Parent's Can Be Bullies, Too.

Just like the customer ain't always right...parents ain't always right.

What are we even doing if we're not questioning and dismantling the dominant ways in which we relate and raise children?

Children are not our props. They do not hold our hopes and dreams, they are not responsible for our unhealed anything, and they don't deserve our wrath.

And I say all this as a mother who is not perfect and does not strive to be. Motherhood and mothering have eaten me alive more times than I can count. But I do know that while there isn't a perfect way to parent, some of the ways of parenting that have become normalized involve seeing and treating our children as property.

As a society, we have normalized not allowing our children to have boundaries, we have normalized violence against our children, and we have normalized treating our children as disposable. I'm not above any of this because I'm mothering inside the same systems as everyone else, but I've been thinking a lot lately about how we're okay with disrespecting and harming children, and then we're confused when we have a society of unwell people.

Of course, there are layers here, but damn collectively, we don't treat children well. And if we are really looking to create new ways of being and creating a society that is just and more humane, we need to make sure ALL children are well.

"Every hierarchy, every abuse, every act of domination that seeks to justify or excuse itself appeals through analogy to the rule of adults over children. We are all indoctrinated from birth in ways of 'because I said so.' The flags of supposed experience, benevolence, and familial obligation are the first of many paraded through our lives to celebrate the suppression of our agency, the dismissal of our desires, the reduction of our personhood. Our whole world is caught in a cycle of abuse, largely unexamined and unnamed. And at its root lies our dehumanisation of children."
- from the book “NO! Against Adult Supremacy”