Hello! Can I ask about your "children shouldn't be given adult responsibility" post? (genuine question) Instinctively I agree as I believe children should be treated like human beings but not like adults, but I am confused on what you mean by adult responsability. Could you clarify? Thank you for your time, and have a nice day!
"When I was younger, folks seemed pretty comfortable with telling me I was “an old soul”, or, “acted like an adult”. I was a sharp kid with a large vocabulary who spent a lot of time reading quietly, so I guess the perception was that I was therefore more “grown up” than other kids my age.
Which, you know, made an otherwise lonely and isolated child feel pretty important and special, so it was easy for me to feel flattered when it signed me up for extra responsibilities.
I was six when I was first left alone to take care of the baby. I was seven when I got my first summer job. I was eight when I was put in charge of my own chicken coop; feeding, cleaning, buying feed and all.
I was special, I was different, I was “treated like a grown up”. I was proud of that.
Then I got older, and more tired, and the limitations stayed the same while the responsibilities and expectations kept piling up.
No, I couldn’t stay home while my family went on an overnight trip, I was too young for that.
But the adults were both out somewhere overnight? Sure, I could take care of two younger kids, cook dinner, put them to bed by 8 and have them off to school in the morning.
I remember, once things began to decline, repeating rather often:
“Either give me adult responsibilities and adult privileges, or child responsibilities and child privileges. Don’t give me child privileges and adult responsibilities- either I’m an adult or a kid. Make up your mind.”
It turns out that “adult responsibilities” isn’t quite the same thing as “adult respect”.
But even if it was, though- even if I was treated with all the benefits and freedoms of adulthood alongside all the work, I was still a kid.
Kids need free time. Kids need sleep. Kids need to *not* have to lay awake at night wondering what they’re going to make for school lunches, or how they’re going to cook dinner for six when the stovetop burners went out.
And it’s not necessarily because they can’t handle the pressure, but because there should be Actual Adults in their life doing those things. If not for the labour aspect, but for the respect and security of it.
My parent says I can’t wear shoes in the house? Why do they care? I’m the one who mops the floors.
I’m not allowed to stay home alone? What, you trust me with your baby but you don’t trust me with your house?
The family pet died and I’m tasked with burying it? Cool, grief is isolated and nobody cares, and when I’m scared or in pain, the authority figures in my life will be distant and emotionally unavailable. I have no reason to believe anyone will support me through emotional hardship in the future.
When it comes to responsibility, its not so much a question of, “can the child handle the work?”, but, “what precedent is this setting for their perception of the future?”, and, “What is this teaching them about actual adults?”
A child who sits quietly and draws is no more an adult than a child who eats glue and sticks pens up their nose, but both deserve to be respected as people, and both deserve to feel as though the adults in their lives are stable, reliable, secure, and have their best interests in mind.
Responsibility is not the same as respect, and there is a mile of difference between “can” and “should”.
While sitting in his high-chair, your baby drops the spoon. You get up, pick it up from the floor, give it back to Baby - only for him to throw it away on purpose.
If this scene sounds familiar to you, you might wonder why he does that. Is he rebellious and tries to upset you on purpose? Does he have a really silly kind of humor? No and no. In fact, your baby is busy conducting his very first scientific experiments. His brain is starting to understand two important concepts.
The first one is called “Cause and Effect”: When i throw away the spoon, mom picks it up. When i do it again, she does it again. Oh, yay!
The second is called “Object permanence”: When i throw away the spoon, it disappears - No, it doesn’t, mom picks it up! It’s still there, even when i can’t see it!
To fully grasp these concepts, your baby needs to repeat those experiments again and again and again. That’s annoying to you - but try to smile at your little scientist!
another cognitive thing they’re learning is “when i drop something, it will fall down every time!” - boom, gravity
also, as important, they’re learning social emotional skills like trust. “every time i lose something, mom, helps me. even if it makes her mad.”
always pick up the spoon - you’re teaching the kid that they can depend on other people
Important information for people who get annoyed/mad when kids “act out”
they’re just learning, fam, give it time
(via ifridiot)
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 thisThe 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.
Challenge #02776-G219: Peculiar Parenting Problems
There were things I expected to say to my children when I got into this whole parenthood thing. Things like “don’t eat that” and “put your pants on” and “stop drawing on the walls” or “do your homework”.
Then, there were the things that took me by surprise. “Don’t put that in your butt” was one, and “NO! DON’T PUSH YOUR BROTHER DOWN THE STAIRS!!” was another, but most recently, “If you make me faceplant into broken glass, you will be in so much trouble” took the cake. – Anon Guest
[AN: Honestly, one could collect a whole encyclopaedia’s worth of “Things I never expected to say as a parent” and there would still be new submissions by volume 128…]
Some things about parenthood are universal. Some are timeless. Some are both. Parentals of all genders, identities, and relations to the young have heard themselves saying things like, “What have you got?” in a semi-warning tone. Phrases like, “No you can’t,” or, “Get that out of your mouth,” or, “Stop messing about,” or, “Put that down,” are so common that they might become rote.
It’s the other things unique to the situations at hand that end up stunning the adults in the room. For perfectly logical reasons, various parentals have had to say such things as, “Get down out of there before you fall down out of there,” or, “That is not for your bottom,” or, “That is neither nutritious nor delicious,” or, “Back-to-front, dear.”
A parental would have a perfectly logical reason to say, “You have your feet on backwards,” for instance. Today, in this family, in this house, it was, “I thought I said that should stay buried.” It’s not easy living in a household of natural necromancers.
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Challenge #02702-G145: Early Linguistic Development
(Based on a true interaction between infant and parent)
Baby to GalStand translation:
GagagaGAGAGA (Look, Sepa! I have a piggy!)
Squiiiiinnnk squuuooooiiiinnnnnkkk (My piggy says oink)
Vrrreeeerrrr (My piggy is a vehicle now)
Wuf (I’m a dog.) – Anon Guest
Of all the things that occurred when Humans began to integrate into Galactic Society, the one they least expected was Human Young. Intellectually, the Galactics knew that small Humans happened, and did so regularly. They never expected the peculiarities of Human Parental interaction with their own young.
Humans, they learned, took a very long time to be considered capable adults. They began life as helpless beings that needed assistance for everything, and took a year to begin basic locomotion and verbal capabilities. Nevertheless, the Human Parentals talked and otherwise interacted with their Young with seeming ease.
The first recorded encounter with such interaction happened on the Trader Vessel Lively Shanty, which hosted a Human family. Human So, seated at their console for Light Duties, reacted to something below their workstation. “Oh. Hello. I thought the monitor was quiet. How did you get out?”
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Challenge #02616-G059: Vital Education
A: Why is your baby so happy and well behaved? I’ve tried everything with mine!
Baby A: shriiieeeeek!!!
B: I just listen to them.
Baby B: happy cooing – Anon Guest
Parenting classes did not exist, once. People were expected to pick up parenting from their own parents. This was not always the best model. Child psychology and psychology in general began with one simple step: listening. The instant people began to learn that their infants attempt communication from birth, is the instant things change for the better.
Of course, like most things, it was not a universal nor an overnight change. There were many who thought it was some neohippy nonsense. Many of them were hostile. Some… were desperate enough to consider the results. There were scenes similar all over the world, but this one occurred in a waiting room with overworked understaff in attendance.
In such a room, one baby cries because they are bored. Then ten more babies cry because one baby is crying. Keeping them quiet is exasperating for everyone. The babies are stressed. The mothers are anxious because their babies were crying and they might look like bad mothers because of it. The few staff present were stressed because there wasn’t enough of them to go around and the room was full of crying babies.
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On the Care and Maintenance of Larval Autistes
Not all larval Autiste needs are covered, but these are some of the very basics.