#Parents and parenting

[aeide-thea]

[cw for mention of rape, Consent Issues]

prefatory acknowledgment that my thinking here is prompted by (1) an unrebloggable post i will therefore not cite (2) my own experiences growing up (3) olreid's ongoing theoryblogging abt Childhood Power Dynamics—

but like. thinking abt 'oh of course kids shouldn't read abt Bad Things bc they'll upset them omg!!!' discourse and like. as per (1) i agree that like. actually kids probably should experience getting upset by art sometimes and learn how to handle it, if nothing else because at some point their own life will upset them and they won't be able to step away from that nearly as easily as you can from a book?

but also like. as per (2) i read a pretty infamous series of historical fiction/romance books in first grade that notoriously feature (a) rape and (b) a lot of explicit consensual sex, and like. as far as the sex went, i was already reading about magic and dragons and aliens—lots of stuff happened in books that wasn't happening in my own little life! that was why i was reading them: for visions of other experiences!

and as far as the rape—i honestly don't remember being especially struck by it? which i'm sure makes me sound bafflingly callous, but like. the reality of (as per 3) childhood in general and also of (2) my ~neurodivergent~ childhood in particular was that my autonomy was overridden all the time in unpleasant if nonsexual ways, and i was being taught not to exhibit or even register distress at this, so like. in what world was a rape scene going to stand out to me as something unimaginably shocking, after that? life had already taught me that social norms, and the desires of those around you with power over you, mattered more than what you personally wanted, every time.

so i guess i just think like—a bad thing did happen to me growing up, but it wasn't reading about bad things in books; it was the socialization that taught me not to be bothered by bad things irl.

also i think—kids are generally curious about the world, and a lot of the time that includes being curious about sex, and i just—it's a normal part of development to seek out information about things! information itself isn't harmful: information is what enables you to identify harm.

also there's this idea that like. sexuality is somehow a whole other level separate from anything else, and i just think. i don't know that i agree. you can be very deeply, intimately, traumatizingly wronged in ways that are totally nonsexual, and things can happen to you sexually that don't really feel like a big deal! slash like—the sexual experiences i've had where my partner was worst about soliciting my consent didn't register emotionally as violations, because i'd already learned in a nonsexual context that it was fine when people who nominally loved you were careless with you! so i really struggle when people want to position rape+ as inherently separate from, and worse than, any other overriding of autonomy because it's sexual, when in my experience—it all connects.

#this very much isn't a well-structured Essay‚ just an agglomeration of thoughts #but like. (1) kids *should* get upset sometimes. imagine making it to adulthood without ever encountering anything upsetting. #(…could you even be said to have *made* it to adulthood in that scenario tbh.) #but also (2) honestly not all of the things adults think Are Going To Upset Kids *will* necessarily upset kids #either bc (i) they don't yet have the life experience to comprehend its full upsettingness #or bc (ii) they've already been trained out of the ability to register it as upsetting #anyway none of this will persuade ppl who really think differently #bc they WILL think that like. my being unfazed (either at the time or in retrospect) by sex scenes was the devil in me or w/e #like 'obviously it fucked you up‚ you're not a good christian now' #but. #formative #bookblogging #also i guess #parents and parenting

[posionapple24]

My dad likes to mock me. Like if he and are arguing he mocks what I say. And I told him once, "you like mocking people, don't you" which is probably a bit out of line, but he's been doing this for as long as i can remember. He responded with "now you see all the annoying stuff I have to deal with." Is parents mocking a normal thing to do?

#parents #childhood #parents and parenting

[regulusandpandora]

Dear Parents,

If your child, no matter what age they are (toddler, teenager, adult et cetera.) comes to you and says that you have hurt their feelings, made them sad, made them angry, or says that you are making them uncomfortable, or asks you to stop making comments about such and such, or (fill in the black), you. do. not. get. to. make. them. feel. invalid.

You may not understand why they are upset or why your comments hurt their feelings or why they feel uncomfortable, but you have to respect it.

As Louis C.K. said, “When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don't get to decide that you didn't.”

Just because you are the parent, does not make you better than your child or means you get to decide whether or not their feelings and emotions are valid based on how it benefits you. You do not get to tell someone their feelings aren't real, or that they're over reacting because you don't understand or don't want to take accountability for your action or don't want to deal with the drama or whatever garbage reason you have.

If your child comes to you for any of these reasons or any reason at all, it is your job as the parent and a mature adult, to take responsibility, listen to your child, and find a way to stop doing what caused the issue in the first place.

No child should feel like they can't talk to their parents about things that bother them because they know they will just be gaslighted and nothing will end up changing.

#dear parents #listen to your children #parents #parents and children #parents and parenting #parents tw

[anexperimentallife]

I love this.

#parenting

[taffywabbit]

they should invent a new type of "staying in bed for 2-3 hours after you wake up repeatedly opening and closing apps on your phone" where it makes you feel awesome and energized and emotionally fulfilled

#buny text #I'm fine i've just been staying up too late playing bg3 the past few nights #and then wanting to wake up before noon so my parents don't say anything rude to me so i end up getting less sleep to facilitate that #and it's catching up to me #i feel like this explanation maybe undermines my previous statement of 'I'm fine' a bit but I'm fine i promise #look at my lop posts boy

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

#parenting #childhood #twitter #meme #memes #tweets #tweet #funny #lol #humor

[tchaikovsgay]

my step mom was asking me more questions about the nonbinary thing and after talking to me for a bit, she said "oh, so youre a rosé! not a chardonnay transitioning to a merlot, just your own unique type" which was such a middle aged white woman way to frame it, but i cannot lie gang. it did make me want to cry

#i love having supportive parents 😭

[thehmn]

A lot of people around me are having kids and every day it becomes more apparent that hitting your children to punish them is insane because literally everything can be a horrible punishment in their eyes if you frame it as such.

Like, one family makes their toddler sit on the stairs for three minutes when he hits his brother or whatever. The stairs are well lit and he can see his family the whole time, he’s just not allowed to get up and leave the stairs or the timer starts over. He fucking hates it just because it’s framed as a punishment.

Another family use a baseball cap. It’s just a plain blue cap with nothing on it. When their toddler needs discipline he gets a timeout on a chair and has to put the cap on. When they’re out and about he just has to wear the cap but it gets the same reaction. Nobody around them can tell he’s being punished because it’s in no way an embarrassing cap, but HE knows and just the threat of having to wear it is enough.

And there isn’t the same contempt afterwards I’ve seen with kids whose parents hit them. One time the kid swung a stick at my dog, his mother immediately made him sit on the stairs, he screamed but stayed put, then he came over to my dog and gently said “Sorry Ellie” and went back to playing like nothing happened, but this time without swinging sticks at the nearby animals.

#children #parenting

[beaft]

a small child came into the café today and asked to buy a chocolate truffle. he tapped a credit card on the reader and it did not go through, mainly because it was not a credit card but in fact a junior cinema pass. i gently explained he couldn't use that to buy things in shops and he looked so gutted that i was like "...but just this once you can have it for free, don't tell my boss though" he said thank you and walked out with his truffle and as he went i heard him chuckling to himself and saying "yes..... yes!!!!!" like the sickos comic

#slightly dotty child or world's most precocious scam artist? you decide. #i asked where his parents were and apparently they were queuing for a table at the restaurant across the street #he even pointed them out to me #so don't worry this was not an unsupervised bébé #be shh now #containment breach

[cpericardium]

seems reasonable

#twitter #parenting

[literallyaflame]

how do conservatives think talking to children works? if a four year old came up to me and said “i’m a cat!!” i would say “really? what makes you a cat?” and they’d say some shit like “i have claws >:)” and i’d be like “oh wow, you do have claws. but wait, i thought cats had pointed ears!” and they’d say “they DO!!!” and then i’d pull up a picture of an elf and ask “is THIS a cat?” and they’d yell “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”

u wouldn’t say “fucking hell, Emily, get it together. this is the real world”

#yes this applies to gender too #if a kid says ‘i’m a girl!!’ it might be because they’re a girl or #it might be because they’ve got an incomplete picture of what a ‘girl’ is in their brains #and as a parent ur job is to help them complete those pictures #by asking them questions and giving them new information and playing w them

[atissi]

i don't really like when people say dungeon meshi is accidentally good autistic representation, because while i understand not wanting to make conclusions without explicit confirmation from the author, there's always the weird assumption that non-western authors somehow don't know about things like neurodivergency/queerness/etc. (on top of the assumptions that east asian authors are somehow more naive or oblivious to "western" social issues).

given that dungeon meshi started being published in 2014, it's not really a "work belonging to its times"—it's as contemporary as any other media we discuss on this site, which means it should be fair to assume it engages with contemporary topics (and at the very least, you shouldn't say that the representation is accidental with so much confidence)

but anyways, the chapter "perfect communication" in ryoko kui's "terrarium in a drawer" is some of the most straightforward autistic representation I've seen, and from now on I'm going to assume that laios's character writing is absolutely intentional in that regard:

#beepbeep.txt #dungeon meshi #ryoko kui #this is me trying to explain h/ollow knight lore #also yayyyy reading new things. chapter 18 'spring' is basically UFUT if you squint (sorry for the jumpscare if you know UFUT) #but the last two pages were such a surprising gut punch....it's hard not to see it as a metaphor for both the experience of raising childre #and of taking care of your parents in old age....aughh....

[marisatomay]

Parents get sooooooo mad when anyone even remotely implies that if we know it negatively impacts adults then it’s probably quite detrimental to the health and development of a young mind to stick an iPad in front of a child any time they show signs of Behaviors. “Are you calling me a bad parent?” Yeah. I am.

#‘if you don’t have kids then you don’t get to have parenting opinions!!’ #well—as a former child of parents—

[reactionimagesdaily]

#All alone? Not even the parents? #reaction image #reaction meme #daily reaction images #image mood: [undefinable] #submission

[fairycosmos]

parent-child dynamics are soooo crazy. i love you i resent you i can't stand you i adore you i pity you. and still watching your hair get a little more grey every time i see you makes my stomach feel weird

#ive got sm beef with the concept of My parents

[utilitycaster]

I should note, I hate the soulmates "we would fall in love in every universe" trope for the aforementioned "where's the tension and interest and really anything worthwhile" reasons. However, "we would find each other in every universe" fucking rips. We would interact meaningfully in every universe but sometimes we are lovers and sometimes we are friends and sometimes we are bitter enemies and sometimes we'd simply both be in the same HOA.

#for more on this see: the years of rice and salt #yet another of the books that did not survive the crossing (is possibly in my parents' basement)