Artemis

So apparently today the thing that has me screaming is living in a society built on hurting kids.

Not just child sexual abuse.

Every kind of harm & exploitation.

Why am I not having kids? Well, one reason is that I feel like there are plenty of kids in the world *already* for me to worry about, & there will always be more.

8:50pmWeb
Show threadArtemis6h ago

Maybe this is part of what upsets the right wing folks when childless people are concerned about the welfare of kids.

You're not supposed to worry about "other people's kids" (otherwise known as human beings with their own rights).

At BEST you're only supposed to worry about your kids, but even then, you're supposed to worry about competing for things, not their fucking well-being as individuals.

You're not supposed to look at a child & see a person. You're supposed to see *property*.

Show threadArtemis6h ago

A childless adult concerned about the rights & needs of children has no "skin in the game" in their minds. If you *aren't* a child, & you don't have children of your own, then how does it affect you if children are suffering?

It does actually affect me in a number of ways, but even if it didn't, what the fuck? Is the question they are asking "why do you care about human beings?" or is it "why do you think children are human beings?"

Trick question! It's both.

Show threadArtemis6h ago

But goddamn. Hurting kids is just so fucking NORMAL in our world, & it has to stop.

We don't need age verification online (a surveillance ploy). We need to stop normalizing the abuse & exploitation of children in every area of life & culture.

Keeping a kid off the Internet doesn't fucking protect them from the predatory adults around them. In fact, it may make them more vulnerable than ever.

Show threadArtemis6h ago

I mean, I love my parents & I know they have always loved me, so how tf were they so convinced that they needed to *"break my will"* as a child?

Because breaking a child's will is just what you do, that's why! You break them down. You teach them their "no" means nothing. You teach them they aren't even allowed to say "no". You punish every act of independence & forbid their anger. You demand that they always obey & "respect" adults without question.

You know, normal, healthy shit.

Show threadHannu5h ago

@artemis

oozing with sarcasm I hope lol.

I despise parental abuse & coercive power imbalances just "cuz".

And don't have a relationship with my parents for solid reasons related to this.

Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   5h ago
@artemis Yeah... Also known as brainwashing. Seriously. That shit comes straight out of Soviet spy manuals.
Show threadDaniel Lakeland5h ago

@artemis

I'm sorry that this happened to you. or to any kid. It wasn't my experience. And I made sure it wasn't my kids experience. I consciously constantly give my kids the agency that was appropriate to their developmental level. Interestingly I also got heavily into dog "training" methods that also are all about the dog's agency. You can kind of look at the two main dog "training" methods and see that raising kids mirrors those two ideas. I do scare quotes around "training"

Show threadDaniel Lakeland5h ago

@artemis

Because the view of those in the positive reinforcement + agency side is really that it's more like dog relationship building. Yes there's learning going on, but it's really important that the dog *trusts* you and wants to be with you.

Same for kids really. And broken in the same ways for dogs and kids. The whole "breaking down" and brainwashing and creating learned helplessness thing is right there in the dog training manuals for the other side.

Show threadDaniel Lakeland5h ago

@artemis

In fact, it'd be a great thing to write an explicitly Anarchist dog training manual, and teach people about human Anarchy ideas through dog training.

Show threadArtemis5h ago
@dlakelan
Ok, yes, I'm into this.
Show threadDaniel Lakeland5h ago
@artemis
Wouldn't that be a great book? Such a good way to bring those ideas to people. And there are plenty of people who feel more authentic and loving towards their dogs compared to their broken relationships with humanity. Empathy for dogs is way easier for people, because it is "safer"
Show threadDaniel Lakeland5h ago
@artemis
And once you learn to interact with dogs while accepting their agency and authentically caring for them, its so much easier to imagine how that would work for a partner or a child or your friends or coworkers etc.
Show threadlizzzzard5h ago
@dlakelan @artemis I'd take recommendations on explicitly anarchist parenting strategies, too.
Show threadCorvid Crone4h ago

@lizzard @dlakelan @artemis

Disclaimer: I am a former child but have none of my own.

If you can't explain a rule, the rule doesn't need to exist.

My mom explained rules to me as choices with consequences.

Staying up late means more stress tomorrow

Show threadDaniel Lakeland4h ago
@lizzard
i dont have any book recommendations or anything, but a few things ive done. if my kids want something I have always encouraged them to negotiate about it. say what they want, why they want it etc. Also when I want them to do something I usually make it about participation in cooperative family dynamics, not a "rule". so, if I want them to unload dishwasher its so that I can load the dishwasher and then run it before its too late to use the dishes for dinner
@artemis
Show threadDaniel Lakeland4h ago
@lizzard
I take them to help do shopping and things, and teach them about how to shop for cost effective things, budgeting, and making tradeoffs between different options. They are almost 15 and 16 now. they have access to a bank account and a debit card, they sometimes use it to do stuff for the family and get paid back. They have never had strict bedtimes or things but they learn to make conscious decisions about what's wisein terms of staying up and being tired later etc.
@artemis
Show threadDaniel Lakeland4h ago
@lizzard
When I encourage them to consider the way social things affect them I make it explicit where I dont agree with systems but still think those systems could harm them... grades, rules about behavior at school, laws to control children, etc... i tell them that even if I dont agree with those things sometimes they may be better off being aware of them and choosing to go along with them, and other times they may choose to break those rules.
@artemis
Show threadCorvid Crone4h ago

@dlakelan @artemis

The difference is that you're raising a dog, not training them. Same with kids. You have to raise them as independent creatures capable of making positive choices on their own.

I like the idea, but I think "Raising Dogs" is a better phrase than dog training.

Show threadDaniel Lakeland4h ago
@CorvidCrone
You gotta meet people where they are though. when they BUY the book they'll be looking for dog training, after they read the book, they'll think of it differently.
@artemis
Show threadArtemis5h ago

@dlakelan
Yes! When I got my dog, I started looking up how to train her, & I was pretty sickened by the Cesar Milan style stuff. I was thinking "I'm getting this dog for companionship, not to have something I can control!"

Fortunately, yeah, there are alternative approaches.

Show threadDaniel Lakeland5h ago

@artemis

I honestly think that going through all that dog training literature paved the way to me identifying as Anarchist. along with some very useful posts by @HeavenlyPossum

Show threadatopoeia-o5h ago
@artemis For years I told them if they didn't shape up I'd send them to military school. Then later suggested if they didn't get their act together with college that they might make good marines.

's working so far.
Show threadLord Caramac the Clueless, KSC5h ago
@artemis Fortunately, I didn't grow up with parents like that. My parents never tried to force me to obey them (and I'm very stubborn; if I absolutely don't want to do something, nobody is going to make me do it). I was born in 1975 in West Germany, and my parents believed in anti-authoritarian education.
Show thread🔥Cassandra🔥5h ago

@artemis I got this too. I had in recent years assumed it was because of the autism - all my differences assumed to be malevolence - but maybe it’s most kids now.

A conversation I've broached a couple times with parents is when they get a bit snippy about their kids’ attitude. Like kids these days should be more grateful and hard-working or whatever. Look at the fucking world! How do you expect kids to be 1950s teenagers in this!

Show threadsecretsloth6h ago
@artemis I've spent a lot of time being emotional support for kids who didn't have a "safe adult" in real life. Usually they met my kid first and my kid brought them to me, like, here, my mom is your mom now. And that connection was important to a lot of those young people, even if it was only for a short time. Teachers are no longer able to provide that like they used to be, nor are neighbors. The whole "parents' rights" bs has seen to that. Young people now have so few options.
Show threadsecretsloth5h ago
@artemis making that pool even smaller does not help them. I am really worried for them. Not all parents are good parents, not all parents are stable, and even then, not all kids are able to trust their parents with certain things, or want to worry their parents, for a number of reasons. It's not right for young people to be so unsupported. 😔 the majority of adults are not creeps. Kids need role models and people they can trust if something goes wrong. I just. Am so sorry.
Show threadMorgan ⚧️5h ago
@secretsloth @artemis yes on all of this. Up to 2 adults that a kid can kinda sorta trust are not enough, even if those 2 adults trustworthy--for example, I've seen external child abusers use scripts to avoid parental intervention, and I imagine it's easier to convince a kid not to tell the one or two people in charge of disciplining the kid than to convince them not to talk to anyone about it
Show threadsecretsloth4h ago
@raphaelmorgan @artemis yep. Exactly. And sometimes kids need to bounce ideas off of someone who is just *not a parent,* for whatever reason, not for dodgy reasons, sometimes it's just embarrassing or they have a problem with a friend whose parents are best friends with their parents or they aren't sure how to approach their parents about something and they need help with adult to adult language. Or, as you say, an adult can help them recognize abuse or unhealthy relationships.
Show threadArtemis5h ago

@secretsloth
💜

It's so beautiful when you can give someone the kindness & support that is lacking in their lives. And being an adult that kids *genuinely* see as safe is no small feat when they aren't accustomed to feeling safe.

Show threadsecretsloth5h ago
@artemis it's something I didn't have, so I know the value of it. But with the age verification and all, I'm seriously worried that it will be harder for them to reach me at all. Now that my kid is grown, I usually meet them by chance, and that'd be much less likely because many would be gated off, but also, as you say, surveillance. 😒 folks nowadays assume bad things if an adult is spending time with young people, especially queer young folks. I feel like that's part of the point.
Show threadTofu Golem6h ago
@artemis
The attitudes of conservatives show that they only care about their OWN children, and not the well-being of society in general, which in turn shows that they are not fit to participate in society.
Show threadCorvid Crone5h ago

@artemis you know, what really gets to me is that all these adults who are demanding age verification for the Internet are the ones who grew up without it and think they turned out normal.

You know, the kids who knew where the forbidden porn mags were hidden in the woods.

Show threadMorgan ⚧️5h ago
@artemis I keep saying, if they want to stop kids from getting groomed online, they could start with implementing any sort of repercussions for the people who have been openly grooming kids online while knowing full well that the child was a child and not covering their tracks whatsoever. They could even give kids education on what to do when encountering an adult online who wants a sexual relationship. Either could've helped me, and could actually help kids now. Restricting their autonomy won't
Show threadLeeloo5h ago

@artemis
The number of times I've said that you shouldn't beat up children, and that doing so only teaches them that violence is how to solve problems, only to be asked "do you have any children?"

No, but I remember being one. Unlike every freaking adult around me, who grew fully formed out of stone like a LOTR dwarf, apparently.

Show threadLJ6h ago
@artemis that is terrifying. And far too accurate. I do have kids. They are grown now & on their own. And i still care about all the children coping with the shit show out there & want them to grow up healthy & safe.
Show threadLaurent Bercot5h ago
@artemis 'Would I leave Omelas? No, I think I'd be nuking that bitch on day one."
Show threadLord Caramac the Clueless, KSC5h ago

@artemis I haven't got any children because I haven't got enough hope in the future of humankind. We're headed for the biggest civilisational collapse ever, and everyone who wanted to know always knew, at least after 1972 when the Club of Rome published Limits to Growth. I was born in 1975, and I became a science nerd as soon as I could read. In 1983 by the age of 8, I was well aware of the looming polycrisis towards which our civilisation was rushing at ever increasing speed. By the age of 15, I absolutely expected to see the beginning of the collapse in my lifetime. I'm 51 now, and I can see the signs of beginning collapse all over the world.

I have always been a weak and sickly person. Without modern medicine, I wouldn't have made it to my fifth birthday. It's not like I have any kind of chronical illness, I'm just a skinny person with a less than average immune system, so every infection hits me a little bit harder than most people. People like me still have a good chance of living a decent and long life within this modern civilisation, but I wouldn't last very long without it. Why should I have any children if I expect this civilisation to fail, to decline, to crumble to dust, rather soon? If I had any offspring, their chances of survival would probably be worse than average.

Show threadatopoeia-o5h ago
@LordCaramac @artemis China's going to be down to 500 million by 2100 unless you're assuming cloning will become popular or so.

Africa will likely inherit the world due to lack of interest in civilization continuance in the west.
Show threadLord Caramac the Clueless, KSC5h ago
@nom @artemis I suppose our numbers will plummet in the second half of this century due to multidimensional ecological breakdown (climate chaos, pollution, environmental destruction, species extinction, etc.), and it doesn't matter who survives, where they come from, what remains of the human population will be moving all over the planet since so much land will become uninhabitable. No currently existing civilisation will survive the coming chaos, but if our species manages to survive, there may be new civilisations in the future. Then again, maybe the age of civilisation (the Holocene) is over, and future humans will just be a bunch of simple tribes like in Palaeolithic times.
Show threadLord Caramac the Clueless, KSC5h ago
@nom @artemis Besides, I think our entire Western civilisation is fundamentally wrong in so many ways that it cannot continue very much longer, it will inevitably collapse rather soon, and it _shouldn't_ even continue if it could. Our entire way of thinking about the world and our place in it as humans is completely bonkers and leads to all kinds of ecologically unsustainable behaviour. We don't understand that we are but upright walking storytelling apes, and that we are just part of the fauna like all other animals. We don't live in our ecosystems as part of the local ecosystem, we live in our artificial bubble worlds outside the real living world. We have been brainwashed by Christianity, a religion more concerned about a fictitious afterlife than about being a living, breathing, eating, drinking, dancing, singing, fucking, and eventually dying, part of the biosphere. We aren't here for any specific purpose other than to be alive, just like the ants and the moss beneath our feet, like the trees and the birds and the mushrooms and the fish and the beetles and everything else. By moving away from the living world into highly artificial surroundings, we forget that we aren't the masters of this world but just a bunch of extremely clever upright apes with big swollen mutant brains.
Show threadMaxtux4h ago
@nom @LordCaramac @artemis
Vediamo solo la popolazione dell'Africa...non le ricchezze che prima noi europei abbiamo razziato, e che poi cina e Russia hanno continuato.
USA? Beh. Credo che non sarà difficile fare scoppiare le guerre..
Show threadatopoeia-o3h ago
@Maxtux @LordCaramac @artemis Thanks for Moto Guzzi! (an attempt to reply with a kind comment)