I agree Anikka that the problem is alarming – however keep in mind it isn’t Air that is prohibiting you from saying you don’t want kids…(in fact Air is allowing folks to say that when really they should warn hosts about the risks of making such statements in a listing…). It’s the US law that is the problem, rather than Airbnb. It’s one of many laws that are unfortunately being applied to situations where they should not be applied…an exception should exist for those doing short term rentals, sublets, or rentals of furnished property, rooms in their home or renting of their own primary residence, where it can reasonably be argued that one should very much be allowed to say “no children”!!! And emphatically, at that.
On the positive side, even though on the “bookings” section of the listing, the box that you check says “suitable for children” or “suitable for infants” and you can only check yes or no, if you go to view your listing, how this info shows up for guests, you can breathe a sigh of relief and see that AIr has changed it to say “may not be safe or suitable for children.” Very likely while they were doing all the nondiscrimination research, they realized the problem of encouraging hosts to make discriminatory statements like this in their listings, so they watered down the statement so that it’s no longer really a discriminatory statement – it comes across more as a notification about the nature of the listing. The changing of “not suitable” to “may not be suitable” I think helps a lot.
I’m just hoping that enough angry property owners eventually develops into a movement to change some of these laws.