I've come to a terrible conclusion. I do not like other people's children. This is alarming to me because I've always thought of myself as someone who likes children. Not only is it politically correct to like children, they are generally endearing and sweet. Well, babies are anyway. And toddlers. But sometime around the time the world gets them, they lose their charm.
I think it comes when the doors close behind them on the first day of school. They say goodbye, go into the big building with a hundred or more of their peers and they come out changed beings.
And the change is not always for the good.
Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike all children. I love my own and the children of my siblings and kids belonging to the wider circle of my extended family. But when we start talking about children other than those select few, I start advocating Skinner boxes.
Maybe though the problem is just that we are in the second weekend of sleepovers. So there are other people's children in my house, turning their noses up at my dinner and questioning my authority. And we all know that questioning authority is only good when I do it.