"I hate babies. Is something wrong with me? I'm a female in my mid 20s and I find myself loathing babies."

"Is there anything wrong with me? No, I never had any traumatic childhood experience or something of that sort. Seeing baby photos and videos make me mad and want to squish their chubby cheeks to death. Of course, I wouldn't do that and I'll never try to hurt babies but I can't help but hate them. Is this some kind of mental illness like the psycho-freaks who hurt the animals for pleasure? Because I'm really bothered. Please no answers like 'Babies are the greatest gift on earth' or 'You were a baby once' or something of that sort. Other than that, I think I'm pretty compassionate about other things like animals, elderly, etc."

A serious question, asked at Reddit 2 years ago. Notice that she's mainly concerned with her own mental health: Is there something wrong with me if I don't have the feelings that seem to come naturally to others? And the naturalness of those feelings can be explained through evolution — a practical, not a moral explanation. One could also question the data: There are social constraints on expressing negative feelings about babies. The questioner may not be as unusual as she worries she is.

The top-rated answer points her to the subreddit childfree. I haven't read that, but I'd guess that there's a lot of material about the burdens of childcare as opposed to actually hating babies. Hating babies! It sounds so wrong. Imagine seeing baby photos and videos and getting mad, as the questioner describes. The questioner does come back to say:

Okay. Maybe I don't hate them, reading these comments here made think that it might have something about the demand and expectations of people around me. Or probably because my Facebook timeline is full of children and babies since people my age are already starting their own families-- which makes my annoyance even worse. But in my head I'm like "Guys, stop it, I'll be polite and like your photo just so you don't think I'm mean but your babies aren't cute. :("

Of course, I feel bad about my distaste for babies.

I have the perfect "Friends" clip for that: