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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My parents had rough childhood (early post-WWII), so they tried to create the best possible childhood for me. I had absolute liberty, respect, no chores etc. It really fucked me up and I had to fix my ego for decades. "Damned if you do damned if you don't" sort of thing I guess.
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Huge ego, no empathy skills, really crippled real world skills. My brother is the same way, so there's a good chance that our upbringing played a role. I got better eventually, and obv I wasn't as fucked up as those who had abusive childhood, but still...
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Basically all I'm saying is that love and respect is a good start, but without a careful counterbalance of "tough love" there's no guarantee of a healthy outcome.
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I'm not sure how your childhood was and i don't mean to assume, but i have a conception of an overly liberal childhood where ppl interpret freedom to mean 'no boundaries,' like kids get to do what they want *regardless of impact on others* and this seems obvs v bad
my conception of good parenting i assume is something close to the way you treat adults? If an adult screamed at you in the middle of the street you'd probably walk away or take steps to make sure that couldn't happen again, seems reasonable to do that for a kid
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