "When you criticize one parent, you criticize ALL parents." I think that a lot of offended parents take it to heart when we criticize the parents that we run into in our day-to-day dealings, and they read those criticisms as criticisms against them personally.
2) "If you don't have kids, then that must mean you don't like kids. And if you don't like kids, then you don't like
my kids. And to dislike my kids is to insult
me." There are some childfrees here at Christian Forums who genuinely don't like kids, but most of us do. But here's the thing: if someone doesn't like kids, that's their perogative. I applaud them for admitting it to theirself
before having kids and regretting it.
3) "Parenting is OUR turf; you have no say in the matter." This is a kind of territorialism I see that says that those of us without kids have no right to criticize parents because we haven't walked in their shoes. Sorry, I don't buy it. I've never practiced law, but that doesn't mean I don't have the right to opine about it when I think a judge is doing a bad job.
I think a lot of good will and conciliation was achieved in the recent
childfree and parents thread. Unfortunately, it looks like the hoary old "us versus them" thing is creeping back in.
And
Pilgrim Child, the link to the glossary is there so you can see how vulgar and insulting the militants can be. You'll see that none of us childfrees here at CF are anywhere near that kind militance.