Parenting & Family Quote by Isaac Mizrahi

Mizrahi’s line lands because it refuses the sentimental script we’re trained to perform around kids. “Do you like children?” is usually a trap disguised as small talk: the expected answer is unconditional warmth, the socially approved halo. His reply punctures that with a designer’s instinct for fit and tailoring. He’s not rejecting children as an idea; he’s rejecting the demand for a one-size-fits-all posture.

The comic engine is the calm, almost deadpan specificity: “some children, yes.” Then the second sentence repeats the structure, but swings the door fully open to taboo honesty: “Some children I don’t like.” The rhythm mimics polite conversation while smuggling in an impolite truth. It’s funny because it’s obvious, and we’re not supposed to say the obvious part out loud.

Subtextually, he’s pushing back against a culture that treats children as sacred symbols rather than people with personalities, manners, and the capacity to be, frankly, irritating. It also reads as a defense of discernment: liking children “in general” is a kind of performative virtue, while liking or disliking particular children is just ordinary human judgment. Mizrahi’s fashion-world persona matters here; designers live on evaluation, taste, and selective enthusiasm. He’s importing that sensibility into the domestic realm, where taste is expected to shut up and clap.

The intent isn’t cruelty; it’s permission. He’s giving adults a way to admit ambivalence without sounding monstrous, and he does it with a clean, cutting joke that exposes how often “niceness” is just social compliance.