Sine
@sinea
24 okur puanı
Ocak 2021 tarihinde katıldı
0-30p: Kontrollü okuyucu 📖
40-70p: Hafif bağımlı 👀
80p+: Geçmiş olsun, kitaplar seni ele geçirmiş 😅
As adults, habitually seeking to control children’s bodies can be so ingrained in us that we don’t even really notice it. This might look like a teacher insisting on ‘eyes on me’, a parent pushing their child to take ‘one more bite’, or a gallery assistant telling children to be quiet in an exhibit.
Starting to pay attention to these moments — and asking ourselves how it would feel for us if our bosses were asking us to sit ‘criss-cross apple sauce’ when we had a team meeting, or if we’d enjoy it if our partner told us we were only allowed to eat one biscuit — can help us to pay attention to what is truly needed, such as stopping children rushing into a busy road, and which is more of an ingrained habit that reinforces adultist power dynamics.
Like other forms of discrimination, adultism is a structural issue. This means it goes deeper than individual action (though individuals still have a responsibility to tackle adultism), with discrimination embedded in social structures, systems, and institutions, and often passed down from generation to generation. However, adultism also occupies a unique space as all adults were once children, and most children will become adults; children generally move from the oppressed class into the oppressing one as they move into adulthood.
Children are often spoken about as a problem to solve, as if they are disruptive to adult life, particularly in conversations about childcare. Many of us live in societies where having a child does make life harder, with inadequate support for parents and a lack of social networks with whom to share the work of parenting. But our focus and criticism should lie squarely with these systems, not on children themselves.