“I don’t like children.” It is not uncommon to hear this sentence from the mouth of an adult and to notice an agreed silence in the audience. However, the formula would be unacceptable if this same person replaced the occurrence “children” with another vulnerable population. Imagine someone saying without blushing: “I don’t like people of color or people with disabilities.” Everyone would choke. Rightly so. But we can point the finger at children, get annoyed by their agitation in transport, exclude them from places like common objects without anyone reacting. And this trend seems to be growing with “no kids” marketing which is attracting more and more people.
Holiday spots, restaurants, certified trips without children under 15 are increasing. The latest, the luxury cruise company Virgin Voyages, which excludes under-18s, announced its arrival in France and Italy. What does this “no kids” trend say about our society?
“Children are an oppressed social group”
“Childhood is an orphan cause of activism,” denounces Lyes Louffok in On the Margins on France Inter. Obviously, they do not have the means to protect themselves. “Children themselves do not know their rights, there are no children’s unions,” says Agnès Florin, professor emeritus in child and educational psychology at Nantes University.
“Infantism”, translated from English “ childism » by child psychiatrist Laelia Benoit in her book Infantism (Seuil, 2023), “refers to the prejudice against children based on the belief that they belong to adults, that they can and must be controlled, enslaved, or even suppressed, to serve the needs of adults. It’s a notion that was developed a little before the 1970s in the United States by people who understood that children are an oppressed social group, in the same way as ethnic minorities or women,” pointed out Laelia Benoit on France Culture in October 2023.
“Today, in media, political and social discourses in general, children have a place that can be described as “sacred”, note Hélène Oehmichen and Simon Protar, sociologists and teachers at the University of Tours. A set of measures have been put in place to protect them (no arduous work, monitoring of their health, no criminal liability for the youngest, etc.). What is more, a large number of injunctions weigh on parents, and especially on mothers, to take care of their children, to be available for them in a constant and non-violent manner, and to respect their choices.
A serious violation of the rights of the child
And yet, children are more often victims of violence, deprivation of rights and poverty than adults. “This paradox is only apparent, because protection and domination are often two sides of the same coin, one justifying the other,” underline Hélène Oehmichen and Simon Protar.
Often, when an adult throws “I don’t like children”, he expresses a rejection of the parental norm. I refuse to submit to the injunction to have a child, in the footsteps of the “childfree” movement (childless by choice). But it’s not always about that. For others, this formula refers to the refusal to be in contact with all the children. “It’s not so much about refusing to have children as it is about denying them a set of rights. This second register is all the more tolerated as adult domination is structural: it seems natural that children have fewer rights. We can think of the parliamentarians who said they were boycotting Greta Thunberg’s speech in the National Assembly, in the name of her youth,” describe the two researchers.
And precisely, infantism, recalls Agnès Florin, “is fundamentally the act of discrediting the words of children and adolescents”. Do not give them a voice, even when it comes to issues that directly concern them. However, respect for their opinions is one of the pillars of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). No wonder we see “no kids” trips, cruises and transportation flourishing.
A society of self-absorption and withdrawal
TGV travelers have never hidden their annoyance at the tiny noises. Testimonies from adults upset by the presence of children in certain places are flooding social networks. Result: more and more places are making the rejection of toddlers a commercial argument. For the sociologist Michel Fize, author of From the Abyss to Hope (Editions Mimésis), this is “a serious attack on the rights of the child”. “It’s a phenomenon that brings the child back to the small object that we throw away when we no longer want it,” he is indignant. Even animals are treated better. “We are in the century of the individual king, who does what he pleases, when he pleases,” he continues.
By the pool, you want to quietly read your station novel rather than endure the screams of a rude brat who enjoys splashing everyone. We paid for a little peace and quiet, not a blowjob. “The “no kids” part of the phenomenon of being between oneself, not only with regard to children but also with regard to adults. We see this in the segregation of housing where gradually, senior managers no longer wanted to live with middle managers, who no longer wanted to live with blue-collar employees…, analyzes Agnès Florin. This is what we see with leisure: finding ourselves in a social, cultural environment and not being disturbed by others.”
Except that excluding children is not without consequences. “By experiencing exclusion as a child, we integrate the idea that it is normal to exclude certain groups, such as women, racialized people, people with disabilities, etc.,” warn Hélène Oehmichen and Simon Protar. According to several studies, the more vivid the childhood experience of adult domination, the more children learn to normalize domination of all kinds, including in its most violent expressions. Respecting children’s rights is not only a moral imperative, it is the assurance of a more inclusive world.
