starting to suspect that in a functional human community kids should mostly be being taken care of by older kids
Conversation
meh, I don't actually agree with that. taking care of young kids is a lot of effort, and teens are both in need of their own social development and also just aren't responsible enough (and if they are, something went wrong)
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I think kids that are interested in helping take care of other kids should have the chance to do so. But even without school, there's so much knowledge out there, and teenage years are kind of a hormonal mess, and teens don't have good judgement yet. Let them explore & be sneaky
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i honestly don't buy this. i think a lot of the cultural conception of teenagers (especially the bit about "hormones") is an artifact of how powerless we make them and that they would shape up tremendously if given appropriate amounts of power and responsibility
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my transition started at 28 and for like 2 years all of my emotions got fucked up again, which took a while to wrangle, and people got hurt in the progress... and that's second puberty in my late 20s.
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agh there's a thing i keep trying and failing to communicate in this conversation, like...
i think children are very crippled by the way we treat them, and observing their strengths and weaknesses *post-crippling* is *not an accurate gauge of what they're really capable of*
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I agree, but I don't think it leads to "kids are actually responsible and well behaved". We trap them in a weird cycle, and some of the rebellion is from that; but outside of that I think kids have to make mistakes to find what works. maybe better not around younger kids.
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obviously I wasn't a teen in my late 20s and I had done a lot of healing already just to come out and in the years after that. But my social profile changed, hormonal changes drift you emotionally, and I made mistakes once again.
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older kids automatically have power over younger kids. they're stronger physically, young kids look up to old kids. power needs wisdom to wield correctly. wisdom needs practice, practice, mistakes.
I think it helps to have a larger group, but having an adult in the mix is good
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i just don't think older kids would fuck it up more than teachers and whoever runs daycares are already
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i agree that teachers are fucking it up A LOT but ime adults at least have some distance/lower stakes
too easy for kids to get drunk off power + hurt younger kids to make themselves feel bigger; not enough perspective + younger can't fight back
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what i'm tryna say is: power imbalance inherent in taking care of someone younger/weaker
this power is easily abused. by adults in school! but also by older kids
need to make sure this abuse doesn't happen: treat those in our care like equals - like actual human beings
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You have a lot of tweets about childcare and education. Have you tried putting any into practice? (Not even in a high stakes way, but trying stuff is a good way to learn and nuance your views, right? Like volunteering at a daycare?)
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