I'm still thinking about the Can Opener Dad and the viral response the thread got online and how badly he handled it by digging in The one material fact that made the story unacceptable to most people was the six hours, and the thing is he stuck to it
-
-
When you have power and privilege over someone else, you don't always know the harm you're doing at the time People will lie to you and hide their feelings to keep things going smooth even when you're doing something 99% of observers would agree is objectively fucked up
Show this thread -
That's the responsibility that comes with having power And it's almost impossible to have more power over another person than you do when you're a parent and they're a child You have to "play it safe"
Show this thread -
You can't "go as far" with kids when it comes to joking around and playing with their feelings and fucking with their heads as you might think is safe to do when you're interacting with friends as peers Any more than you can tackle a kid as hard as an adult when playing football
Show this thread -
I mean, like Say he's absolutely right and his daughter right now thinks everything is fine and "That's just how me and my dad are" and that "You know I was unhappy a lot of the time yesterday but in the end I felt like it was all worth it" She has the right to change her mind
Show this thread -
This happens ALL THE TIME Kids ALMOST ALWAYS defend their parents, no matter what the fucked up thing was, while they're still under the parents' roof and only change their POV later on with more context That's almost what it MEANS to be a kid, that you don't have context
Show this thread -
That's what we mean when we say kids are incompetent to consent, that they don't understand enough about themselves and the world yet, they don't have enough freedom yet, to be able to interact with adults on an equal basis
Show this thread -
The people who chimed in to defend Beans Dad going "Okay well kids' brains aren't fully developed and they need grownups to supervise them to make sure they learn and grow" THAT'S EXACTLY WHY THIS IS FUCKED UP
Show this thread -
If this were him interacting with someone as an equal -- if this were his spouse or his best friend or something -- then it wouldn't be quite as fucked up A lot of AITA readers would still go "YTA" and "You sound abusive and she sounds codependent", but it'd be less intense
Show this thread -
Like let's imagine she came out right now and wrote her own post saying "You all need to leave John alone, I don't actually mind this crap from him, he knows I go along with it willingly" It matters A LOT whether this is his 40-year-old wife or his 9-year-old daughter talking
Show this thread -
His wife, presumably, actually would be implicitly consenting We would all know that it wouldn't actually be the case that she wasn't "allowed" to eat, that she was buying into the game, that if she really felt like she was being bullied she could walk out and buy lunch herself
Show this thread -
(Life is, unfortunately, more complicated than that and this isn't actually always true in abusive relationships among adults But if she came out and said "This wasn't abuse, this was consensual banter" it would have a much higher chance of being true)
Show this thread -
Like okay I'm gonna go there David Bowie's famous scandal where he had sex with a 14-year-old and 15-year-old girl The two girls in question -- now women in their 60s -- adamantly deny that what happened was rape or abuse, they say Bowie was an awesome guy who treated them well
Show this thread -
That's as may be They are, as adults, entitled to their own memories and their own account of events But even if everything they say is completely true... all that means is that Bowie took a wildly dangerous risk and "got away with it" That doesn't make it at all okay
Show this thread -
This is what they call the "problem of moral luck" -- "no harm, no foul" is a shitty way to judge morality
Show this thread -
If I get drunk and throw a Molotov cocktali at someone's house and burn it down and the homeowner says "Hey, good news! This place was an unsellable dump and now I can collect on the insurance! You did me a favor!" it doesn't mean I did something morally acceptable
Show this thread -
You can't go around fucking throwing Molotov cocktails at people's houses and just hope that maybe they all belong to people who actually want their houses burned down
Show this thread -
You can't go around taking advantage of kids for sexual pleasure and hope they all grow up to still say they had a great time and nothing bad happened till the day they die The evidence that it doesn't usually work out that way is far too common to claim you weren't aware of it
Show this thread -
And no, this isn't as extreme as having sex with a child, okay, I'm deliberately using the most extreme possible example But that's the general response to adults arguing that you're demanding they "coddle" kids and act "too careful" with them You HAVE to be careful
Show this thread -
Maybe all the adults who argue that they were spanked regularly as kids and "turned out fine" are telling the truth (I don't see much evidence that they turned out all that great, but whatever) So what if you're fine Plenty of people AREN'T fine
Show this thread -
"I, personally, turned out fine" is not an argument for anything It's pure mindless narcissism "Well I don't ever wear a seatbelt and I've never died in a wreck" "I didn't get my shots and I never got measles" "I don't wear a mask and I've never tested positive for COVID-19"
Show this thread -
I mean, shit, look, if you and your spouse have these weird little challenges with each other where you don't eat until you've finished solving some kind of puzzle, whatever You're adults, that's your kink or whatever you wanna call it, you know the risks (RACK, as they say)
Show this thread -
If *two kids* do this with each other, I think it's the kind of thing where an adult, reasonably, should step in and say "Hey this is unhealthy" Fuck if I do this to *myself* I think most normal people would say it's your parents' job to remind you that it's unhealthy
Show this thread -
I mean shit that was literally me Left to my own devices I could easily play the same video game for 14 hours in a row with no breaks until I physically pass out Or spend that time arguing online, or frantically writing some essay, or going down a rabbit hole reading links
Show this thread -
(I was gonna try to make this less of a 21st-century digital boy thing by saying "reading a book" but let's be real there's no single book that would take me 14 hours to read straight through And that's a humblebrag)
Show this thread -
And you know what, it was my mom and dad's job to say "Hey, Arthur, you've been doing this a long time without a break, you need to take care of your body, come down and eat dinner"
Show this thread -
(I wish they had done this with a better understanding of ADHD as a form of neurodivergence and not a character flaw called "absent-mindedness", but they still did it and I appreciate them doing it)
Show this thread -
This is the exact opposite of that It's him forcing the objectively unhealthy behavior on someone who clearly *does not want to do it* and *didn't have the idea to do it* Like, Christ Would you be okay with a dad going "You're too sober, kid, you should join me in drinking"
Show this thread -
However badly I may treat my body now, as an adult, I would be pissed at a grownup in my past who *forced* his own maladaptive and unhealthy coping mechanisms onto me through some weird projection
Show this thread -
His original thread says that he personally feels like he's failed at "perseverance" in the past, that he's projecting this onto his daughter so she'll succeed where he failed, and she knows this and appreciates it Okay, I'm willing to believe all that It's still fucked up
Show this thread -
Of course I get what he means I'm the stereotypical guy who won't ask for directions either I know what it means to declare some meaningless task a matter of "honor" because you're running through all your life's past failures and you can't bear to fail one more time right now
Show this thread - Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.