Abusive parents be acting like we would abuse any privacy we
get.. to do our own stuff in private. The mere thought of us getting to do
something they don’t know or can’t control is infuriating to them. It’s not a
crime to want to keep some things to yourself, or have some things in your life
unknown to everyone, especially if it’s things that make you vulnerable, easy
to embarass or mock, or can be used against you by a cruel person. Every person
in the world has the right to privacy, children as well. Children living in
abuse don’t ask for privacy in order to commit crimes, they’re asking to be
safe, to have some small parts of themselves protected from possibility of
abuse. That is not too much to ask, and they should not be punished by shame or
guilt, or sabotaged by making them feel like liars and criminals for wanting to
keep their secrets. Abusive parents keep many, many more secrets. How about we
put some shame on them.
I find it fascinating that people who choose not to have children are generally assumed to feel really strongly about not having children (or even to feel really strongly against children, anyone’s children, in general). I am probably not going to have children, not because I REALLY REALLY HATE the idea of having children, but because I don’t really really love it. Out of all the major decisions I will make in my life, this one is the only irreversible one. I can sell a house, quit a job, divorce a spouse, whatever. I cannot unhave a child. I cannot opt out of being a parent once I become a parent. I can’t even take a step back for the sake of self-care or whatever, or else my child will suffer.
So for me, having children is fuck yes or not at all. The default will be to remain childfree. Having children should be an opt-in decision, not an opt-out one. Until/unless I develop really strong feelings about wanting to have children, I won’t have them, even if that means I never end up having them at all.
Sometimes you just come across something that puts into words what you have yet been unable to.
man you know what is just as bad as men-hate-their-wives-lol jokes? parents-hate-their-kids-lol jokes. i cannot STAND how many memes and posts i’m seeing from parents who are upset that they have to spend quarantine time with their kids & homeschool them for a month or two… like why did you have kids if you’d rather lock them in a basement than teach them…
Saw someone on fb post “teachers after this quarantine if u see my child flinch when u raise ur hand..mind ya business” and not a single person criticized it like hahaha yes child abuse is so funny
As much as I agree with this I do want to say that a skill set is something that can be learned, but it’s something you should learn BEFORE you have kids.
And I dont just mean like changing a diaper and what to do when your baby is crying at 3am, I mean the really hard shit. Like how to care for a disabled child. How to accept and understand your transgender or gay child. How to help a child with ADHD or other learning disabilities. How to structure thier diet and mentally about food so they dont develop unhealthy ideas about eating. How to deal with bullying. How to create mutual respect so you child knows they can come to you when they are scared or hurt. How to apologize to your child. How to recognize the signs of autisim and depression and anxiety and what to do next. Why you shouldnt hit your children, and actual proper punishment and household rules. How to teach them to take care of themselves when they eventually grow up and move out.
You need to know all of that and more. And you can learn it you really can, but you have to make a conscious effort to learn and internalize this or you really do have no fucking buisness having children.
-“OH, WHAT, ARE U #TRIGGERED???, LIFE ISNT UR #SAFE SPACE LMAO”
Stay away from children for the rest of your lives please
The people who hate this are probably the ones traumatizing their children
this is a show for 3 – 6 year olds what is WRONG with these monsters???
Fun fact, sesame street was created to fill the gap in education for children whose families could not afford to send them to preschool. Sesame street taught basic math and phonics as well as interpersonal skills so that children below the poverty line weren’t starting elementary school behind their more privileged classmates.
Here sesame street is trying to fill a gap where supportive adults should be. Where there should be a teacher or a family member or a counselor to help, for whatever reason, there isn’t, so Sesame Street is stepping in.
This breed of person has always hated Sesame Street. They hated it for showing black and white children playing together. They hated it for giving children of color the head start that rich white families were paying for. They hated it for Bert and Ernie for showing two MEN who LIVED TOGETHER, for the married black nurse who lived on sesame street when it was first released, and for them explaining death. I feel like there was a pregnancy at some point in its early days and they would have REALLY hated that.
These days they don’t (usually) say “I’m not letting my kid watch anything with black kids in it” but they sure throw a tantrum in the youtube comments when Sesame Street DARES to show an autistic girl playing with non-autistic children and being treated like shes anyone else. They lose their shit when Sesame Street has to explain incarceration to 5 year olds. And the muppet in south africa with HIV? Hoo boy.
They hate everything Sesame Street stands for and tries to provide. They always have. We just have to ignore them and keep supporting the show. Or tell them to shut the fuck up and keep supporting the show. Either way Sesame Street will outlive them.
When people tell stories about how their parents beat them, it’s always interesting to see their face change because they expected me to say “me too lol” but I instead say “I’m really sorry. You didn’t deserve that”
Last time a co worker who also has West Indian parents was telling me in a joking way how he remembers being beaten with a belt because lied about his report card. As he was laughing it off and saying he deserved it, I just said “wow that’s awful hun. You didn’t deserve that.” And his whole face changed. Like it hadn’t occurred to him that it’s messed up that a part of remembering his childhood is remembering how badly it hurt to be beaten so badly at such a young age.
Another time I had a friend, non West Indian parents, who talked about how she made a mess on a dress that her parents got her. It was really expensive apparently and she spilled red juice on it. She talked about how she was ordered to take the dress of and was beaten with a belt too without any clothes on. And she was laughing and said “I was a bad ass kid lol” and I said “no hun you were just a kid”. And she looked at me and immediately stopped laughing and just sat there like “yea…I was just a kid. I don’t know why they did that to me”
My mom was raised in a household where she was beaten so badly….I just don’t understand how she is so loving now growing up in a home where she got so little love. They called it discipline, but once she became a social worker she began to see that it was abuse. That she grew up terrified of her parents, although they thought it was respect that my mom felt. It was fear.
We have to get comfortable challenging what is often seen as cultural norms. We have to be a generation of people who are not ashamed to say “I would never beat my child”.
Honestly!!! This is just psychological trauma in the making
THANK YOU
I’ve asked parents about this and they always say they are teaching the child responsibility and “respect for other people’s things.” If I point out that the child accidentally broke their own toy they always say “I bought them that toy” or “my sister gave that to them.”
The problem is that parents view all possessions as not really belonging to the child. A part of them always seems to think that the adult who provided the money is the real owner
If a parent breaks a dish they see it as breaking something that already belonged to them, but if a child breaks it they see it as the child breaking something that belonged to the parents
People raising children need to realize that household possessions belong to the entire household. If everyone has to use that plate then it belongs to everyone and anyone can have a forgivable accident with it. It’s okay to deem certain possessions as just yours and ask everyone in the house to respect that, but extend the same respect to your child’s belongings
Big mood. I know most of these are talking about little little kids, but here’s a tale from middle school. I had forgotten to charge my phone one night, and this was back when cell phones used to beep loudly when they were low on battery. I kept hearing the noise throughout the afternoon and not recognizing what it was because I’d never heard it before. When I finally did realize what it was, I was in science class and my fellow classmates were making presentations. I reached into my bag to try to turn off the phone, and then the low-battery sound went off, loud enough for the teacher to hear it. She confiscated my phone in front of everyone, and I didn’t get it back until after the weekend because it was a Friday. I was really embarrassed, especially to tell my parents.
When I got my phone back that Monday, my teacher said it was important for me to learn this lesson now since in college they wouldn’t tolerate phones going off. Fast forward to when I was in college, any time someone’s phone went off, either the professor would tell them to turn it off, or they would say, “Oh, my bad,” and turn it off themselves, and everyone would move on. I even had a professor who danced around while someone’s phone went off, and it was a welcome moment of levity during the lecture.
I say all this to say, one of the worst aspects of being a child/teen was adults assuming my intentions were malicious.
God I’ve been reading these posts for a while and each time I am struck with the realization that certainly not all parents were supposed to be a parent
“I say all this to say, one of the worst aspects of being a child/teen was adults assuming my intentions were malicious.” YES this
The problem is, even if families are forgiving the culture around children still effects the child. I use myself as proof of that.
A few times between the ages of 4 and 18 I broke things. I broke my grandma’s favorite Christmas ornament. Her first question was: “Are you hurt?” and when I apologized profusely she said “I’m just glad you weren’t hurt.”
I broke a few plates. I broke a couple glasses. Every time my dad’s first response was “Did you get cut?” the second step was cleaning up the broken bits, and the third was a discussion of what led to me breaking it and how I could avoid doing that in the future.
Same with spills. Same with stains. My biggest “punishment” from my immediate family was being taught how to clean up the mess I made and being shown in detail how to avoid the same mistake in the future if it was avoidable. There were consequences for my actions, but they were the direct result of those actions and nothing much beyond that.
My family tried so hard to teach me how to deal with accidents in a healthy way. They were patient. They treated every slip-up as a learning opportunity. They showed me a lot of love. The other adults still got to me. Teachers still punished and publicly shamed me and other students for our mess-ups. Extended family members outside of my small supportive circle still yelled at me. My friends’ parents still got mad.
To the point where whenever I messed up my first instinct was that my dad or grandparents were going to punish me, or yell at me, or hit me, even though they never did. They just didn’t. They always responded with patience and an attitude of “I’m glad you’re safe and I want to help you learn from this.” And I was still afraid of messing up. Mortified. Expecting the worst every time.
It’s like… we need to change the culture around this, man. Completely.
ifesbob 