Probably my earliest political attitude of my own was that it was unfair to treat us children by completely different standards than the ones adults held themselves to. I don’t mean that we should be viewed as stupid if we didn’t know as much as adults, or as weak if we weren’t as strong as adults, or as lazy if we didn’t do as much work as adults. I meant that if it’s immature to behave a certain way, and immaturity is the stated reason for why we don’t get a say in decisions, then it’s immature if adults behave that way. And if we behave just as mature as they do, using the same standards, then that doesn’t fly as a reason we don’t get any say-so about decisions. If our judgment is just as good, using the same standards, they shouldn’t leave us out of discussions and decision-making, not when their stated reason for doing so is that we don’t have the maturity to possess good judgment. And so on.
Any consideration of children’s liberation is going to be immediately different from any other change to a social inequality that we’ve managed or attempted. Because children very obviously do have limitations. An eight day old baby can’t participate in any discussions and it makes no sense to involve it in decisions about what to make for supper or whether or not to move to Cincinnati. But there’s no solid reason to treat the matter like a light switch gets switched from baby to adult when you’re 18 or 21.
I’m curious to know how other people thought of this (or didn’t) when they were children, whether you did or did not harbor some “children’s lib” thoughts & attitudes, and if you did, to what extent you retained those views as you got older and when you became an adult yourself.
As a child I thought we children were treated unfairly as a category of people
As a child the only unfairness I saw was certain children getting different treatment
As a child I thought we were privileged and had it better than adults
As a child I had no sense of unfairness except person-by-person and case-by-case
As an adult I continue to think children get a raw deal by how society treats children
As an adult I outgrew any sense that children should have more authority
As an adult I think children have it easy and are privileged and adults put upon by our responsibilities.
As an adult I think all inequalities between adults and children are natural and not a problem
I think many children should get more of a say in how their lives go, and I believe society should consider children’s voices when making policy. However (although I voted, because I can’t resist a poll), the poll options aren’t finely tuned enough for me.
Should a child get to have a full vote (as opposed to an opinion which receives honest consideration) in whether the family moves to Cleveland? Well, does that child understand all the factors involved? Has the child compared costs of living and wage differentials? Does the child realize that Grandpa and Grandma are getting less able to care for themselves in their home in Cleveland and that having the family move there means they won’t have to go into assisted living? Is the child’s decision based on an intense friendship in the third grade that the parents know from experience is not likely to persist into middle school?
Children lack experience and perspective and are therefore less qualified to make good long-term decisions. They’re also more likely to make impulsive choices. This doesn’t mean their opinions shouldn’t be given weight, but adults still need to be in charge. I wish those adults were always mature and loving and that they’d always prioritize their children’s well-being.
Kiddy libber here. Some of my earlier SD posts have implied this, but this is the first time that I have come out and said it explicitly. I clicked both “As a child I thought we children were treated unfairly as a category of people” and “As an adult I continue to think children get a raw deal by how society treats children”.
In fact, I am actively lobbying for an increase in legal rights for children and youth. I have published materials on this subject in print in Canada (a book aimed at young people - that is, the rising generation, to convince them they are worthy of asking for more rights - and whoever else will listen), as well as online in three articles in the Czech Republic, have reached out to politicians about laws that affect youth.
So there we have it. I’m an active lobbyist for an increase in the rights of children and youth. Will say that much in this post - won’t go into more specific position statements now, but for this one. Will say that I am currently working on a scholarly article that is meant to convince the legislative community in Canada to fully ban corporal punishment of children. (Currently, section 43 of the Criminal Code, which is used to justify this practice, is still on the books and, while the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that 1) teachers may not use corporal punishment and that 2) parents may only use very minimal, circumscribed corporal punishment, the practice has not been fully banned. Meanwhile, currently, some 65 countries and several sub-national jurisdictions have fully banned corporal punishment (sometimes implicitly) in their laws, and the list is slowly growing.)
Is there any chance we can get a working definition of children’s liberation? Laws against corporeal punishment may be form of protection but it doesn’t strike me as liberation.
There were times when I, or another child, threw up all over the floor (or somewhere else), and a parent or other adult had to clean it up. Plus, it was the adults who had to change babies’ poopy diapers and deal with various other disgusting messes. And I remember dreading that particular part of being an adult and wondering whether I’d be able to cope with it once I grew up and, I assumed, had that sort of responsibility fall on me.
I remember, as a kid, seeing appeals to “save the starving children” (TV commercials, magazine ads, etc.) and thinking, “What about the adults? Aren’t they hungry too? Doesn’t anyone care about them?” And I wondered, when I become an adult, will no one care if I’m starving or sick or hurt? Will no one care whether I live or die? (Nowadays, I understand much better the reasons that such appeals focus on children, but I still haven’t stopped worrying about the adults.)
When I was a child, for the most part the adults who were in authority over me (parents, teachers, grandparents, etc.) exercised that authority benevolently, intelligently, and maturely. Thinking back, I don’t recall any particular instances when that authority was blatantly misused. I can think of far more ways in which adults did things for, gave things to, and sacrificed for children than the other way around.
I realize that not everyone has been thus privileged or has had similar experiences. But my own experience was that, if there was a balance of unfairness between children and adults, it was the adults who got the short end of the stick.
Personally, I think that anyone old enough to be able to express a desire to vote, and to be capable of making their vote known without their parents’ interpretation, should be permitted to vote, with their votes worth the same amount, and subject to the same protections, as adults. Yes, a lot of kids will be voting for completely trivial reasons, but then, a lot of adults do that, too, and by and large, the completely trivial votes probably mostly balance each other out. But so long as at least some children understand at least some of the issues, and I think that most of them do, they should have a say. After all, it’s their lives that are going to be affected, far more than their parents’.
So, if you have three children, and they all vote to live in Disney Land and eat cotton candy for dinner, that’s what you would do?
Personally, as a kid, I thought it would be great to have more rights. But, I knew that I would get them eventually, and until then, I also had fewer responsibilities.
I have less problem discriminating based on childhood, as it’s one demographic that people don’t stay in.
I’m much more worried about kids in abusive situations.
I don’t think very many people would do that - but I also know plenty of households which contain multiple adults and I don’t know anyone who gives their adult son or mother (who pay only their own personal expenses) the same say in household decisions as the person or people who are supporting the household. I mean, if my husband and I are paying the mortgage and the utilities and for the groceries and my mother and my son are paying for their cell phones , really only two people are going to be involved in deciding if it’s a “shoes on house” or a "shoes off " one. If my husband and I decide we want to sell the house and move , my mother and son don’t get a vote. They don’t have to come along, but they also can’t stay where they are. (If we are renting and all pay the same toward household expenses, that’s a completely different situation)
But the thing is , the fact that my mother and son don’t get a say in where we live or if we wear shoes in the house has nothing to do with whether they can vote - and they don’t need to be connected for children either.
That doesn’t strike me as liberation either - and there’s more I want I want to know about “liberation” . Especially about whether we are talking strictly about liberation or whether we are talking about treating children by the same standards as adults whether that’s an advantage or not. I am not required to support my adult son except in very specific circumstances. If my 20 year old son drops out of college, I am free to take whatever steps are needed to have him removed from my household. Can I do that if my 16 year old drops out of high school - or will he only be treated as an adult when that’s to his advantage and treated as a child when that’s to his advantage? What if my 10 year old drops out of fifth grade ?
Umm, the OP was pretty explicit about the fact that liberation of children CAN’T be posited on the same simple basis as other liberations. That there really are limitations to what children can do. What part of that was unclear? Should I reword it? Perhaps talk down to you as if you were a child?
ETA: sorry, didn’t mean that to be so harsh and annoying. I apologize for that.
But practically speaking, what does it mean? What do you envision children’s liberation looking like and how do you get there? I’ve got some concerns. How do you determine a child is mature enough to make certain decisions? Can a 12 year drop out of school and go work as a dishwasher? I wouldn’t have concerned myself with that question, but in these last few months we’ve seen stories of companies like Tyson chicken exploiting child laborers as packers. Can a 14 year old get married to a 30 year old? Can a 15 year old sign contracts and accrue debt?
Well, my take on “liberation of children CAN’T be posited on the same simple basis as other liberations” starts with “you can’t just do it with changes in the laws and policies”.
The ideal situation would be that instead of two categories of people (“adults” and “minors”) you have as many categories as there are levels of capacity among people; and since any given person may have advanced capacity in some areas of maturity and competency and far less in other areas, that comes pretty close to as many categories as there are people, period. So it’s obviously not pragmatic to think in terms of legal definitions of responsibilities and authorities and levels of freedom and representation in decision-making.
So let’s punt (even if only temporarily) on legal changes and focus on attitudes first. Because they’ve definitely got to shift with or without a slew of legal changes anyway.
Anyone with the capacity to do things and participate in things — where the “things” in question aren’t things we simply don’t want anybody doing — should have the opportunity. Then, not twelve years later. If a nine year old develops the skill and the judgment and the knowledge of the laws of the road to be able to drive a car, it doesn’t make sense to say “you can’t drive a car because you’re nine years old”. If a fourth grader wants to run for Congress and has as much a grasp on the issues as are required of any of the other candidates, let them, and if they get the votes, swear them into office and let them legislate. None of that can happen without the legal changes but the legal changes aren’t possible until the attitudes of at least a majority of adults shifts quite a bit, so let’s first get a conversation going. About why, if you think ten year olds should be prohibited from such activities as these.
I think the default attitude should be “no prohibitions until you make the case for them”. Not “no right to do something unless you make the case for why they should be allowed to”.
The usual, typical arguments are that children lack the judgment. Because of lack of experience or lack of impulse control. But my personal experience is that when you point out that adults quite often haven’t learned a damn thing from their experience (and/or haven’t had much relevant experience despite their age) or lack impulse control that the average ten year old exhibits in spades, it turns out that those aren’t the real reasons. They’re excuses. And then they find other excuses.
Some of the prohibitions in place are to protect children. We don’t allow children to quit school, work in a factory, join the army, make porn… Would you remove “arbitrary” age limits from such things?
I’d suspend the sense that these things are absolute and already decided. I’d examine the reasons for each occurrence. Maybe for Susan Jones on October the 28th 2027 it’s not a good idea that she should quit school. But “because you’re a kid and you don’t get to quit school” isn’t a reason. She may have a good reason. We should listen to her.