Rosie Wench's Cottage

If you think "children should not be allowed in this space," you HAVE TO reckon with the fact that you are now excluding parents (and very often women specifically) who don't have access to childcare. You are isolating people who are poor, or rural, or single parents, or any number of other factors that might prevent someone from having on-demand childcare. You are cutting them off from being able to exist in public. You are denying parents and children the ability to fully participate in society.

My mom spent several years only leaving the house to buy groceries or take me to school, and even then, people would still come up to her to complain TO HER FACE about how she shouldn't bring a crying toddler to Walmart. Entitled strangers would literally try and demand that my mom leave and come back without the kids.

"Why can't your husband watch them?" Because he was at work, usually working extreme amounts of overtime so we didn't get evicted, because landlords don't like it when you stop paying rent.

"Why can't you send them to daycare?" Because that costs money.

"Why can't your teenager stay home with them and babysit?" Because I also deserved to be able to leave the house for something other than school, and taking me to the grocery store was how my mom taught me to manage a household budget, shop sales, and meal plan.

"Don't bring your kid in public if you can't CONTROL them and make them stop crying!" Kids cry when they're upset, and being dragged around a store is upsetting! Don't be an asshole! Children are human beings who are still learning how the world works, and they don't have a lot of agency. You'd cry, too.

"Spank them until they learn to stop crying!" That's just straight-up child abuse, Jesus Christ.

I have blocked multiple people who went on tirades about how I'm a "horrible breeder" who is "contributing to overpopulation" and how I and my "spawn" deserve to be trapped at home. (I am infertile and my foster kid is an adult now, so I don't know what breeding and spawn they think they're talking about.)

One person asked if I was posting ragebait for fun because "this isn't a real issue." Several have asked if this "really happens" and told me that my "experience isn't universal." (There are multiple parents in the comments who have agreed with me and talked about how hard it is to navigate the world with their kids.)

Children are an oppressed class who are treated like absolute vermin. Parents are given absolutely no support in caring for them. Good parents are set at a disadvantage even when they have all the best intentions, struggling parents aren't given resources to improve their situation or get community assistance, and blatantly abusive parents don't get caught because hitting and screaming and controlling are considered perfectly normal ways to treat a child. Communities would rather shut kids away where they can be ignored and forgotten and mistreated, all for the sin of "being annoying in public."

Youth liberation is vital, regardless of whether you, personally, like kids. You cannot ban children from public. You cannot shut children away in isolation and expect them to grow into happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults who can function in our society. You do not get to demand children be removed from every corner of public life all for your personal comfort.

For children to learn the right way to behave in public places, then shock horror, parents need to bring children to public places.

Babies are going to cry. It's their only way to communicate. And speaking from experience. If mum could have left baby with someone, then she would have.

Toddlers are in the process of that very long and tough lesson, learning how to manage emotions. Tantrums are going to happen. They're par for the course.

And experience here again. Sometimes the best thing to do, is to take a step away, and let it blow itself out. Tantrums are exhausting.

If we try to fight it, it just adds fuel. Better to remain close but unengaged and the child tires soon enough, now ready for that reassuring hug from loving arms.

I've seen follow mums and dads doing this. And they have nothing but my support. To my mind they're giving their little ones what they need.

And it seems like it’s actually making some people here wake up and go “hey, maybe our country is pretty cool after all.”

I'm delighted to see that many people from Our Side of The Pond are getting to experience The USA that you all Love.

We too often only hear what The News wants us to. And we all know how that goes. 🙄

I can only speak for Britain, specifically England.

But "let's name our project a very deceptive name that sounds extreme and simple, and then condescend to people when they ask what is up with that" is the very definition of a political own goal.

Currently in the UK the College of Policing are a most unfunny joke, making policing on the streets even more so.

But. Policing done the right way, tough but fair, is definitely preferable. And I'd happily have more of the 'Bobbies On The Beat' so prevalent in my youth.

That being said. When it comes to those who commit the worst of crimes, surely they have to be taken off the streets?

This is not to deny that they're fellow human beings, because they are. But we have to look at what constitutes a civilised society, and neither murder, rape not armed robbery qualify.

Law is not morality. Law can simply say what we as a society will and will not tolerate.

In general the cultural mores of Western Nations have sprung from Christianity and/or its Jewish Roots.

An aversion to murder, rape and armed robbery have come to our consciousness via Christianity and/or its Jewish Roots.

Raw Human Nature finds these horrendous crimes way too easy to commit. We needed these cultural mores, based on Something Higher Than Ourselves, to remind us that they are inspired by Evil and to be avoided.

On the back of this, our laws have put heavy penalties on these crimes.

For most of us, the moral wrongness is enough.

But when there are those who will ignore both the moral wrongness and the potential penalties of law, to go out and commit these crimes.

With underage children and teens, we're responsible for their well being and standards of behaviour.

Boundaries can regard safety and they can regard right and wrong/courtesy.

I promised myself that when I expected my boys to do something or not to do it, then I'd make sure they knew why.

But there are situations where we can allow our children and teens to make their own choices, and there they should be free to do so.

Notes: I love the way certain tents look on the inside; the tiny space is so nostalgic and comforting<3