Bavarian Sugar Cookie

i've made a home for us. will you learn to play with me?

I genuinely believe the stringent age-based separation most of us are experiencing is one of the single most destructive forces in our society. you need to interact with people of all ages regularly or you start to get all "think of the children" and "parent's rights" and fucking "11 year olds can't comprehend basic ratios". or, worse and frankly way more common for leftists, "I hate kids they're so annoying" or "kids are fine I just never want to interact with them if I can help it".

They are people. they have complex thoughts and emotions and knowledge. they are aware of the political goings on in the world, and they think deeply and talk frequently about the issues that impact you (often because those issues impact them as well, but often even when they don't!). they share space with you in your communities, locally and online, whether you're aware of them or think of them as part of your communities or not.

you need to talk to them regularly so you can remember that they are people, the ways in which they are people, the kinds of people they are, the needs they have, and how to advocate for them in a society that increasingly flattens them to varying sizes of toddler. or, if nothing else, so you can share your communities with them instead of expecting them to take what they can get and fit themselves in however makes you, personally, most comfortable.

Filippo Palizzi (Italian painter 1818–1899)

Excavations in Pompeii, 1870

Oil on Canvas

119.5 × 86 cm.