I used to think I hated children. As a child myself my own peers would drive me to the brink of insanity, I wished only to be around the quiet predictable adults in my life because they were so much less overwhelming than my peers. I couldn't fathom why anyone would want to have a child and even went so far as to criticize those who did. I also couldn't grasp why other kids couldn't just be quiet and silent observers like I was.
But as I grew up and matured and took a better look at why I felt that way it became blatantly obvious that I never had any issue with children. I simply associated them with being loud and overwhelming, because I was an unaccomadated late diagnosed autist with a particular hypersensitivity to sound. It didnt take much reflection to come to the obvious conclusion that whether adults or children were being loud both scenarios were equally distressing and overwhelming. The only difference between the two is that children tended towards being loud more often, because, duh, they're children. They're still learning how to control their volume, regulate their emotions, and be aware of the people around them.
Now as a more well rounded adult I have no trouble being around kids and interacting with them. And this is in part thanks to the same autism that made me struggle to be around them in my earlier years. I dont see them as any different from anyone else and treat them like I do any other human being I encounter (albeit with some topic/language adjustments of course). I think of how I perceived the world at their age and see myself in them, and treat them how I wanted to be treated as a child. As a person, simple as that. And if I become overwhelmed or overstimulated? I simply do the same thing I do in literally any other scenario where I am overwhelmed, and remove myself to regulate my nervous system and emotions, like a mature adult. It's really not that complicated.
And this isnt to say that before having these realizations that I would ever be cruel or mean to children, I always always gave them grace and tried to be understanding but it was much more difficult to do so when I had to contend with this deep seated hatred I felt towards them for a good chunk of my life. I would avoid them like the plague and couldn't handle hearing a baby/toddler cry for more than a millisecond without feeling rage boiling up inside me, because instead of associating that pain with simply being overstimulated by the sound, I blamed the child for existing as a child, which was backwards, uneducated and narrow minded of me.
And as OP mentioned above, this doesn't only apply to children. There are plenty of adults (and kids!) with disabilities who will not ever have control of their volume, or be able to care for themselves, or regulate their emotions in "socially acceptable" ways, etc etc it can apply to anyone and if I expect grace for the ways that I do not fit the mold that society forces on us, how on earth could I sit here and not offer that same understanding and patience and RESPECT to others who simply exist in different ways than I do.
All this to say if you think you "hate" children you have a lot of self reflection that you need to do.
