#adultism

[elhopper1sm]

Unpopular opinion but the reason being a teenager sucks is less to do with hormones and social cliques and more to do with the fact adults fucking hate teenagers. The fact that adults expect teenagers to be able to take on adult responsibilities yet don't deserve rights of an adult. They don't see teenagers as human beings and they aren't prepared to see kids with their own formed identities and humanity. Teenagers are so sexualized and seen as needing to take on more and more adult responsibilities. Yet when they want rights and humanity they are denied. The years your brain spends wanting nothing more than to form an identity are being taken away from you. Teenagers are essentially being kicked out of social spaces unless they have an extra 40 dollars lying around anytime they want to go out. Teenagers being kicked out of the mall just for existing or groomed into the school to prison pipeline. And now creating legislation to keep them off the Internet. Our society hates teenagers. And does everything we can to hurt them. The fact that anyone makes it out of their teenage years without trauma is a fucking miracle frankly.

#personal rant #rant post #child rights #childism #adult supremacy #adultism #youth liberation #teenhood #teenagers #politics

[stormy404]

something i don't see talked about enough is the fact that parents having constant surveillance over "their" children is normalized by our society

like seriously, parents will go install the Super Panopticon Kid Safe Parental Controls 2000 that sends their kid's internet history, recordings of their calls and texts, every file on their phone, and exact geolocation to the parents.

and if you ever point out that this is more likely to endanger kids than protect them, people suddenly bombard you with a thousand comments about how children are too stupid or immature to have the most basic privacy in their life.

#youth liberation #youthlib #childism #adultism #ageism

[phantasm-masquerade]

“parents’ rights” isn’t just a dogwhistle for homophobia, transphobia, racism etc. it’s evil in its own right, even when it means the literal meaning of the words.

#hibiki//discourse #youthlib #adultism

[aronarchy]

Why we don’t like it when children hit us back

To all the children who have ever been told to “respect” someone that hated them.

March 21, 2023

Even those of us that are disturbed by the thought of how widespread corporal punishment still is in all ranks of society are uncomfortable at the idea of a child defending themself using violence against their oppressors and abusers. A child who hits back proves that the adults “were right all along,” that their violence was justified. Even as they would cheer an adult victim for defending themself fiercely.

Even those “child rights advocates” imagine the right child victim as one who takes it without ever stopping to love “its” owners. Tear-stained and afraid, the child is too innocent to be hit in a guilt-free manner. No one likes to imagine the Brat as Victim—the child who does, according to adultist logic, deserve being hit, because they follow their desires, because they walk the world with their head high, because they talk back, because they are loud, because they are unapologetically here, and resistant to being cast in the role of guest of a world that is just not made for them.

If we are against corporal punishment, the brat is our gotcha, the proof that it is actually not that much of an injustice. The brat unsettles us, so much that the “bad seed” is a stock character in horror, a genre that is much permeated by the adult gaze (defined as “the way children are viewed, represented and portrayed by adults; and finally society’s conception of children and the way this is perpetuated within institutions, and inherent in all interactions with children”), where the adult fear for the subversion of the structures that keep children under control is very much represented.

It might be very well true that the Brat has something unnatural and sinister about them in this world, as they are at constant war with everything that has ever been created, since everything that has been created has been built with the purpose of subjugating them. This is why it feels unnatural to watch a child hitting back instead of cowering. We feel like it’s not right. We feel like history is staring back at us, and all the horror we felt at any rebel and wayward child who has ever lived, we are feeling right now for that reject of the construct of “childhood innocence.” The child who hits back is at such clash with our construction of childhood because we defined violence in all of its forms as the province of the adult, especially the adult in authority.

The adult has an explicit sanction by the state to do violence to the child, while the child has both a social and legal prohibition to even think of defending themself with their fists. Legislation such as “parent-child tort immunity” makes this clear. The adult’s designed place is as the one who hits, and has a right and even an encouragement to do so, the one who acts, as the person. The child’s designed place is as the one who gets hit, and has an obligation to accept that, as the one who suffers acts, as the object. When a child forcibly breaks out of their place, they are reversing the supposed “natural order” in a radical way.

This is why, for the youth liberationist, there should be nothing more beautiful to witness that the child who snaps. We have an unique horror for parricide, and a terrible indifference at the 450 children murdered every year by their parents in just the USA, without even mentioning all the indirect suicides caused by parental abuse. As a Psychology Today article about so-called “parricide” puts it:

Unlike adults who kill their parents, teenagers become parricide offenders when conditions in the home are intolerable but their alternatives are limited. Unlike adults, kids cannot simply leave. The law has made it a crime for young people to run away. Juveniles who commit parricide usually do consider running away, but many do not know any place where they can seek refuge. Those who do run are generally picked up and returned home, or go back on their own: Surviving on the streets is hardly a realistic alternative for youths with meager financial resources, limited education, and few skills.

By far, the severely abused child is the most frequently encountered type of offender. According to Paul Mones, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in defending adolescent parricide offenders, more than 90 percent have been abused by their parents. In-depth portraits of such youths have frequently shown that they killed because they could no longer tolerate conditions at home. These children were psychologically abused by one or both parents and often suffered physical, sexual, and verbal abuse as well—and witnessed it given to others in the household. They did not typically have histories of severe mental illness or of serious and extensive delinquent behavior. They were not criminally sophisticated. For them, the killings represented an act of desperation—the only way out of a family situation they could no longer endure.

- Heide, Why Kids Kill Parents, 1992.

Despite these being the most frequent conditions of “parricide,” it still brings unique disgust to think about it for most people. The sympathy extended to murdering parents is never extended even to the most desperate child, who chose to kill to not be killed. They chose to stop enduring silently, and that was their greatest crime; that is the crime of the child who hits back. Hell, children aren’t even supposed to talk back. They are not supposed to be anything but grateful for the miserable pieces of space that adults carve out in a world hostile to children for them to live following adult rules. It isn’t rare for children to notice the adult monopoly on violence and force when they interact with figures like teachers, and the way they use words like “respect.” In fact, this social dynamic has been noticed quite often:

Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority” and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person” and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.

(https://soycrates.tumblr.com/post/115633137923/stimmyabby-sometimes-people-use-respect-to-mean)

But it has received almost no condemnation in the public eye. No voices have raised to contrast the adult monopoly on violence towards child bodies and child minds. No voices have raised to praise the child who hits back. Because they do deserve praise. Because the child who sets their foot down and says this belongs to me, even when it’s something like their own body that they are claiming, is committing one of the most serious crimes against adult society, who wants them dispossessed.

Sources:

“The Adult Gaze: a tool of control and oppression,” https://livingwithoutschool.com/2021/07/29/the-adult-gaze-a-tool-of-control-and-oppression

“Filicide,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filicide

#repost of someone else’s content #medium repost #Alba M. #purity culture #ageism #adultism #youth oppression #childism #child abuse #parental abuse #youth rights #youthlib #youth liberation #parricide #nuclear family abolition #anarchism #note: I would consider reevaluating the demonization of adults who kill their parents too #many victims remain entrapped well into adulthood #there are still a lot of issues of economic dependency and control especially for young adults #and I don’t think such a totalizing power imbalance engendered in childhood is so easily levelled #even if an adult does become financially independent #likewise for adult victims of intimate partner abuse: also structurally made difficult for them to leave #even if not criminalized to the same degree #anti-abuser aktion

[uncanny-tranny]

Some more advice for fellow adults: set your ego aside and let younger people (even kids!) educate and teach you. There is no shame in looking to a younger person for education and knowledge. It is, actually, a big facet of humanity that we teach each other - why, then, does that teacher need to be the Right Age in order for you to be willing to learn from them?

#youth liberation #adultism #i'm looking to a younger person to teach me about crochet and it's actually FINE #it's actually not an attack on Your Ego that a young person is more knowledgeable about something or possesses a talent at a level you dont! #and personally i like learning from younger people because they tend to be kind and PASSIONATE about what they are talented at! #like the young person i'm learning crochet from has this super bubbly and energetic personality and that's MOTIVATING me #and it feels less like they're just dictating crochet at me and more like we're equals sharing a passion and a craft #and THAT is what makes people want to learn. THAT is what will keep people engaged and motivated even when it gets tough #frankly it's just... kind of a red flag to me when somebody devalues younger people SO MUCH that they REFUSE to listen or learn from them #it's just... arrogance and cruelty for the sake of cruelty in my eyes

[inktog]

Privacy is a sacred right you guys

#mine #adultism #discourse cw #sorry i'm just very tired of this talking point #proship

[youth-rights]

When everyone seems to have a damaged, unhappy "inner child," it is time to examine and change the treatment of children on a massive scale.

#mine #youth liberation #youth rights #adultism #ageism #childrens rights

[yardsards]

it's so fucked up the way so many adults brag about and revel in hurting children and this is just... normalized by our society.

a bit ago, my mother was proudly telling me this story about how my niece was misbehaving so my mother spanked her hard in the middle of church. like beating a 4 year old was a badge of strength and honour. (my dad rolled his eyes and said my mother was exaggerating to make herself look tough; it was one swat with a rolled-up pamphlet. which... her exaggerating as though it would be *more* impressive to beat a preschooler *harder* certainly Says Something).

it's all over the internet, too. people who don't have kids yet boasting about how when they have kids, they're gonna spank them. parents proudly posting videos of them dishing out cruel punishments, as though this is something cool and impressive. videos of naughty kids where the comments are full of "if that were my kid, i'd beat them black and blue!" type sentiments, practically salivating at the thought of hitting this child they've never even met.

when defending their actions, parents will say that these "punishments" are not done with cruel intentions, and are only carried out as an unpleasant but necessary duty of parenthood.

but then the tone in which they proceed to brag and fantasize about hurting children is wayyy different than the way a parent would talk about other unpleasant but necessary parenting duties (like changing diapers or going to doctors appointments), but are instead spoken about as impressive displays of strength and dominance.

it's fucked up.

#eliot posts #child abuse #adultism

[butchhatred]

I seriously wish ageist karens would stop believing every teenager hates their parents because this is far from the case- recently in one of my classes we did an assignment where you had to present your role model, and the VAST majority of people chose their parents. I feel like "hurr durr teens just always hate their parents" is just an elaborate lie created to excuse treating your teenage kids like shit.

#txt #ageism #youth liberation #adultism

[dyspunktional-revan]

When I am treated “like a child” because of my disabilities the thing fucking isn’t that they “should treat me as adult” the thing is they shouldn’t fucking treat actual children and youth like that

#leviathan.txt #no spoons rn to write out another related thing so ig I’ll just yell into the void this thing that other people have already talked about > #almost in these exact words because I’m pissed #ageism #adultism #adult supremacy #disability #ableism #actuallyautistic #actually autistic #pseriouslyschizospectrum #developmentally disabled #physically disabled #swearing cw #leviathan yells at folkel #umbrella tag: age

[librarycards]

The term “social transition” has a non-trans history in the psychology of adolescence. In the 1980s, it was an operative metaphor for describing adolescence through the American trope of a rocky period of self-making, what one psychologist in 1978 termed “the difficulty of adolescence as a transitional period.” The primary “transition” that concerned psychologists at the time was school, where social shifts in friend groups and hierarchies from middle school to high school affected a young person’s self-esteem and mental integrity, resulting either in positive self-actualization or, if the social transition went poorly, “problem behavior.”³

The term “social transition” was only later adopted by psychologists and psychiatrists looking to powerfully expand their jurisdiction over trans youth to include entirely non-medical practices that often spur parents to reject or harm their kids: wearing a dress, cutting or growing out hair, wearing a binder or a bra, wearing makeup, or adopting a new name and pronouns. Making those banal but concrete practices of changing gender into psychiatric events was intended to convince anxious and angry parents that they shouldn’t put down their children. By the same token, tying practices of clothing and self-description to healthy development overinflated them with a pathological degree of significance, upping the ante and creating a lucrative target, both for parents of trans youth who wanted to stop their children from transitioning and, now, politicians.

I don’t mean to imply that psychiatry directly caused HB 2885, just that it clearly holds one part of the blame for inventing the root vulnerability that Gragg has taken advantage of in Missouri. If anything, the attachment of sex offender felonies to a teacher complimenting a teenager’s haircut exposes, once and for all, how fraudulent the medicalization of transition has been all along. Gragg can claim the right of the state to control children’s dress and speech (masquerading as the rights of parents) through teachers and counselors, in part, because psychiatry and medicine first claimed the right to regulate trans youth’s practices of transition.

Still, the causal events that led to HB 2885 run far deeper than the shallow history of “social transition” as an especially foolish psychiatric fiction. Here lies the far bigger problem raised by this bill. Not only will psychiatrists prove to be the least effective political allies of trans youth in Missouri, but contemporary queer and transgender culture’s elevation of the private right to dress as the sine qua non of politics is also quite useless as a political strategy.

Part of what I gather stuns in bills like HB 2885 is their audacity. The law would target the most conservative, least politically subversive of all transgender practices: individual style, identification, and language-use. In the case of minors, “social transition” is also a cheap compromise offered to young people who are refused blockers and hormones by disapproving parents and doctors, but that compromise is offered in a broader queer and transgender culture that has elevated self-identification through style as the ultimate arbiter of being transgender, making it much harder to advocate for a genuine right to transition for anyone, teenager or adult.

[...]

Students have very limited First Amendment rights on school campuses, meaning that they cannot present themselves as private individuals enjoying the right to dress as they please.⁷Their self-expression is governed from the outset by a competing set of custodians, from parents to schoolteachers, to psychiatrists and doctors, to the Missouri House of Representatives. Trans youth’s interests are therefore materially extraneous to the mainline of contemporary queer and transgender culture, whose architects were wealthy, college-educated adults whose prior enjoyment of full-citizenship was the very reason they demanded only the affirmation of a right to dress.

I suspect that part of the genuine shock of bills like HB 2885 is that most people reasoned that LGBT liberalism’s elevation of the private individual over all other political concerns would inoculate dress and language from state interference. It evidently has not. What perhaps has been misunderstood, then, is how the state exercises power. The law cannot prohibit being transgender, for there is no such state of being. The state has no need to target people’s interior selves, either, for the law can seize people where it always has, in concrete social practices that it simply declares are the undesirable traits of transgender people—namely, practices of transition.

Jules Gill-Peterson, The Unimportance of Wearing Clothes. [emphasis added]

#antipsychiatry #psychiatry #jules gill peterson #trans #cissexism #mine #readings #i don't agree with her 100% here on the relative conservatism of social transition and advocacy for it [or the discounting of #trans virtuality writ large] but this is immensely important context through which to approach the increasing enclosure of myriad healthcar #technologies & broader technologies of 'self' from tgnc ppl #especially as she points out young ppl #adultism #ageism

[elhopper1sm]

Even if Minimum wage jobs were just for teenagers that wouldn't justify such low wages. Call me crazy but if a child can work like an adult and puts in the amount of effort and responsibility of an adult and is expected to work as intensely as an adult would. They should get paid like an adult actually. It's so weird how in this country children are expected to face the burdens of adulthood and be ok with having none of the rights of adulthood.

#childism #adult supremacy #adultism #child liberation #youth liberation #politics #minimum wage

[caustic-light]

A thing about groomer discourse ya’ll really need to fucking understand

is that neither the threat we queers pose, nor the accusations made against us are actually about harming children.

We are a danger because the existence of queerness threatens the monopoly of violence adults have over children under a patriarchal hegemony, which is then twisted into rhetoric about harming children, and the accusation made as a response is that by harming children we must be sexual perverts and therefore worthy of being cast out. It’s 100% circular, harm to children is only a middle stage to make it sound palatable to more people. The idea of a class of groomers who are out to abuse your precious widdle kids serves to make the loud part quiet that is “if those people exist, we will lose the monopoly of violence over young people.”

There is no groomers here. They are a rhetorical trick made up in the same way as stranger danger, pedo panic and the lavender scare.

Going “no, you are the groomer” does nothing but validate these dogwhistles and integrate the ideas of sexuality as abuse and abuse as shorthand for sexuality into our own understanding of youth and sexuality and boy lemme tell you, this don’t end well. 

#youth rights #adultism #queer liberation

[phantasm-masquerade]

thermonuclear levels of adultism. also, as much as i dislike "minors dni" in general, it is, legally speaking at least, absolving you of responsibility. ethically, you are not showing that content to that theoretical child. fuck outta here

#hibiki//discourse #adultism #proship #anti anti

[aronarchy]

[image ID: Facebook post by Songbird Schwarz

I often think about how gross it is the way we’ve normalized kids hating school. Like to the point of fear and avoidance. “Lol he’s pretending to be sick to stay home.” “She was so happy it was a snow day she jumped for joy.” “Hahaha he’s hiding under the bed to avoid going.”

It’s... It’s not funny. It’s actually really gross the way we make kids sit a desk all day to be force fed dry as hell information and make them ask if they can use the bathroom, for 7-8 hours a day. 5 days a week and then go home with oppressively unfair amounts of homework.

And then we laugh - we LAUGH - at how much they hate it. It’s become a cultural touchstone. To shake our heads and chuckle while kids try to scheme ways to get out of it.

That’s… That’s bad.

And then we ask adults to do the same with work.

/end image ID]

#repost of someone else’s content #facebook repost #child abuse cw #ageism #adultism #child abuse #anti school #anti capitalism #school abolition #youth rights #youthlib #youth liberation #(I think the connection—designed to train for tolerating workplace abuse—was made explicitly in its original formation? #don’t quote me on that though)

[traumatisedmillenial]

#child rights #youth rights #adultism