I think most of my issues from my childhood stem from parents treating me like a thing they're supposed to make obey them as opposed to a real person with preferences that matter
but like, this seems to be the societal default for all parenting, not just mine
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sure, some of what kids want will directly harm them and we should prevent it, like not letting them run into streets, but a lot of them is harm we've *made up* to justify our attempts mold their brains into what we think they should be.
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i vividly remember as a kid thinking that adults didn't seem to treat me like a person, like my experience and feelings didn't actually matter. i was terrified about growing up, cause i knew they all used to be kids once, but *they* forgot, so that meant i was going to forget too
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i remember being really young and trying to scream to my future self I AM REAL AND THIS MATTERS. I carefully preserved that memory as i aged, repeating it dutifully, reviewing the message with the respectful importance I'd initially imbued it with, as i passed it to my adult self
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for most of us, childhood is just adults smashing down your autonomy in so many unnecessary ways. i've always felt parenting reveals the core of someone, is when you get to see what people are like when they are granted absolute power over another human being
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(this is one reason why i feel uninterested in reconnecting with my dad; he might be acting nicer now, but i got to see who he was when he had power over me. it's made it starkly clear that any respect he affords me now is *only* because he can't control me)
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(did ur parents really get nicer as u aged or did they just start treating u better cause they no longer have absolute power?)
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ngl i think im gonna be a pretty decent parent based on the sheer fact that i have spent a lot of time carefully making sure i didn't forget what it was like to be a kid
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Same. There is a way out of the infinite regress of justified authority, though:
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