unionize the kids !

talk to your coworkers about this. remember that the "taking advice from everyone except the experts" thing cuts both ways. you can be the non-expert guy at work who isnt an expert and gives someone advice they decide to follow based on vibes, but your advice can be the right advice instead. this is something we can all do.

because, let’s talk for real, the problem isn’t just direct violence — it’s the dehumanization of children, which feeds prejudice against childhood, childism, and adultism. this logic IS NOT neutral, and it’s one of the most sophisticated ways prejudice gets perpetuated.

“not liking/hating children” reinforces the idea that they’re annoying, dramatic, inconvenient... less human — and therefore easier to discard, silence, or sacrifice for adult comfort.

elisabeth young-bruehl defines childism as prejudice against children as a social group, comparable to racism, sexism, and homophobia. it functions like any other -ism: an ideology that legitimizes treating a group as property, as inferior, or as available for exploitation. she also shows that childism isn’t limited to extreme cases of violence — it shows up in a whole range of practices that aren’t in children’s best interest: neglect, underfunding of schools, the abusive use of medication on children…

saying “i don’t like/i hate children” isn’t an innocent preference or just a phrase — it’s literally the biased expression of a worldview that dehumanizes and diminishes this group. that’s exactly what childism is.

young-bruehl emphasizes that adults who practice childism “all rely upon a societal prejudice against children to justify themselves and legitimate their behavior.” [p.1] a lot of people may not consciously “hate” children or raise a hand to hit them — but the prejudice allows them to tolerate structures that harm children on a massive scale (child poverty, incarceration, violence, abuse, exploitation, neglect, etc.).

rebecca adami uses the concept of childism to analyze adult resistance to actually implementing children’s rights: prejudice against children gets translated into laws, policies, and practices that deny basic freedoms and normalize their subordination. just like a racist can say “i don’t want to see black people getting hurt” while supporting policies that harm them — an adult who “hates children” is, in practice, feeding the cultural climate that makes violence against children thinkable, justifiable, or dismissed.

adami also shows that childism helps us understand how children are exposed to “prejudices, negative attitudes and discriminatory structures in society” — and how this connects to the weak implementation of the un convention on the rights of the child.

the old idea that “children are just mini adults” has been challenged by childhood sociology, and children are now recognized as rights-bearing subjects who deserve to be heard and respected in their choices.

claiming it’s “fine to dislike and/or hate children” means refusing them that status — putting them back in the position of nuisance, of “noisy things,” of objects. which is exactly what critical theory identifies as the core of adultism and childism.

madeline lane-mckinley argues we live in a world that is “deeply against children,” where they’re treated as extensions of the family, the state, or capital — not as autonomous people. she also talks about “adult supremacy” and proposes a politics of solidarity with children, understanding them as comrades in the fight for a better future.

lane-mckinley also points out that the figure of the child has historically been weaponized in service of white supremacy, empire, and political projects that decide which children deserve protection — and which ones can be abandoned to poverty, war, forced migration.

in other words, discourses of hatred and contempt for children participate in the symbolic economy that makes some children’s lives more exposed to violence.

and finally — in ethical and political terms, there is no way to separate “hating” (or “disliking”) children from passive participation in structures that authorize harm against them.

the only position that’s coherent with children’s rights and with critiques of childism is to let go of that hatred and commit to recognition, listening, and active solidarity.

Translation: Parents aren’t making the conscious effort to help their children develop necessary skills and letting iPads raise them.

even if we ignore the fact that this isn't citing an actual study (or even citing the video citing the study), and all the longstanding problems with fMRI studies in general, and the comparison between children and dogs... what is the implicit call to action here? to shame parents into parenting better?

the solution to child neglect of any kind is to build better care structures beyond the family & enable youth autonomy. every single time. it is not enough to point fingers at parents when young people are structurally excluded from public life. we have to actually do the work.

taps the sign:

And you ESPECIALLY have to take into account the invention of writing (Maya scripts) and proto-writing in the Americas. These were created completely differently from other writing systems, sometimes radically differently (Andean quipus). You cannot ignore them.

i've spent years at this point working to hold the police department of a large US city accountable for it's terrorism of black communities and its murder of black people and any challenge any lawsuit any settlement agreement any reform is absorbed and reconfigured to ratchet up the violence the terrorism and the murder.

my (well founded) cynicism extends to legal recognition of transgender status and identity. legal recognition of identity in the US began basically with chattel slavery and evolved through reconstruction jim crow etc. the pseudoscience of race was reified and distance was placed between it and the legal protection of whiteness and white supremacy. the expectations of white people in white supremacy are deeply encoded in all our laws and protected and extended into the future. the expectations and comforts of white people depend on continued subjugation of everyone not white.

cisness works much the same (in large part because it is co-constitutive with whiteness). the legal recognition of cisness supports white supremacy and relies on the legal recognition of transness. there is not a world here that includes all of us. you can get close to using and enjoying the benefits of cisness, the benefits of whiteness, but it will always come at some expense. and included in that expense is everyone regarded as beneath you, more distant from cisness and whiteness, by the law.

seeking out legal recognition and protection of your transness puts you in a position where you depend on that legal distinction for the law's protection.