Folk will go on the internet and set out all sorts of personal scenarios in which they believe themselves to star as the hero. More often than not, their lack of self-awareness has led them to miss the fact that they are the villain.

Two recent efforts, both of which went viral, stand out. In one, a grandmother complains that her three-year-old granddaughter always steals the spotlight at family events, butting in on adult conversations. "And if she has nothing to actually say," granny complains, "she just makes loud noises."

Atrocious behaviour. Why does not the wean know her place?

READ MORE: It's no wonder girls are so unhappy when we present womanhood as such a miserable state

In another, a dog owner suggests a toddler who approached her animal for a pat might be kept on a leash. There has, at the same time, been a rise in think-pieces about whether children should be allowed in pubs and restaurants and the horror of weans on planes.

It is also the time of year where teachers boast about not letting their pupils watch movies in the last week of term. Just let the kids have the telly on, for God's sake. What are they learning three days before Christmas? Nothing. You are telling them about quadratic equations and they are thinking of Drunk Elephant skincare and Stanley cups or whatever they've seen on TikTok.

It doesn't make you look impressive that you're implementing a full time table right up to the final bell, you're just ruining the demob happy Christmas period for everyone - especially yourself - by looking as though you don't really like or understand your pupils.

It's one thing to hate on other people's children but we also had to endure the MP Stella Creasy crying on Twitter/X the other day about the "motherhood penalty". She seemed to be upset because she wanted to go to a Christmas party but had to pick her children up from nursery.

Creasy is one of the mothers who you know has kids because she grumbles about them every five minutes. I have no issue with mothers complaining about their kids - better out than in.

It's good that motherhood in the workplace is a topic to be openly discussed. Some women will feel awkward about mentioning it because, for a very long time, being a mother was framed as an unassailable hindrance in a work settings and the practicalities of motherhood were to be neither seen nor heard if a woman wanted to get ahead.

The difference is, Creasy comes across as though she doesn't really like children and presents motherhood as though it has no joy. I mean, it must have some, sometimes, surely? There's no sense of it from the social media feed of the honourable member.

It's hard to make an argument for children's right to be in public spaces when high profile mums are moaning about kids being a "penalty".

But then, Scottish politicians have been complaining about young people in public spaces too. For some months now there have been stories about how the under-22 free bus travel has come with a side order of public disorder.

READ MORE: Excitement at Glasgow's new subway trains shows a lack of imagination

The first I heard of it was a senior police officer at a community meeting in Glasgow saying that the nice middle class children of the East Renfrewshire suburbs were using their bus passes to come into the city and let off some Mad Dog 2020-fuelled steam around the St Enoch Centre.

Since then, tales of marauding young people doing untold damage with their free bus passes have gone Scotland-wide. At Holyrood last week Scottish Tory MSP Graham Simpson said ministers should be activating the right to withdraw young people's travel cards if they misuse them.

"Abuse it and you should lose it,” Simpson said. "If the culprits hold a free travel card, then they are abusing a privilege paid for by the taxpayer."

Maybe some of these young people are taxpayers. I'm of the mind that free travel should be a universal human right, which is maybe a bit pie in the sky. But it certainly shouldn't be viewed as a privilege for young people to get to ride the bus for free, given all the societal benefits that come along with it.

It's that punitive approach to children and young people that ties all these strands together. Have them be seen and not heard; put them on a lead; have someone else look after them; work them hard; punish them.

Children are our MVPs - our most valuable players. The future of everything rests on their shoulders and yet we speak as though they are a burden on ours. Insufferable. If you don't like the noise or the mess or the chaos then certainly do avoid it - but remove yourself and leave the kids alone.