Your child is not my equal

Every so often, I remember to check my email. Every so often, it's worth the effort.

A reader (who I won't name here because I believe in preserving privacy, but feel free to reveal yourself in comments if you choose) alerted me to a gem of bleeding-heart stupidity on the topic of children. Said reader did so a month ago, so I'm a bit behind the curve, but it doesn't make the linked post any less stupid.

On something called "Feministe"(which sounds more like a feminine hygiene product than a blog or website, but whatever), someone named Roy decided to have an aortic aneurysm all over the portion of the Web devoted to posts by people who don't like children. I continue to be amazed at how many people still see children as some sort of little gods to be worshipped, rather than humans-in-the-raw who need to be taught and disciplined as well as loved.

Roy's aorta burst forth thusly:

Calling children “radically disempowered” is almost an understatement. Pretty much from the moment they’re born, children are subject to a world that treats them as much like property as like people. Children grow up in a world with no voice. There are countless rules and regulations controlling their daily lives, and they have absolutely no say in any of those rules. They are subject to the whims of the people around them- people who may or may not have their best interests in mind. Children have no privacy and no right to a fair trial when an adult (parent) accuses the child of wrong doing. Their entire lives are at the whims of people who control what clothes they wear, whether they have a roof over their heads, whether they even eat.

Well, duh. They're children. They're not supposed to have power or a voice. That's what their parents are for. Yes, children do get abused and mistreated, and that's wrong, but that doesn't mean I have to love or like them or avoid criticizing them. I certainly don't have to see them as equals.

In the U.S., children certainly do have a voice. How many times have we heard about parents who have a hard time controlling their kids because the kids will claim they're being abused? I know families like this. Some of them actually think it's funny. They laugh it off, as if it isn't a terrible thing that they're reinforcing cruel, dishonest, manipulative behavior in their kids.

Roy gushes a bit more plasma and red blood cells on the topic:

Being a child isn’t easy. Very little in your life is under your own control, and you’re also subject to your body’s whims. Children are still growing and developing, and they don’t always even understand how or why they feel certain ways. They may not know why they’re tired or cranky at any particular moment. And, as someone else pointed out, even if they do know, they’re still subject to other people’s whims. An adult who isn’t feeling well can call in sick and avoid interacting with other people, in many cases. Children don’t have that option.

Again: DUH. Parents need to manage their own children, be attentive to their needs (and those needs include discipline, limits, and boundaries, as well as hugs and ego boosts), and basically just do the damn job of parenting.

You had the kids, parents: YOU love them. YOU care for them. YOU run interference for them. It is not my job, professionally or personally, to cater to you or your children in any way, shape, or form. I owe you nothing more than basic human and civil rights. I owe it to you to not shove you off the sidewalk if we pass each other while walking. I owe it to you to not go to the park where your kids are playing and yell at them to shut the fuck up while they're in the park doing what kids do.

I don't owe it to you to think it's cute or funny if your child screams and runs around on a plane or in a restaurant as it would in a park. (Yes, your child is an "it." I don't care whether it's a he or a she.) I don't owe it to you to coo at your kid and tell you what a cute son or daughter you have. I sure as fuck don't owe it to you to say only good things about your child or anyone else's children. Whether I say good things, bad things, or nothing at all is my choice.

I don't hate children except when they behave badly, but I don't like them either, and I don't feel sorry for them or consider them "disempowered" because they're not allowed to run things any more than they already do. In the U.S. at least, children have far too much power already, although sometimes this is in the form of parents using their children, and their parent status, to manipulate others and get their own way.

It has been clear to me for years that Western society values the life of a child more highly than the life of an adult. I don't understand why more people aren't disturbed by this. We spend most of our lives as adults. That's the phase of life we should value most, not the dozen-some years we spend being justifiably secondary and powerless because we're children and have a lot to learn.

The best way to empower your child for life is to parent your child properly, not to complain because others don't see your child as their equal. Those people are telling parents like it is. The kids are barely out of diapers before they become little emperors with no clothes.