Conversation

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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Replying to
(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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