@@otterystchocolat9071 I've just always found it weird how kids aren't worthy of the basic respect of a human being but an adult automatically deserves respect for being older. So dehumanizing and exactly why I was itching to turn 18.
I mean yeah, highschool teenagers don't get anything whatsoever in terms of liberties but it's not like adults get freedom either. No one gets freedom in the U.S., instead America, "the land of the free" cherrypicks freedom, they hear the argument of the Bill of Rights, that "We hold these rights to be inarguable," in other words the rights were not meant to be cherrypicked in any way and the 9th Amendment specifies this, designed to iron out the details but as usual with people they ignore what's layed down to them and cherrypick anyway. Address this problem, the problem as a whole instead of this needless abstract thinking about giving teenagers rights. Bring the rights back to the American people period
When I started public school I had a mental breakdown because I had never encountered adults who were as mentally unstable, aggressive and authoritarian as those teachers and staff were. I remember the mixture of condescension, narcissism and belligerence I faced, those people thought i was a wild horse that needed to be broken. I promised myself I would not forget what it was like to be a child, because I never wanted to be like those people.
The amount of emotional abuse and neglect I faced from teachers as a child, in both the Australian catholic school system and public school system, was unreal. I didn't end up getting a good teacher until I was 9, and even then most people don't get that. School should be focused on child development, instead we just get taught conformity.
Yes. Looking back now that I know much more I’m disappointed and i’m starting to see how horrible some of the teachers I liked/looked up to we’re. And now that I’m in high-school it’s really not any bad. Teachers just love to talk out of their ass then wonder why students talk shit about them. Oh for fucks sake..
This is doubly a problem for neurodivergent kids. You’re constantly gaslit, even if you have parents who try to be caring. You’re being rude, you’re talking back, your tone is wrong, you’re lying, etc. Asking questions means you’re stupid, but not understanding means you’re stupid, too. Talking back is disrespectful, but so is not answering. Lying is bad, but telling the truth gets you in trouble, too. It’s all the confusion and distress children are put through amplified by ten.
As fun as it is to be nostalgic, I wouldn't trade my autonomy as an adult for anything and it's so sad to me that we have to wait until 18 before getting the tiniest bit of freedom
@@andrewgodly5739 They do belief you have enough value as a person to make stealing from you, assaulting you, falsely detaining/imprisoning you, forcibly indoctrinating with someone else's religious beliefs, political beliefs (or any beliefs actually) and working without pay daily, illegal. At least you get protection from all those things, although you aren't protected from the psychological (often subconscious) effects which plenty don't realise are underneath all of their problems today, all of societies issues can be traced back to and find their origin in their mini-societies/the homes everyone in it comes from, seriously you can actually see the issues which leads to the other ones and see the causal connection even for bigger things like war. If the parenting ideologies and attitudes towards us all when young weren't how they are, it would all go away, also the way we're treated in youth has been 100% understood and shown to decrease empathy and altruism in people so any problems if they even did come up would get you a hell of a lot more help with those two things raised up exponentially.
Most adults are too srupid to appreciate their autonomy. They want kids to feel bad for wanting to grow up. Thays because our modern culture doesnt train people for adulthood. Theres no riyes of passage anymore.
I vividly remember being like 7 and running from my mother while she chased me with a belt because I didn't turn in my homework or something like that. However, the bare image of a child running from physical punishment due to a harmless action speaks a lot about the so called "normal" corporal punishment. It feels like all the times my siblings and I were beat by my parents was less about teaching right from wrong, but rather enforcing a strict behavior.
It's might makes right, as long as mom doesn't care about the food quality, my health doesn't matter. As long my dad has anger issues when addressing noncompliance, my sibling's mental health doesn't matter, what ever stupid shit any adult believes in, the truth doesn't matter and so on...
@@BL-sd2qwWhere/when did you grow up? Not even trying to be insulting, I'm just genuinely perplexed as to how you grew up thinking getting beat was some sort of ancient practice. I figured that was something mostly everyone went through
@@84updown Idk if you mean the country or if I grew up with loving parents. Cause I didn't grow up with loving parents; they are horrible and I'm not gonna go into details, but they wouldn't hit me or my brothers growing up.
corporal punishment should 100% be illegal worldwide and should not be perpetuated or normalized. would love to see a video about how the hierarchical relationship of the nuclear family influences this conversation
Even within very lefty discussion spaces tbh. There are many important things to talk about, but I think this issue really warrants a much higher ranking than it gets. The more children are indoctrinated into hierarchies growing up, the less likely they'll be to resist other power structures as an adult.
One thing that always got me was how, in American society, it's considered bad to hit your wife if she's being "too stubborn", but if you hit your kid for it, you're just being a parent. Or how, if you hit an adult without leaving a bruise, you can be charged with assault, but if you hit a kid and don't leave a bruise, that's legal in many areas. Not to mention the laws about marriage that people exploit. For example, in my area, a girl can be married at 16 to a legal adult if she has a parent's permission. I understand not wanting to let enter young people make a legally binding contract, but if that girl was two years older, her parents would not have the legal right to "give her away". I always feel a little silly when I say "ageism" because the first time I heard the word was in a "comedy" skit making fun of left-leaning people (who are upset about such silly (/s) things like racism and homophobia), but to be honest? It is real, and it hurts kids.
Well said. And "domestic" abuse only commonly refers to abuse between adults despite children being just as much a part of the domestic domain. That's not abuse, that's a kind of "punishment" /s
Great vid. Infantalization doesn't always go away at adulthood either. My mother still doesn't accept most of what I say, she twists it or ignores it, and it makes it really difficult to talk to her about anything serious.
My daughter has had many arguments with other parents about corporal "punishment". Their comeback is often: I got beat as a kid and I turned out alright. Her response "Except for thinking it's okay to beat your kid."
Honestly I'm more than a little jealous that you got to avoid public education. I went through the American public school system in an area that is considered to be among the best in the country and it absolutely sucked the life out of me. Starting all the way back in elementary, my entire life was dictated to me by school both inside its walls and out. Class after class after class followed by hours after hours after hours of homework turning virtually all of my time from age 5-18 into a strictly regimented timetable. It was a RELIEF going to college because all of a sudden my workload got cut into 1/4 and I had the autonomy to choose what to learn and how. And people suddenly took me seriously! Even though I was doing far easier work and far less of it, my feelings and criticisms were instantly valid because I passed some age threshold. I'm still working on deprogramming myself and unpacking all the baggage that was imposed on me through the years of schooling so it's great hearing someone talk about how society treats kids.
I went to very well-funded public schools that severely insulted my intelligence and generally bored the shit out of me (not to mention the fact that no one there gave a damn that I slept in school--a LOT. They could have asked questions and gotten to the fact that I was medically neglected by my parents, but nobody at my schools was paid to care.). People who promote the idea that some schools are good or great while others are bad ignore the fact that every single public school was designed and is run on the same industrial, dehumanizing model. They're all awful and they need to go.
@@meganbaker9116 THIS! No such thing as a good school. People need to understand this, it’s not just a problem limited to “bad staff” and “bad teachers” it’s the whole fucking institution. If you can understand that when it comes to ACAB you can understand this.
I'm 17 and about to go to university in September and it's a relief to see you say that you found college much more freeing than school. As I watched this video I was concerned that choosing to go to university would just be locking myself in the same rut as school, even though I really do enjoy learning about the subjects I'm interested in. Would you recommend going to university/college then?
@@clairesheldon4845 I really enjoyed my time at university though I only got a Bachelor's degree (can't afford more lol America). If you're used to taking hard classes in high school, college will be a huge step down because suddenly you have an 18 credit hour per week _maximum_ whereas high school was effectively 35 hours per week always. There'll also be a lot more classes to choose from to fulfill your gen ed requirements too unless you're going to a very small college.
When she was 12 my parents abandoned my sister in an airport for being 'ungrateful'. I lived in fear of the same happening to me and it's taken 30+ years to work the obedience fear out of myself. The only thing school taught me was that I didn't deserve to be loved. I was the school punching bag all the way to high school graduation. I have no positive feelings for childhood. And my experience, by technicality, "wasn't that bad".
Well it's ok to be bigoted towards the young, look online people instead of calling you stupid, call you "12" or some other low age number. Any bad behaviour is described as "childish" even if more adults did it than kids it still is, imagine if bad behaviour was described as "womanish" it's ok to say "I hate kids" and talk about how awful they are, everyone laughs but try doing that about any other non-content of character identity/group, there's videos online I know of which have been up for months calling for an end to violence against children (only people legal to be violent toward including violent, remorseless, criminals, they are protected) and in many months they have views in two digits meanwhile videos of parent's smashing their children's prized possessions and putting it up online with them screaming, crying and begging for mercy humiliating them forever, have MILLIONS of views with comment sections filled with laughter and people all saying they should have gotten worse and I love how that kid cried so hard/looked so stupid etc, Imagine any of our other "loving" relationships, friends, spouses, peers, hell even our enemies being received like that if we treated them that way? but it's only, exclusively the ones we care about protecting the most we (mis)treat that way? is it a good idea, generally speaking to expose children to pain and violence and public humiliation in the hopes of encouraging healthy emotional development and good behaviour? is there ANY doubt that there's an answer to this question? and that it matters?
@@discountchocolate4577 yes, when she was 19, homeless, and pregnant. She left with her son as soon as she was financially able to and I don't blame her. I left when I could, too, and never looked back.
I grew up in the deep American south, so I am intimately familiar with "the belt"! Being hit as a small child taught me only one thing. People just like to take out their anger on who can put up the least resistance, any semblance of "punishment" or "justice" is surface level at best. I can't remember, for the life of me, any of the things I did to get hit. But I sure remember the things that happened to my father, unrelated to me, that made him angry right before each time he hit me.
As someone who has grown up in an emotionally abusive household, this rings true on so many levels. It always surprised me how other kids acted with their parents - how openly physical they are or how they can naturally joke with each other. But with my Mom, I would be mocked or she would push my boundaries or tease me until I cried. Kids aren't property. They need their boundaries respected. If your kid starts crying when you "tease" maybe find a new way to tease.
Most parents are damaged and are unable or unwilling to see the pain they cause. They're projecting the horrors of their own childhood onto their children. It's a crime.
I'm a Malaysian of Chinese descent. All you said here about the home and how the "traditional nucleus family" views and treats children, is pretty much how Confucianism indoctrinates the Chinese diaspora here. Worse? We do it to ourselves and our own children. just found your channel, btw. binge watching all your vids. please keep up the good work!
Chinese survivor of child abuse here, I agree. I fucking hate Confucius and Confucianism so much for his finial piety and "respect your parents/elders" bullshit. I don't understand where Confucius gets all the credit for being so "wise." It's just dishonest, and it's no different from brainwashing kids to be religious without ever reading the entire sacred texts to them. Good to see folks like you calling out Confucius for his bullshit. We need more Chinese ppl like you
I know a few people who grew up in Malaysia (my best friend is Malaysian of Chinese descent) and apparently it's one of the worst places in the world for physical child abuse, as in even schools are allowed to use violence in that way, and domestic abuse was a big part of her childhood and trauma
Damn. You really hit the nail on the head. I seriously wish I could like this video twice, because it's all so TRUE. Especially as once I graduated from a private catholic high school, I had to deal with massive burnout and depression, (not to mention fight religious indoctrination and ableism) and it isn't until now (I've had a two month winter break) that I've actually been able to breathe and focus on what I want to do, especially as in general, college, while not the best, is still leagues better than high school.
@@Andrewism Oh my gosh, thank you!! Thankfully I've always known that I wanted to do some combination of activism and performing arts, which I've really been able to cultivate during this time!
Adults like to say “That’s Life” whenever kids have a problem with the way things are, then wonder why suicide rates in this generation are so high. Great work presenting this seemingly invisible issue, so many people need to hear this video.
It’s crazy to me how if you hit your spouse you can get charged with assault but if you hit your child it’s corporal punishment. I honestly think that “corporal punishment” rather then a means for teaching right from wrong is just an outlet for parents to let out anger and violence. They say it’s harmless but if it was surely I wouldn’t flinch anytime someone raised a hand? They say that it’s my fault that my parents had no other way to teach me but what were they teaching? Surely not good behaviour since I hardly remember what i got punished for rather the aftermath of it. And the few times i do remember it was over petty thing like closing the door too loudly or my phone running out of battery. No, corporal punishment (or better known as abuse) is just a means to let out parents anger that they cannot take out on adults because that would be uncivilised. Rather they take it out on children because they’re subhuman anyway. It only teaches children fear not obedience
Children are the actual humans and what we all really are society mutates us with inadequate and false teaching. Adults is what they start calling themselves because they're insecure still about being a child and still feel they are one deep down, certainly don't feel "adult" and everything they do is them trying to make them change that. This mentality makes us all subhuman if we adopt it and behave accordingly but only to the young aka literally every last person on the planet for many years and it's mistreating the young is what leads to them/all of us being insecure about being young, which is what leads to all of us mocking and disrespecting the young when older.
This captures a lot of the frustrations I had working in the education system. Kids are routinely stripped of their autonomy and forced to do things they don't want to do or face punishment. Over time, most students learn to submit to these systems of domination to avoid punishment. And we treat that as "success."
damn, as a child from an abusive home (not majorly, but enough to traumatise me) this really feels like something i should have realised but didn't until you put it into simple words. the reason why it feels so desperately sad to think about how i was treated, screamed at, held against walls, was because i had no choice. i had to handle it, or i had nowhere to live. nowhere to go. and that is not an ok feeling, that is not something we should be making our kids feel, no matter if its with physical violence or just with berating and judging them about who they are.
Yes, it was major abuse. This is not a contest. If you were traumatized then you experienced major abuse. Stop minimizing it. You are correct that you had no choice, and that's why abuse by a caregiver is more damaging than abuse by someone the child is not dependent upon. Parents have enormous power over their children. Period. You would probably get a lot out of reading "The Drama of the Gifted Child," by Alice Miller. It will really speak to you.
This video made me remember how much I was against this growing up. I guess I strongly believed in ideals of democracy and was also outraged at how I had no say in my life until the distant age of 18 when I in so many situations saw problems with what the adults were doing. So I strongly believed that the voting age should be lowered drastically, principally to whenever you were capable of casting a ballot and I frankly saw it as a mockery of democracy that I wasn't allowed to participate at all until I was done with school, especially as I witnessed constant and massive cuts to the school system and neoliberal reforms which despite constantly attending protests never stopped and I had absolutely no say in even though I was the one affected by them. While I lacked knowledge and was aware of that I still could not see how I was less capable of making decisions than adults and I thought frankly that I was smarter than most of them (though these days I don't really believe in intelligence as a concept) considering so many denied basic science like climate change or were unable to understand my criticisms. In school I had trouble with especially the humanities because so many of them were just based on doing what the teacher said with no fundamental justification for it and I just can't do that, if I'm told that I just instantly see the myriad of ways in which what they say doesn't work but whenever I voiced that I was just told that I had to do it. Even though my criticisms were detailed and clear it was treated as if I was just being difficult because I didn't personally like the subject, which wasn't even the case at first but I slowly grew to do that because of this. In general I ended up having no respect for most of my teachers and by 10th grade I completely lost respect for my Danish and English teachers and just had contempt for them. This experience only changed when I started high school and finally encountered teachers who actually treated me as their equal and clearly taught their subject because they loved it and were willing to answer questions and admit when they didn't know something. This experience is what made me actually finally enjoy education. I have always believed that kids should be taken seriously and that they are just as capable and intelligent as everyone else, people say that I'm good with kids but I always just respond that I treat them like equals. But I think I had forgotten a lot of the frustrations i had with this stuff as a kid because of the mask, the ideas I had were fundamentally correct and the only key piece I was lacking back then was Anarchism. It's so obvious how school turns the act of learning into a boring and stressful thing instead of an enjoyable thing, I realized that back then as the subjects I knew I liked (science, history and maths) were still boring and tedious to me. It's because the kids aren't treated as equals who you are sharing knowledge and skills with but as tools that need to beaten into shape. It's not voting rights that kids need but rather the full emancipation of society so that there is no institutions standing in the way of their voices being heard and being taken seriously, but not only that as we grow up we seriously have to remember what it was like to be a child and to never let ourselves grow bitter, I can already see this happening in my peers and it angers me that they turned around so quickly and started mocking children. Really in a way childhood should never be allowed to end, the ability to be awed and amazed while also completely rejecting injustice that children have is something everyone should stick to and try to find once again.
I mean, I couldn't possibly have anything to add, although my background is very different, most of these points ring very true and it is really well put. I hope you are doing better now. Cheers
great video, i grew up always following the rules and never making trouble, but now in my 20s i realize how much these institutions (both at home and at school) made me resent authority and power structures. i love the part of the video where you discussed how infantilizing teenagers ends up leading to more rebellious attitudes, it really hit home lol
I'm glad that I went straight from graduating high school into quarantine. It gave me the time away from most authority structures that I needed to actually find out more about who I am, instead of pushing all that under the rug and getting a job. Quarantine and what I've done in it have given me a whole new perspective on life and failure that I really needed after school with it's grades and strict graduation requirements. Also, my parents went on vacation recently, leaving me, my siblings, and my grandmother at home. It's been great without them, I feel like I can be much more open about my feelings with my siblings, and also tasks like doing the dishes actually feel good to do. I'm no longer doing them because my parents insist and will yell at me if I don't do them, instead I'm doing them for myself and my siblings. I can crack a slightly dirty joke and not worry about what my parents will think. I've declared myself leader of the household for now, which consists of making brownies for everyone else, and not making dinner next monday. Life's great without an unnecessary hierarchical structure, and I'm starting to think that I should start to look into anarchist philosophies.
love your point about washing the dishes. so much parental paranoia about discipline and "laziness" is just this paradoxical spiel where they won't let you do any voluntary work and then shame you for not working. instead of asking for help or teaching you something it's always "you never do xy" and whenever you attempt doing something despite this, they can't tolerate the slightest mistakes, become angry and do it themselves. on a societal level the whole laziness rhetoric just serves to obfuscate that nothing is less desired than people voluntarily doing good work they enjoy.
the washing the dishes thing reminded me of PDA autism (pathological demand avoidance), where you physically cant bring yourself to do a task if its asked of you
I was just working on a video on this exact topic dhdaskjhdasjkhhjkahsjk especially since I'm a 14 year old egoist anarchist I love this video, keep it up qwq
I don’t know how to really express that I so fundamentally agree with this shit. Revolution, anarchism, and socialism in general just click with me. It’s so fucking refreshing to have purpose other than hedonism and ruthless corpritism/capitalism. Thank you.
I have been trying to kill this in my raising of my kids because I am trying to kill this in me. I hate the gaslighting, I hate what I have endured and have my children endure as we grow up. This hits so deep, thank you for telling the truth.
this made me think about my (16) relationship with my sister (8). unfortunately i often lash out at her when she teases me and even though i could never be scary or threatening, it's still wrong... i suppose it's because of my inability to set healthy boundaries and my ideas about how kids her age are supposed to treat me, their elder. i also want to ask you how do you think age of consent should function in an anarchist society. i think that under the current system such regulations are absolutely necessary, same as laws against child labor - that's because of how much power adults have over us, how we're infantilized as you said in the video, etc. but who knows how this would change as the world changes... honestly it's giving me a headache. (of course, in any society sexual intercourse with prepubescent children is out of the question.)
I know how you feel. I have 6 younger siblings and it takes a lot of unlearning and a lot of mistakes to reframe my relationship with them. I'm not perfect, but I'm trying. As for the age of consent, I understand your thoughts completely. I'm no seer, so I can't predict the future, but as we both understand, sexual violence is still coercive and still violence. Expanding the autonomy of young people doesn't change that. There's still a power imbalance there that makes relationships between minors and adults wrong, even if we reach a place in society where that imbalance is less severe and less systemically reinforced. As a whole actually, I find cross-age group relationships (large age gaps) to be off-putting so I don't think that the cultural value of preventing that sort of thing would change. I'm rambling a bit, but I hope you understand what I'm saying.
@@Andrewism I know I'm almost a year late, but I'm just watching this now. Anyway, in an anarchist society where youth are liberated from adult oppression and the social power imbalances disappear, do you think would there still remain a significant enough physical power imbalance that would make such relationships problematic. On the one hand adults generally have much more physical strength than children, but on the other hand adults would be heavily disincentivized from inappropriately exercising said power due to the radical transformation of age relations. I'd like to hear your thoughts. Also I'm wondering how your relationships with your siblings are going now, if you've got any advice or lessons you've learned.
I have a three year old girl and try to empower her since birth, I give her the tools and support but let her chose for herself. The montesori and waldorf disciplines and frees schools cater a lot of this ideals. I really see the difference now when I see fellow parents how they treat their childs and it's hard to not interfere and start and argument with them. Your video has also given me more insight on things I didn't pay attention before and made me think. Every parent should listen to your arguments and really do a self evaluation on their parenting. Thank you
Watching this makes me feel like I did grow up with an oddly liberated childhood. My mother wasn't perfect but she always saw me as an individual who could speak their mind. She took my opinion seriously since the moment I could express it (which was extremely young, I learned to speak and express myself early.) As such I grew up with this iron core respect for myself that I still consider one of my best traits. I am deserving of respect because I am here and I am breathing. I don't need to do more to earn it. On top of all this, I was a very obedient child on the whole. My mom explained her reasons, and apologized whenever she did me wrong. She respected my privacy and autonomy and most of all, championed my existence. I'm very high functioning autistic with adhd, and while none of this was diagnosed until my late twenties, it was my mom who kept me safe from the world's worst impulses. She always let me grow at my pace and my schedule. She let me be alone for hours at a time, let me decide my after-school activities, and when we would spend time together. This was true when I was 5 and when I was 15. I realized when I started to get into leftism how rare her respect really was and something that kept hitting me lately is how messed up it is that parents think they own their kids. The way some birth mothers describe their children as objects just because they had their kids in their bodies make me so sad for the children. Animals deserve their autonomy and will to be respected, never mind children who are literally building their own existence one day at a time.
As someone who was raised by Chinese parents, and grew up in the American education system, this is truly an eye opening moment for me. I fear for not only my own future, but also for the future of my friends and other classmates who are being unknowingly herded into a life of suffering. Thank you for the red pill that you have provided to me. It has been a long journey full of hard truths, but also one where I can hope for and hopefully work toward a truly better future for our youth, and subsequently all of humanity.
Thank you for this video.... a topic I rarely hear discussed. the young and the old both have little freedom AND little protections. Tell me why the only reason someone younger than 18 can emancipate themselves is MARRIAGE OR ENLISTMENT? Why nursing homes, institutionalized public school, and day cares are the de facto?; If we didn't have to choose between work 40/hrs a week or perish, we might enjoy caring and togetherness with our own families... or at least the option. I just watched D'angelo's video about On***n and how his platform allowed him to abuse numerous vulnerable, young people (+children). It made me so sad one of those children only found her way to him to escape out of an even more abusive home life. And watching nothing happen to help Claudia Conway. If our society had a group norm that parents cannot abuse their children, gears would actually be moving. But we all collectively decided if parents demonstrably can't raise their child safely, well, there's cLEarLy nO good solution (aka: No universal, liability-free blanket policy that would work).
I don't think you emphasize enough how destructive and just plain evil the consequences have been of the mistreatment and dismissal of youth in society, the "troubled teen" industry has lead to actual suicides of kids who went through that system, this topic is honestly something that i consider to be a matter of life and death because of things like that
I while ago I had a micro existential about how little control any of us have over our own lives. When we are young we have to serve our schools and parents, when we are adults we serve our bosses, and once we are retired, then there's not much more time for anything. Worst part for me is that as things go I've had it incredibly well and went to a school where I had some self determination but still.
If everyone stopped being "authorities" over their kids in the home and being helpful and kind then literally all that stuff would crumble in a generation, the bosses, the lack of control all life etc, it's ALL because of parenting.
Your statement "Do what ever you can. Resist." hit a wound I've felt for over a decade. I had a father who I can only describe as sociopathic; he hurt and killed our animals, tossed us out multiple times during our adolescence, assaulted my mom with his truck, made my brothers bleed, and behaved "off" with us daughters. I felt like I was a hostage in a decade-long war of my mother and us trying to escape him, and being shoved over and over again back to him. My mother fought like hell, and so did my stepdad who was the only true dad I ever had. My siblings and I were scared of him, and my father terrorized his gf's children too. All the times I got in the way of his rampages, the times I refused to return to him, run away, tell the truth to anyone who would listen... we were hurt further. Every time, in some fashionable mix of words, I was told my thoughts and feelings weren't my own, and so they weren't real, and are evidence I needed further fixing. I couldn't have an authentic experience and authentic fright, upset, and then when I'd get angry my anger wasn't genuine either.I was assumed incapable of the truth. Oh but my father's words were truth, despite the CPS visits, despite the police calls, and bloody noses from panic attacks my big brother would have at the thought of having to go back. At 13, I lost my mother for a long time, and everyone else I cared about for even longer, we all did, and I know that moment broke my spirit unlike any other event in my life. It was like all I believed in, my morals, my humanity were proven false. I'm still trying to find her, the old me. She was scared, but she fought. Now I feel like I'm just scared. I'm 23, now and when I think back to what kid me did, what needed "disciplining," and was so evil and despicable... I did the most logical and moral thing I could do: I resisted. Your words were very healing, thank you. It was like a new voice for the kid me to know believed her.
I'm still amazed, looking back, by how ableist the entire school system is. And how it affected me as a(most likely) neurodivergent child. All my memories of school are filled with confusion, fear, shame and anxiety. I'm pretty sure I taught myself to mask perfectly, but at the cost of becoming a deeply ill and miserable person
As a fellow neurodivergent person, I often wonder about what "class solidarity" with groups like teachers, caregivers, and healthcare workers should look like for us given that those groups often occupy both oppressed AND oppressor roles.
Physical punishment ended for me, once I was strong enough to hurt people back. A core memory of my childhood is breaking the wooden spoon my mum used to spank me with. The commentary about having to suppress anger hit hard. I remember feeling angry a lot as a child, and my underdeveloped state wasn't equipped with the tools to properly express it. The ways I did express were frowned upon, so that tended to teach me that anger is not acceptable. Funny enough, I go to therapy now to better understand and express feelings, because that wasn't something I learned well when I was a child.
same. the beatings and taking my stuff away stopped once i bit my mother's hand as hard as i could at 16. she suddenly realized i'm a person, though verbal abuse didn't end, and her mother is still getting away with treating me horribly. and even as an adult i and my younger sibling aren't important parts of the family. i'm sad that i can't help my younger sibling in any way until i'm out of the house myself.
this one hits right in the feels. i quit working in SpEd last fall after a long slow burnout... it actually broke my heart and i think it turned me into a school abolitionist
@@Abjecthda definitely, i've seen that comparison made a lot, including by students. i recently found out too (and now it keeps coming up for me, like when learning a new word) how a bunch of prisons and schools (in the US at least) were designed by the same architects
@@Abjecthda Differences are in prison you can't assault the inmates, in school you can (it's legal in tons of countries ones with larger pops. than the illegal ones so more people subject to it than not and also legal in 19 US states). In prison you can file complaints about your treatment but in school it's much, much harder if not impossible. Prisons are filled with hardened, remorseless criminals and schools are filled with innocent, playful little children. (I know they don't stay that way throughout all school but that's because of how society (mis)treats them). It's literally someone's job to argue why you shouldn't go to prison, if you can't afford him, they force one on you, even if you're guilty and then there's trails and re-trails to help you get out early, in school you don't even need to be guilty of a crime in fact it's illegal for you not to be charged. It's also forced work in a full time job with no pay which then follows you home in your free time for more unpaid work after your long unconsensual day in what for countless people is another prison where they have less rights than rapists and murderers (the home). It's slavery when done to anyone else just like - Assault is assault only when done to anyone else Circumcision is bodily mutilation/torture when done to anyone else. Grounding is forcible/false confinement when done to anyone else Taking other's things is theft when done to anyone else. Destroying their stuff is vandalism when done to anyone else Saying you hate any other group is bigotry, (with kids people give a knowing laugh). Forcing religious views and political views (or any other view you have) unto them is indoctrination and considered wrong only when it's anyone else. Forcing them into abusive "behaviour modification" programs is kidnapping but only when they aren't a minor then it's giving your property to another. Also every year children are denied life saving operations doesn't matter how much they cry and beg they don't want to die because it's against someone else's beliefs to save them, someone who's permission they need not to perish, they also die from having their bodies sliced open and the flesh removed every year circumcision murders them (murder is what we call it when happens to anyone else). They also die from school shooting's because like you rightly point out it functions like a prison but it doesn't have the same security, this would be called child neglect if you put them in any other dangerous environment and they died from it, if you're responsible for someone's safety and they die under your watch? Imagine being forced somewhere you despised going to against your will because no one listened to you, it was harming you and wasting all your time just to get shot dead. Children who commit suicide every year, every month, every week, all because of how crappy they're treated in their lives due to this prejudice against youth are also victims of murder, I would assert. Joining the ones who above died from mutilation, denial of life saving operations when they could've been saved and any other medical treatment their parent's force on them which kills them (there's accounts of that too), every year children are legally murdered, in a variety of ways and I'd say adult suicides stemming from how they were mistreated or how other's were mistreated as children is also a case of legal murder just a slow death, lot's of suffering before the snap. All of this could be avoided, we avoid making everything above legal and acceptable for every other group in society and we claim to care about them much less.
KND in the real world would be awesome. Children’s liberation, radical education, children’s protection and learning to be fully developed autonomous individuals to flourish in a free society.
@@grandsome1 If a wonderful spouse doesn't forcefully strip their partner in a beyond humiliating ritual and then beat them on their bare ass as they scream and cry and beg for it to stop then neither does a "generally wonderful parent" I have no doubt your "generally wonderful" comment does come from valid examples of times were they really have been great people but that wouldn't change it for the husband forcing that on his wife, what he did was still sick and deranged despite the fact doing that to your spouse used to be very accepted and husbands who did it were described by their spouses and others as generally wonderful people, it just goes to show the sheer power of cultural normalisation when a bad person does a bad thing that's awful but when a good person does that's a tragedy and only cultural conditioning makes good people do bad things even evil ones.
I'm 22 now and still live with the fear of having my autonomy removed from me again. I guess living with my family does not help, but I know growing up without privacy, without boundaries, and without a day affected me. I still feel paralyzed by the fear that I will be chastised for taking my life into my own hands. My horror stories are too much to get into, and I'm not going to expand upon it on a two year old comment section but I agree with everything being said in this video.
I am a social studies teacher and just came across your channel. My name is also Andrew oddly enough…but you are very wise/well spoken and I plan to work your philosophy into my own as an educator of the next generation. I thank you very much.
I remember when I stopped liking things. I used to imagine things better by running around in a weird way, I could engage in a dreamlike state while aqake by doing so and have thus very vivid thoughts. At some point though, nothing really brought me joy. No game, no story. But I realized I always had fun in memories. The rose tint on how things were as I remembered them. Though my memory was always bad, and it still is, I subconsciously tried forcing that rememberance on everything so I could enjoy things again. At some point, as memory and experience became ever closer, memory became expectation. I was thinking of myself remembering playing a game as I was playing the actual game itself. I could never express this or think if anyone else thought or felt the same way. I was very diassociated from people and the world around me. Because I never understood why everyone was so different, I acted awkwardly, was bullied, and essencially though I was some cosmic joke, that I was cursed. Only this year as I was searching for the psychologists I visited as a child is that I realized I was on the spectrum. I have no idea if knowing that as I was growing up would have made it better or worse. But even now, having gone through much more loss, adult problems and such, I still think of the middle-school days as a black-hole in my life. Still I can't imagine going through something as psychologically damaging as I was at the time by merely exisiting and thinking about the world. But there is a paradox to impressionable minds isn't there? All of that feeling of isolation has bred many ideas and creations I would not have if I hadn't experienced it.
I knew at 12 I never wanted kids and this decision makes other people infantilize me to this day. I'm 41 and got sterilized last year... after 24 years of asking doctors to sterilize me. Not once did they discuss the options, just dismissed my thoughts and feelings I have had about my own body and limits my whole life. I'm also apparently not a "real adult" if I don't have a kid and still cannot be trusted to listen to my instincts. I'll never know "true love" either. And I guess my fiance will have to step out of the way when I find Mr Right that will change my mind and make me want babies.
I am 25 now, and I got the belt plenty of times. I watched my beagles get beaten until they were yelping uncontrollably. Now I tell all of the adults in my life that I will never hit my children or animals. They always go silent and just look at me as if they are scared to challenge my beliefs.
as soon as i dropped education i was hit by a wave of guilt and was terrified that i wouldnt "get anywhere in life" because i couldnt continue with education. but soon after i realised i have more autonomy without the school system dragging me down.. now i'm aware that i'll likely never survive trying to get back to that linear, best-for-capitalism route but i also have so many more options and i know the taste of liberation.. i'm unsure where i'm headed but i just know spending even a couple years without the bullshit makes my uncertain future feel distant and unimportant
when i say "dropped education" - i slowed down school work output because of my adhd, it eventually got to a point where i could do next to nothing in or outside of school, so i simply dropped it from my head for the past 8 months or so and i'm waiting to find out the consequences
and as a trans kid i dont feel nearly safe in school nor at home, so i can put the time into trying to help as many of my friends as i can dealing w the same stuff. completely dropping school from my head really helps and i'm just thankful that i've not run into any issues with school or p*rents doing something about it
As someone who came from a broken, violent home, the part about how violence hurts cognitive development hit hard; I can only wonder how much happier I could be if I had better parents
This is such well put video. And it got me thinking about a discussion I had with my therapist on how LGBTQIA+ students because they're "different" and "othered" are not seen as worthy or "smart enough" by most of their teachers/professors and peers, no matter the effort they put into school work on top of having to deal with constant harassment and bullying. It's almost as we either have to 'prove' ourselves or hide and suppress our talents until we get out of the schooling/educational system and have the freedom to express hoping people will finally see our worth and recognize our contribution to society as valid or whatever.
Holy shit i thought i was the only one who noticed this, every time i talk about it people laugh at me like im being stupid. Im a 14yo btw, so it makes sense.
This video made me realize my parents are amazing. I mean, i knew that, but even more so now. My parents did almost none of what you outlined in the at home section. Ik that the majority of house are like that though because i saw it with all of my friends growing up. My parents let me be my own person and when they did get on to me always had a good reason and made it a point to tell me that reason, and make sure I understand it. Even if i was to young to understand, they told me anyway. I was also homeschooled, and i completely agree, I'm glad i missed that.
Shows how appalling parent's (that's a lot of people!) are and how little we expect of them if we have to appreciate them not being horrid to us, as if horrid is expected, it shows how hopelessly misopaedic society/humanity is. Would you be friendly with people or have a good onlook/attitude towards them if it was common for them to treat any other social group this way? women? gays? blacks? trans? foreigners? no, we'd call them misogynist, racist, transphobic, xenophobic etc, the only non-content of character "identity" you can't take "pride" in is any non-adult ones, "teen, child, kid etc," they're not only things you never hear someone say they're proud to be but if you look closely you see ton's of shame and insecurity about being them (as if they're the ones should be ashamed) they're even used as insults "child" well be said as if an insult was launched, imagine if "woman" or "black" was used that way? well why is it a good idea, to have EVERY woman and black be subject to that for years? (plus everyone else too) an identity which is shamed? what effect on self esteem might that have? and what will grow out of that? I already know the answers to those questions but it'd be a few novels long.
I’m partway through highschool and I’d just like to thank you for being a big part of radicalizing me. I’ve recently started growing a youth mutual aid network in my area and I’ve been trying to educate other kids on stuff like this, and politics in general.
The way we treat children should not be ignored- the values of imperialism and capitalism are fully burned into the minds of children at school first. I've got my own issues certainly that seep into this topic because I still have nightmares from school, but like- as a disabled student there were some classes I would have to spend pretty much all of my time in to maybe barely pass. I'd lose sleep and most of my free time, it was unhealthy. Yet I'd have people constantly questioning how hard I was actually trying while some kids who spent like 20 min a night on the class would be praised. Remind you of anything? Because it's just capitalism. Let me explain. Grades are not earned. The system works backwards- they look at your effort as if the final product is the effort. "A" means you worked hard and clearly deserve it. "F" means you were lazy and didn't actually try. Regardless of reality. Not everyone has the same resources or ability. I worked myself to the point it was clearly unhealthy for a worthless letter on a piece of paper that other people decided I needed to get. Other kids could pass me with little effort on their part while still retaining free time. This is the same value system capitalism uses- If you are a low earner- well fuck you, you deserve it If you are rich- you must be a real hard worker to have gotten to that point Reality doesn't factor in. On top of that schools serve as a propaganda center for the state and at least mine treated the "founding fathers" like fucking demi gods.
Your work is so thoughtful and enlightening, and consistently so. I noticed on this video just how amazing the use of visual art was. Thanks and here’s to your channel growing regardless of its value to capital. It is very valuable to anyone lucky enough to find it despite innate (or in some cases) deliberate suppression of content like this.
as a teen who has felt the effects of ageism since i was like 6, i feel so represented, thx lol. From the moment we are born we are forced into a slave like relationship, sure its not chattel slavery and it feels stupidly hyperbolic when i phrase it like that, but when you think about it is true: We as independent, free beings are forced into subservience to figures that dont see us as much more than pets or tools, we arent allowed to oppose them for any reason, i could go on: in a way, the way we are raised, like the education system, is a form of soft indoctrination that acclimates us to the hierarchy of capitalist society. I personally had quite a good family that would treat me as an equal and that VERY rarely beat me (partly because i would not allow them not to). Well those are my two pence, i havent watched the vid yet so apologies if some of this is redundant.
@@meganbaker9116 True, but they were absolute saints compared to some of the horror stories I have heard from my parents, especially second of third generation immigrants that seem to be placed under a lot of pressure to get into a good profession like law or medicine, I for one only got beaten for misbehaving as opposed to not doing well enough in some minor test in school, and I got away with a light smack at worst, never "the belt".
@@oscarwells3070 The hierarchy of suffering will always leave someone with trauma out in the cold. "I...ONLY got beaten," with all due respect, is a very messed up thing to say. I maintain that beating or hitting a child in any way EVER is criminal and damaging.
This....got me close to crying. Thank you SO MUCH for making this video. I remember feeling helpless and at odds with the world.....and here I am wanting to do what I can as an adult to change it. I am becoming the person I should have been I think. Let's liberate the youth!
I hate how kids are forced into following potentially immoral rules to the point of losing their humanity. I get that some rules are important like how you are not supposd to horseplay in ways that are detrimental to your peers, but when I say some rules, I mean some rules. When somebody tries to shush you, do you ever have the urge to shush them back? Not all rules are moral. Some of them can be immoral. That is when you have to find out the difference between morality and legality.
Love your videos. They are both a sharp and needed crituque of the current systems and able manahe to leave me feeling optomistic that there is a way out. Thanks for the amazing vid as always.
This topic is definitely one I should know more about. It's frightening how many traps there are in the system we live in, and school never seemed to be one of those. My primary education was, thankfully, done in a school that was very different than what's the norm today, but, once I was out, the soul-crushing reality was hard to adapt to. Eager to see more videos on the topic!
Sheesh, I’m really glad my parents had faith in me. They gave me respect and autonomy and I can’t express how grateful I am for that. Happy to say that I have good relationships with both of my parents. I want to offer that same respect and autonomy to my kids some day and maybe get them an alternative education to public school. My experience was not so great with that.
Will you start crediting the art/artists you include in your videos? The points you make are so spot on but the videos are hard to watch cause its like 20 mins of uncredited artwork, which is really frustrating as a visual artist who has had my work stolen and ripped off many times. Otherwise I really enjoy the narratives you create, and the art is always stunningly cohesive with the concepts you unfurl. Just smack a citation underneath or next to the picture so its not art theft. Thank you!
I started putting credits since the video after this one, Carnival & Class Struggle, so don't worry. I've been putting it at the end of every video now. I've been making a conscious effort to not use the work of small artists though, all those art pieces you see are by well-known, often dead artists.
@@Andrewism I just watched your newest video to see if I was late to your new citing methods and although it should be acknowledged that putting the artists names on a list at the end of the video can be more helpful than having nowhere to find the names, its still not proper citation. My argument is not whether you are allowed to use the art, I think your artistic choices add so much to the videos! Im moreso advocating that there are rules for citing peoples work, whether that is from books, media, music, paintings, photography, etc. And there's nothing wrong with using the works of small artists so long as you have permission and properly cite it, in fact it can help small artists grow their following too! There are lots of art citation guides online to help you choose which form of citation is most necessary for what you are doing. I know it can take time to properly cite many pieces of work, but I think it will allow your followers to engage deeper in the things you share. Just my opinion tho! keep up the good work! Thank u for your quick reply before! I know your channel is gonna be huge soon
That's the secret: that good parenting is simply a matter of putting your child, and your instincts about your child, first. The societal stuff gets in the way and messes with that. Ignore it as much as you can!
This seems like it gets complicated real quick when it comes to sexual matters. Society is quick to label anyone who has interest in someone who happens to be under 18 years old a pedo, but it seems to me that when you actually dig into it, pedos are attracted to the infantilized condition that childhood represents to them, rather than their age per se. Perhaps in a world that completely stopped infantilizing the youth, it wouldn’t be possible to be attracted like that anymore, and then the problem would disappear? Everyone brings up a child’s inability to consent, but no one talks about adults who cannot consent.
I went to a private Christian school for the first 3 years of my education, and we were too poor to afford it so I eventually went into public school. It was much worse at the Christian school, so to me, a little Christian white boy, I felt like it was liberating to be in the public school for about 2 years, which was how long it took to realize that it was the same old thing as before. Lo and behold, I rebelled and got thrown into a mental institution, then got enrolled in the “young marines” which is the military training actual children, and really I never had any freedom no matter what I did. Thing is, I never stopped being a rebel, found my way out of the church and out of school, got into drugs and almost got married to an abuser at 18, and lost half my family over my trans/queer identity, my atheist identity, and distance. It’s a madhouse growing up in this country
Friendly reminder that KND itself is a resistance against the wider oppression of children by adults. Although somewhat hierarchical, the knd as an organization support each sector equally and empower their members to autonomously structure their roles. Its a great through line for this subject, cause kids can be incredible humans- innovators and rebels against an autheoity too up its on A to explain itself to them on equal ground. Viva the emancipation of childhood.
I carry with me since I was 5 a shame and anger about what adults told me or about me. I felt like a doll, only saying pleasant stuff and forced to kiss and hug people I didn't know or like. I always do the best I can to help children out of those dynamic
Having grown up with unhinged and emotionally unstable family, a neurological condition that few if any schools had adequate support for, and physical health problems that doctors did not take seriously until it was almost too late, I know all too well what it feels like to not be listened to, not to be treated like a person. If living at home during the pandemic has taught me anything, it's that there's no way to give someone a healthy childhood when shame, self hatred, distrust, and the constant need to placate aggression are part of the equation. My cousin has a son who just turned 3, and I want to parent him in the way that I wished I was parented. To teach him the lessons I needed, not just about algebra and english, but about emotions, conflict, kindness, and self-respect. Having seen this, my desire to raise him so that he never has to go through the level of trauma I went through is stronger than ever. Thank you so much, both for voicing my frustrations in ways I could never articulate and for helping me to guide the future generations. If I can make life even a little easier for them than it was for me, I've done my job.
Schools need massive reform but I will always be a defender of free public schools as I see them as necessary, both socially and intellectually, for a functional democracy and the removal of public of school just makes education a privilege of the rich.
I love this video, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I'm glad to see you noticing some of the same things as me. If I were to make a video on this I would love to borrow some of your language because it's very clarifying!
Children like to go on adventures, they ask their parents but they say no. When the children are adults and have freedom they don’t want to go on adventures.
I wonder how many parents are here thinking that you don't know what you're talking about. I'm a parent. One of my tenets is to work together with my kids. When we have a discussion over transgressions, the idea isn't punishment. The idea is that we understand what we could have done differently. We take time to understand what the results of acting on intense emotions will be. I hope I'm doing this right. As a parent, there isn't a day that you don't think you're doing this completely wrong.
Been co-signing this philosophy since i was a kid. If not for discriminatory child laws i couldve had a job and moved Into my own place by 1997. But i had to wait 8yrs to become legal. Then another 5 for someone to hire me XD
“i dont want to be controversial, but children are human beings” is one hell of a depressing sentence, jesus
Wild how much adults dehumanize children like they're completely different creatures 💀
@@mightguy3118 To be fair, that statement to me, seems to dehumanize humans, too.
@@otterystchocolat9071 I've just always found it weird how kids aren't worthy of the basic respect of a human being but an adult automatically deserves respect for being older. So dehumanizing and exactly why I was itching to turn 18.
“Why do you rebel?”
“For you have restricted us. Why do you restrict?”
“How else do you discourage rebellion?”
Exactly!
Is this a quote from somewhere, or did you make it yourself? Either way, It's a good quote.
I mean yeah, highschool teenagers don't get anything whatsoever in terms of liberties but it's not like adults get freedom either. No one gets freedom in the U.S., instead America, "the land of the free" cherrypicks freedom, they hear the argument of the Bill of Rights, that "We hold these rights to be inarguable," in other words the rights were not meant to be cherrypicked in any way and the 9th Amendment specifies this, designed to iron out the details but as usual with people they ignore what's layed down to them and cherrypick anyway. Address this problem, the problem as a whole instead of this needless abstract thinking about giving teenagers rights. Bring the rights back to the American people period
When I started public school I had a mental breakdown because I had never encountered adults who were as mentally unstable, aggressive and authoritarian as those teachers and staff were. I remember the mixture of condescension, narcissism and belligerence I faced, those people thought i was a wild horse that needed to be broken. I promised myself I would not forget what it was like to be a child, because I never wanted to be like those people.
The amount of emotional abuse and neglect I faced from teachers as a child, in both the Australian catholic school system and public school system, was unreal. I didn't end up getting a good teacher until I was 9, and even then most people don't get that. School should be focused on child development, instead we just get taught conformity.
Yeeeeeessssss
Yes. Looking back now that I know much more I’m disappointed and i’m starting to see how horrible some of the teachers I liked/looked up to we’re. And now that I’m in high-school it’s really not any bad. Teachers just love to talk out of their ass then wonder why students talk shit about them. Oh for fucks sake..
Everytime I hear the admonishment that someone should act like a grown-up, I think WHY? Grown-up is nothing to aspire to.
Yup hit the nail on the head. Scre you society. I don't want to play your reindeer games. All people told me do it because.
This is doubly a problem for neurodivergent kids. You’re constantly gaslit, even if you have parents who try to be caring. You’re being rude, you’re talking back, your tone is wrong, you’re lying, etc. Asking questions means you’re stupid, but not understanding means you’re stupid, too. Talking back is disrespectful, but so is not answering. Lying is bad, but telling the truth gets you in trouble, too. It’s all the confusion and distress children are put through amplified by ten.
As a ND kid... (older teen i should say)
Yeah. This really describes what I've been going through, thank u :')
As fun as it is to be nostalgic, I wouldn't trade my autonomy as an adult for anything and it's so sad to me that we have to wait until 18 before getting the tiniest bit of freedom
Tell me about it
You only get that freedom once society immediately discards you and makes you fend for yourself
@@andrewgodly5739 They do belief you have enough value as a person to make stealing from you, assaulting you, falsely detaining/imprisoning you, forcibly indoctrinating with someone else's religious beliefs, political beliefs (or any beliefs actually) and working without pay daily, illegal. At least you get protection from all those things, although you aren't protected from the psychological (often subconscious) effects which plenty don't realise are underneath all of their problems today, all of societies issues can be traced back to and find their origin in their mini-societies/the homes everyone in it comes from, seriously you can actually see the issues which leads to the other ones and see the causal connection even for bigger things like war. If the parenting ideologies and attitudes towards us all when young weren't how they are, it would all go away, also the way we're treated in youth has been 100% understood and shown to decrease empathy and altruism in people so any problems if they even did come up would get you a hell of a lot more help with those two things raised up exponentially.
What do you think of age gap relationships? Should we limit them? But doesn't that take away autonomy of youth?
Most adults are too srupid to appreciate their autonomy. They want kids to feel bad for wanting to grow up.
Thays because our modern culture doesnt train people for adulthood.
Theres no riyes of passage anymore.
I vividly remember being like 7 and running from my mother while she chased me with a belt because I didn't turn in my homework or something like that. However, the bare image of a child running from physical punishment due to a harmless action speaks a lot about the so called "normal" corporal punishment. It feels like all the times my siblings and I were beat by my parents was less about teaching right from wrong, but rather enforcing a strict behavior.
It's might makes right, as long as mom doesn't care about the food quality, my health doesn't matter.
As long my dad has anger issues when addressing noncompliance, my sibling's mental health doesn't matter, what ever stupid shit any adult believes in, the truth doesn't matter and so on...
I grew up thinking that barbaric practices like corporal punishments or punishments in general were something "from centuries ago"
@@BL-sd2qwWhere/when did you grow up? Not even trying to be insulting, I'm just genuinely perplexed as to how you grew up thinking getting beat was some sort of ancient practice. I figured that was something mostly everyone went through
@@84updown Idk if you mean the country or if I grew up with loving parents. Cause I didn't grow up with loving parents; they are horrible and I'm not gonna go into details, but they wouldn't hit me or my brothers growing up.
@@BL-sd2qw I meant country/location. Unless I'm mistaken, parents hitting their kids is pretty common worldwide
corporal punishment should 100% be illegal worldwide and should not be perpetuated or normalized. would love to see a video about how the hierarchical relationship of the nuclear family influences this conversation
Thank you for discussing this. Youth liberation is criminally under discussed.
Even within very lefty discussion spaces tbh. There are many important things to talk about, but I think this issue really warrants a much higher ranking than it gets. The more children are indoctrinated into hierarchies growing up, the less likely they'll be to resist other power structures as an adult.
One thing that always got me was how, in American society, it's considered bad to hit your wife if she's being "too stubborn", but if you hit your kid for it, you're just being a parent. Or how, if you hit an adult without leaving a bruise, you can be charged with assault, but if you hit a kid and don't leave a bruise, that's legal in many areas. Not to mention the laws about marriage that people exploit. For example, in my area, a girl can be married at 16 to a legal adult if she has a parent's permission. I understand not wanting to let enter young people make a legally binding contract, but if that girl was two years older, her parents would not have the legal right to "give her away".
I always feel a little silly when I say "ageism" because the first time I heard the word was in a "comedy" skit making fun of left-leaning people (who are upset about such silly (/s) things like racism and homophobia), but to be honest? It is real, and it hurts kids.
Well said. And "domestic" abuse only commonly refers to abuse between adults despite children being just as much a part of the domestic domain. That's not abuse, that's a kind of "punishment" /s
I never understood that either. In their eyes, as sick as this sound, inflicting pain on children by them is considered "discipline". Like GTFOH.
Great vid. Infantalization doesn't always go away at adulthood either. My mother still doesn't accept most of what I say, she twists it or ignores it, and it makes it really difficult to talk to her about anything serious.
My daughter has had many arguments with other parents about corporal "punishment". Their comeback is often: I got beat as a kid and I turned out alright. Her response "Except for thinking it's okay to beat your kid."
Honestly I'm more than a little jealous that you got to avoid public education. I went through the American public school system in an area that is considered to be among the best in the country and it absolutely sucked the life out of me. Starting all the way back in elementary, my entire life was dictated to me by school both inside its walls and out. Class after class after class followed by hours after hours after hours of homework turning virtually all of my time from age 5-18 into a strictly regimented timetable.
It was a RELIEF going to college because all of a sudden my workload got cut into 1/4 and I had the autonomy to choose what to learn and how. And people suddenly took me seriously! Even though I was doing far easier work and far less of it, my feelings and criticisms were instantly valid because I passed some age threshold. I'm still working on deprogramming myself and unpacking all the baggage that was imposed on me through the years of schooling so it's great hearing someone talk about how society treats kids.
I went to very well-funded public schools that severely insulted my intelligence and generally bored the shit out of me (not to mention the fact that no one there gave a damn that I slept in school--a LOT. They could have asked questions and gotten to the fact that I was medically neglected by my parents, but nobody at my schools was paid to care.). People who promote the idea that some schools are good or great while others are bad ignore the fact that every single public school was designed and is run on the same industrial, dehumanizing model. They're all awful and they need to go.
@@meganbaker9116 THIS! No such thing as a good school. People need to understand this, it’s not just a problem limited to “bad staff” and “bad teachers” it’s the whole fucking institution. If you can understand that when it comes to ACAB you can understand this.
I'm 17 and about to go to university in September and it's a relief to see you say that you found college much more freeing than school. As I watched this video I was concerned that choosing to go to university would just be locking myself in the same rut as school, even though I really do enjoy learning about the subjects I'm interested in. Would you recommend going to university/college then?
@@clairesheldon4845 I really enjoyed my time at university though I only got a Bachelor's degree (can't afford more lol America). If you're used to taking hard classes in high school, college will be a huge step down because suddenly you have an 18 credit hour per week _maximum_ whereas high school was effectively 35 hours per week always. There'll also be a lot more classes to choose from to fulfill your gen ed requirements too unless you're going to a very small college.
When she was 12 my parents abandoned my sister in an airport for being 'ungrateful'. I lived in fear of the same happening to me and it's taken 30+ years to work the obedience fear out of myself.
The only thing school taught me was that I didn't deserve to be loved. I was the school punching bag all the way to high school graduation.
I have no positive feelings for childhood. And my experience, by technicality, "wasn't that bad".
Well it's ok to be bigoted towards the young, look online people instead of calling you stupid, call you "12" or some other low age number. Any bad behaviour is described as "childish" even if more adults did it than kids it still is, imagine if bad behaviour was described as "womanish" it's ok to say "I hate kids" and talk about how awful they are, everyone laughs but try doing that about any other non-content of character identity/group, there's videos online I know of which have been up for months calling for an end to violence against children (only people legal to be violent toward including violent, remorseless, criminals, they are protected) and in many months they have views in two digits meanwhile videos of parent's smashing their children's prized possessions and putting it up online with them screaming, crying and begging for mercy humiliating them forever, have MILLIONS of views with comment sections filled with laughter and people all saying they should have gotten worse and I love how that kid cried so hard/looked so stupid etc, Imagine any of our other "loving" relationships, friends, spouses, peers, hell even our enemies being received like that if we treated them that way? but it's only, exclusively the ones we care about protecting the most we (mis)treat that way? is it a good idea, generally speaking to expose children to pain and violence and public humiliation in the hopes of encouraging healthy emotional development and good behaviour? is there ANY doubt that there's an answer to this question? and that it matters?
...did you ever find your sister again? That is beyond messed up.
@@discountchocolate4577 yes, when she was 19, homeless, and pregnant. She left with her son as soon as she was financially able to and I don't blame her. I left when I could, too, and never looked back.
I grew up in the deep American south, so I am intimately familiar with "the belt"! Being hit as a small child taught me only one thing. People just like to take out their anger on who can put up the least resistance, any semblance of "punishment" or "justice" is surface level at best. I can't remember, for the life of me, any of the things I did to get hit. But I sure remember the things that happened to my father, unrelated to me, that made him angry right before each time he hit me.
As someone who has grown up in an emotionally abusive household, this rings true on so many levels. It always surprised me how other kids acted with their parents - how openly physical they are or how they can naturally joke with each other. But with my Mom, I would be mocked or she would push my boundaries or tease me until I cried.
Kids aren't property. They need their boundaries respected. If your kid starts crying when you "tease" maybe find a new way to tease.
Most parents are damaged and are unable or unwilling to see the pain they cause. They're projecting the horrors of their own childhood onto their children. It's a crime.
Agreed like, there's a difference between playful teasing and deliberate torment
Yup. Sigh rip mom and dad and the relationship we could have had
problem is some people don't know the difference.
I'm a Malaysian of Chinese descent. All you said here about the home and how the "traditional nucleus family" views and treats children, is pretty much how Confucianism indoctrinates the Chinese diaspora here. Worse? We do it to ourselves and our own children.
just found your channel, btw. binge watching all your vids. please keep up the good work!
Chinese survivor of child abuse here, I agree. I fucking hate Confucius and Confucianism so much for his finial piety and "respect your parents/elders" bullshit. I don't understand where Confucius gets all the credit for being so "wise." It's just dishonest, and it's no different from brainwashing kids to be religious without ever reading the entire sacred texts to them. Good to see folks like you calling out Confucius for his bullshit. We need more Chinese ppl like you
I was surprised, to find a reflection of the west in confucian norms. I suspect the Western, at least, nuclear family is based on a royal court.
I know a few people who grew up in Malaysia (my best friend is Malaysian of Chinese descent) and apparently it's one of the worst places in the world for physical child abuse, as in even schools are allowed to use violence in that way, and domestic abuse was a big part of her childhood and trauma
"you don't get the right, as a child, to be angry" hits like a punch to the gut yeah
Yup that's exactly what it's like to be a child.
Profile pic checks out.
Damn. You really hit the nail on the head. I seriously wish I could like this video twice, because it's all so TRUE. Especially as once I graduated from a private catholic high school, I had to deal with massive burnout and depression, (not to mention fight religious indoctrination and ableism) and it isn't until now (I've had a two month winter break) that I've actually been able to breathe and focus on what I want to do, especially as in general, college, while not the best, is still leagues better than high school.
Thank you! I hope you're able to find a fulfilling path for yourself :)
@@Andrewism Oh my gosh, thank you!! Thankfully I've always known that I wanted to do some combination of activism and performing arts, which I've really been able to cultivate during this time!
Adults like to say “That’s Life” whenever kids have a problem with the way things are, then wonder why suicide rates in this generation are so high.
Great work presenting this seemingly invisible issue, so many people need to hear this video.
It’s crazy to me how if you hit your spouse you can get charged with assault but if you hit your child it’s corporal punishment. I honestly think that “corporal punishment” rather then a means for teaching right from wrong is just an outlet for parents to let out anger and violence. They say it’s harmless but if it was surely I wouldn’t flinch anytime someone raised a hand? They say that it’s my fault that my parents had no other way to teach me but what were they teaching? Surely not good behaviour since I hardly remember what i got punished for rather the aftermath of it. And the few times i do remember it was over petty thing like closing the door too loudly or my phone running out of battery. No, corporal punishment (or better known as abuse) is just a means to let out parents anger that they cannot take out on adults because that would be uncivilised. Rather they take it out on children because they’re subhuman anyway. It only teaches children fear not obedience
Yeah it teaches fear and submission. Not exactly what I would associate with a well adjusted adult
Children are the actual humans and what we all really are society mutates us with inadequate and false teaching. Adults is what they start calling themselves because they're insecure still about being a child and still feel they are one deep down, certainly don't feel "adult" and everything they do is them trying to make them change that. This mentality makes us all subhuman if we adopt it and behave accordingly but only to the young aka literally every last person on the planet for many years and it's mistreating the young is what leads to them/all of us being insecure about being young, which is what leads to all of us mocking and disrespecting the young when older.
This channel feels like a warm hug 😭
This captures a lot of the frustrations I had working in the education system. Kids are routinely stripped of their autonomy and forced to do things they don't want to do or face punishment.
Over time, most students learn to submit to these systems of domination to avoid punishment. And we treat that as "success."
"I got beat when I was a kid and I turned out fine" - Person physically abusing a child
damn, as a child from an abusive home (not majorly, but enough to traumatise me) this really feels like something i should have realised but didn't until you put it into simple words. the reason why it feels so desperately sad to think about how i was treated, screamed at, held against walls, was because i had no choice. i had to handle it, or i had nowhere to live. nowhere to go. and that is not an ok feeling, that is not something we should be making our kids feel, no matter if its with physical violence or just with berating and judging them about who they are.
Yes, it was major abuse. This is not a contest. If you were traumatized then you experienced major abuse. Stop minimizing it. You are correct that you had no choice, and that's why abuse by a caregiver is more damaging than abuse by someone the child is not dependent upon. Parents have enormous power over their children. Period. You would probably get a lot out of reading "The Drama of the Gifted Child," by Alice Miller. It will really speak to you.
@@meganbaker9116 thank you megan, i will have a look into that, i really appreciate it
@@GoreSpattered You're very welcome. I hope you can overcome what was done to you and break the cycle. You deserve to be treated well and always did!
This video made me remember how much I was against this growing up. I guess I strongly believed in ideals of democracy and was also outraged at how I had no say in my life until the distant age of 18 when I in so many situations saw problems with what the adults were doing. So I strongly believed that the voting age should be lowered drastically, principally to whenever you were capable of casting a ballot and I frankly saw it as a mockery of democracy that I wasn't allowed to participate at all until I was done with school, especially as I witnessed constant and massive cuts to the school system and neoliberal reforms which despite constantly attending protests never stopped and I had absolutely no say in even though I was the one affected by them. While I lacked knowledge and was aware of that I still could not see how I was less capable of making decisions than adults and I thought frankly that I was smarter than most of them (though these days I don't really believe in intelligence as a concept) considering so many denied basic science like climate change or were unable to understand my criticisms. In school I had trouble with especially the humanities because so many of them were just based on doing what the teacher said with no fundamental justification for it and I just can't do that, if I'm told that I just instantly see the myriad of ways in which what they say doesn't work but whenever I voiced that I was just told that I had to do it. Even though my criticisms were detailed and clear it was treated as if I was just being difficult because I didn't personally like the subject, which wasn't even the case at first but I slowly grew to do that because of this. In general I ended up having no respect for most of my teachers and by 10th grade I completely lost respect for my Danish and English teachers and just had contempt for them. This experience only changed when I started high school and finally encountered teachers who actually treated me as their equal and clearly taught their subject because they loved it and were willing to answer questions and admit when they didn't know something. This experience is what made me actually finally enjoy education.
I have always believed that kids should be taken seriously and that they are just as capable and intelligent as everyone else, people say that I'm good with kids but I always just respond that I treat them like equals. But I think I had forgotten a lot of the frustrations i had with this stuff as a kid because of the mask, the ideas I had were fundamentally correct and the only key piece I was lacking back then was Anarchism. It's so obvious how school turns the act of learning into a boring and stressful thing instead of an enjoyable thing, I realized that back then as the subjects I knew I liked (science, history and maths) were still boring and tedious to me. It's because the kids aren't treated as equals who you are sharing knowledge and skills with but as tools that need to beaten into shape. It's not voting rights that kids need but rather the full emancipation of society so that there is no institutions standing in the way of their voices being heard and being taken seriously, but not only that as we grow up we seriously have to remember what it was like to be a child and to never let ourselves grow bitter, I can already see this happening in my peers and it angers me that they turned around so quickly and started mocking children. Really in a way childhood should never be allowed to end, the ability to be awed and amazed while also completely rejecting injustice that children have is something everyone should stick to and try to find once again.
This video condensed everything I've thought and made me remember a lot of things I hadn't thought about for years. It's absolutely amazing.
@@tamatkya5922 Yeah exactly.
Ty❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I mean, I couldn't possibly have anything to add, although my background is very different, most of these points ring very true and it is really well put. I hope you are doing better now. Cheers
great video, i grew up always following the rules and never making trouble, but now in my 20s i realize how much these institutions (both at home and at school) made me resent authority and power structures.
i love the part of the video where you discussed how infantilizing teenagers ends up leading to more rebellious attitudes, it really hit home lol
I'm glad that I went straight from graduating high school into quarantine. It gave me the time away from most authority structures that I needed to actually find out more about who I am, instead of pushing all that under the rug and getting a job. Quarantine and what I've done in it have given me a whole new perspective on life and failure that I really needed after school with it's grades and strict graduation requirements.
Also, my parents went on vacation recently, leaving me, my siblings, and my grandmother at home. It's been great without them, I feel like I can be much more open about my feelings with my siblings, and also tasks like doing the dishes actually feel good to do. I'm no longer doing them because my parents insist and will yell at me if I don't do them, instead I'm doing them for myself and my siblings. I can crack a slightly dirty joke and not worry about what my parents will think. I've declared myself leader of the household for now, which consists of making brownies for everyone else, and not making dinner next monday. Life's great without an unnecessary hierarchical structure, and I'm starting to think that I should start to look into anarchist philosophies.
love your point about washing the dishes. so much parental paranoia about discipline and "laziness" is just this paradoxical spiel where they won't let you do any voluntary work and then shame you for not working. instead of asking for help or teaching you something it's always "you never do xy" and whenever you attempt doing something despite this, they can't tolerate the slightest mistakes, become angry and do it themselves. on a societal level the whole laziness rhetoric just serves to obfuscate that nothing is less desired than people voluntarily doing good work they enjoy.
the washing the dishes thing reminded me of PDA autism (pathological demand avoidance), where you physically cant bring yourself to do a task if its asked of you
I was just working on a video on this exact topic dhdaskjhdasjkhhjkahsjk especially since I'm a 14 year old egoist anarchist
I love this video, keep it up qwq
I don’t know how to really express that I so fundamentally agree with this shit. Revolution, anarchism, and socialism in general just click with me. It’s so fucking refreshing to have purpose other than hedonism and ruthless corpritism/capitalism. Thank you.
I have been trying to kill this in my raising of my kids because I am trying to kill this in me. I hate the gaslighting, I hate what I have endured and have my children endure as we grow up. This hits so deep, thank you for telling the truth.
I’m very lucky my parents realized “Oh shit, spanking doesn’t work” early on in my childhood
Same
KND was most underrated cartoon.
this made me think about my (16) relationship with my sister (8). unfortunately i often lash out at her when she teases me and even though i could never be scary or threatening, it's still wrong... i suppose it's because of my inability to set healthy boundaries and my ideas about how kids her age are supposed to treat me, their elder.
i also want to ask you how do you think age of consent should function in an anarchist society. i think that under the current system such regulations are absolutely necessary, same as laws against child labor - that's because of how much power adults have over us, how we're infantilized as you said in the video, etc.
but who knows how this would change as the world changes... honestly it's giving me a headache.
(of course, in any society sexual intercourse with prepubescent children is out of the question.)
I know how you feel. I have 6 younger siblings and it takes a lot of unlearning and a lot of mistakes to reframe my relationship with them. I'm not perfect, but I'm trying.
As for the age of consent, I understand your thoughts completely. I'm no seer, so I can't predict the future, but as we both understand, sexual violence is still coercive and still violence. Expanding the autonomy of young people doesn't change that. There's still a power imbalance there that makes relationships between minors and adults wrong, even if we reach a place in society where that imbalance is less severe and less systemically reinforced. As a whole actually, I find cross-age group relationships (large age gaps) to be off-putting so I don't think that the cultural value of preventing that sort of thing would change. I'm rambling a bit, but I hope you understand what I'm saying.
@@Andrewism thanks for the answer
@@Andrewism I know I'm almost a year late, but I'm just watching this now. Anyway, in an anarchist society where youth are liberated from adult oppression and the social power imbalances disappear, do you think would there still remain a significant enough physical power imbalance that would make such relationships problematic. On the one hand adults generally have much more physical strength than children, but on the other hand adults would be heavily disincentivized from inappropriately exercising said power due to the radical transformation of age relations. I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Also I'm wondering how your relationships with your siblings are going now, if you've got any advice or lessons you've learned.
Thank you for making this.
I have found that the concept of youth liberation is extremely controversial even in Anarchist spaces.
Adultist spaces. Call it what it is: "Adult Fragility."
"Life as a shorty shouldn't be so rough" never hit harder
I have a three year old girl and try to empower her since birth, I give her the tools and support but let her chose for herself. The montesori and waldorf disciplines and frees schools cater a lot of this ideals. I really see the difference now when I see fellow parents how they treat their childs and it's hard to not interfere and start and argument with them. Your video has also given me more insight on things I didn't pay attention before and made me think. Every parent should listen to your arguments and really do a self evaluation on their parenting.
Thank you
Watching this makes me feel like I did grow up with an oddly liberated childhood. My mother wasn't perfect but she always saw me as an individual who could speak their mind. She took my opinion seriously since the moment I could express it (which was extremely young, I learned to speak and express myself early.) As such I grew up with this iron core respect for myself that I still consider one of my best traits. I am deserving of respect because I am here and I am breathing. I don't need to do more to earn it.
On top of all this, I was a very obedient child on the whole. My mom explained her reasons, and apologized whenever she did me wrong. She respected my privacy and autonomy and most of all, championed my existence. I'm very high functioning autistic with adhd, and while none of this was diagnosed until my late twenties, it was my mom who kept me safe from the world's worst impulses. She always let me grow at my pace and my schedule. She let me be alone for hours at a time, let me decide my after-school activities, and when we would spend time together. This was true when I was 5 and when I was 15.
I realized when I started to get into leftism how rare her respect really was and something that kept hitting me lately is how messed up it is that parents think they own their kids. The way some birth mothers describe their children as objects just because they had their kids in their bodies make me so sad for the children.
Animals deserve their autonomy and will to be respected, never mind children who are literally building their own existence one day at a time.
As someone who was raised by Chinese parents, and grew up in the American education system, this is truly an eye opening moment for me. I fear for not only my own future, but also for the future of my friends and other classmates who are being unknowingly herded into a life of suffering.
Thank you for the red pill that you have provided to me. It has been a long journey full of hard truths, but also one where I can hope for and hopefully work toward a truly better future for our youth, and subsequently all of humanity.
Thank you for this video.... a topic I rarely hear discussed. the young and the old both have little freedom AND little protections. Tell me why the only reason someone younger than 18 can emancipate themselves is MARRIAGE OR ENLISTMENT? Why nursing homes, institutionalized public school, and day cares are the de facto?; If we didn't have to choose between work 40/hrs a week or perish, we might enjoy caring and togetherness with our own families... or at least the option.
I just watched D'angelo's video about On***n and how his platform allowed him to abuse numerous vulnerable, young people (+children). It made me so sad one of those children only found her way to him to escape out of an even more abusive home life. And watching nothing happen to help Claudia Conway. If our society had a group norm that parents cannot abuse their children, gears would actually be moving. But we all collectively decided if parents demonstrably can't raise their child safely, well, there's cLEarLy nO good solution (aka: No universal, liability-free blanket policy that would work).
oh i have a long story about autonomy in my family.. let's say for short that in my family, "one is a child until both parents die"
I really love how you have such a diverse collection of art pieces to showcase your points Andrew.
I don't think you emphasize enough how destructive and just plain evil the consequences have been of the mistreatment and dismissal of youth in society, the "troubled teen" industry has lead to actual suicides of kids who went through that system, this topic is honestly something that i consider to be a matter of life and death because of things like that
I while ago I had a micro existential about how little control any of us have over our own lives. When we are young we have to serve our schools and parents, when we are adults we serve our bosses, and once we are retired, then there's not much more time for anything. Worst part for me is that as things go I've had it incredibly well and went to a school where I had some self determination but still.
If everyone stopped being "authorities" over their kids in the home and being helpful and kind then literally all that stuff would crumble in a generation, the bosses, the lack of control all life etc, it's ALL because of parenting.
Your statement "Do what ever you can. Resist." hit a wound I've felt for over a decade. I had a father who I can only describe as sociopathic; he hurt and killed our animals, tossed us out multiple times during our adolescence, assaulted my mom with his truck, made my brothers bleed, and behaved "off" with us daughters. I felt like I was a hostage in a decade-long war of my mother and us trying to escape him, and being shoved over and over again back to him. My mother fought like hell, and so did my stepdad who was the only true dad I ever had. My siblings and I were scared of him, and my father terrorized his gf's children too. All the times I got in the way of his rampages, the times I refused to return to him, run away, tell the truth to anyone who would listen... we were hurt further. Every time, in some fashionable mix of words, I was told my thoughts and feelings weren't my own, and so they weren't real, and are evidence I needed further fixing. I couldn't have an authentic experience and authentic fright, upset, and then when I'd get angry my anger wasn't genuine either.I was assumed incapable of the truth. Oh but my father's words were truth, despite the CPS visits, despite the police calls, and bloody noses from panic attacks my big brother would have at the thought of having to go back. At 13, I lost my mother for a long time, and everyone else I cared about for even longer, we all did, and I know that moment broke my spirit unlike any other event in my life. It was like all I believed in, my morals, my humanity were proven false. I'm still trying to find her, the old me. She was scared, but she fought. Now I feel like I'm just scared.
I'm 23, now and when I think back to what kid me did, what needed "disciplining," and was so evil and despicable... I did the most logical and moral thing I could do: I resisted.
Your words were very healing, thank you. It was like a new voice for the kid me to know believed her.
I'm still amazed, looking back, by how ableist the entire school system is. And how it affected me as a(most likely) neurodivergent child. All my memories of school are filled with confusion, fear, shame and anxiety. I'm pretty sure I taught myself to mask perfectly, but at the cost of becoming a deeply ill and miserable person
As a fellow neurodivergent person, I often wonder about what "class solidarity" with groups like teachers, caregivers, and healthcare workers should look like for us given that those groups often occupy both oppressed AND oppressor roles.
Physical punishment ended for me, once I was strong enough to hurt people back. A core memory of my childhood is breaking the wooden spoon my mum used to spank me with.
The commentary about having to suppress anger hit hard. I remember feeling angry a lot as a child, and my underdeveloped state wasn't equipped with the tools to properly express it. The ways I did express were frowned upon, so that tended to teach me that anger is not acceptable. Funny enough, I go to therapy now to better understand and express feelings, because that wasn't something I learned well when I was a child.
same. the beatings and taking my stuff away stopped once i bit my mother's hand as hard as i could at 16. she suddenly realized i'm a person, though verbal abuse didn't end, and her mother is still getting away with treating me horribly. and even as an adult i and my younger sibling aren't important parts of the family. i'm sad that i can't help my younger sibling in any way until i'm out of the house myself.
this one hits right in the feels. i quit working in SpEd last fall after a long slow burnout... it actually broke my heart and i think it turned me into a school abolitionist
I used to work in a school and honestly you can many comparisons to schools and prisons.
@@Abjecthda definitely, i've seen that comparison made a lot, including by students.
i recently found out too (and now it keeps coming up for me, like when learning a new word)
how a bunch of prisons and schools (in the US at least) were designed by the same architects
@@Abjecthda Differences are in prison you can't assault the inmates, in school you can (it's legal in tons of countries ones with larger pops. than the illegal ones so more people subject to it than not and also legal in 19 US states).
In prison you can file complaints about your treatment but in school it's much, much harder if not impossible.
Prisons are filled with hardened, remorseless criminals and schools are filled with innocent, playful little children. (I know they don't stay that way throughout all school but that's because of how society (mis)treats them).
It's literally someone's job to argue why you shouldn't go to prison, if you can't afford him, they force one on you, even if you're guilty and then there's trails and re-trails to help you get out early, in school you don't even need to be guilty of a crime in fact it's illegal for you not to be charged.
It's also forced work in a full time job with no pay which then follows you home in your free time for more unpaid work after your long unconsensual day in what for countless people is another prison where they have less rights than rapists and murderers (the home).
It's slavery when done to anyone else just like -
Assault is assault only when done to anyone else
Circumcision is bodily mutilation/torture when done to anyone else.
Grounding is forcible/false confinement when done to anyone else
Taking other's things is theft when done to anyone else.
Destroying their stuff is vandalism when done to anyone else
Saying you hate any other group is bigotry, (with kids people give a knowing laugh).
Forcing religious views and political views (or any other view you have) unto them is indoctrination and considered wrong only when it's anyone else.
Forcing them into abusive "behaviour modification" programs is kidnapping but only when they aren't a minor then it's giving your property to another.
Also every year children are denied life saving operations doesn't matter how much they cry and beg they don't want to die because it's against someone else's beliefs to save them, someone who's permission they need not to perish, they also die from having their bodies sliced open and the flesh removed every year circumcision murders them (murder is what we call it when happens to anyone else).
They also die from school shooting's because like you rightly point out it functions like a prison but it doesn't have the same security, this would be called child neglect if you put them in any other dangerous environment and they died from it, if you're responsible for someone's safety and they die under your watch? Imagine being forced somewhere you despised going to against your will because no one listened to you, it was harming you and wasting all your time just to get shot dead.
Children who commit suicide every year, every month, every week, all because of how crappy they're treated in their lives due to this prejudice against youth are also victims of murder, I would assert. Joining the ones who above died from mutilation, denial of life saving operations when they could've been saved and any other medical treatment their parent's force on them which kills them (there's accounts of that too), every year children are legally murdered, in a variety of ways and I'd say adult suicides stemming from how they were mistreated or how other's were mistreated as children is also a case of legal murder just a slow death, lot's of suffering before the snap.
All of this could be avoided, we avoid making everything above legal and acceptable for every other group in society and we claim to care about them much less.
KND in the real world would be awesome. Children’s liberation, radical education, children’s protection and learning to be fully developed autonomous individuals to flourish in a free society.
Wow, even though I was only spanked when I was really young I can still feel the coercive shadow to this day as I live with my parents.
Spanking definitely broke something like trust towards my parents even tough they're generally wonderful people, I think they regret it now.
@@grandsome1 They don't sound wonderful at all.
@@grandsome1 If a wonderful spouse doesn't forcefully strip their partner in a beyond humiliating ritual and then beat them on their bare ass as they scream and cry and beg for it to stop then neither does a "generally wonderful parent" I have no doubt your "generally wonderful" comment does come from valid examples of times were they really have been great people but that wouldn't change it for the husband forcing that on his wife, what he did was still sick and deranged despite the fact doing that to your spouse used to be very accepted and husbands who did it were described by their spouses and others as generally wonderful people, it just goes to show the sheer power of cultural normalisation when a bad person does a bad thing that's awful but when a good person does that's a tragedy and only cultural conditioning makes good people do bad things even evil ones.
I'm 22 now and still live with the fear of having my autonomy removed from me again. I guess living with my family does not help, but I know growing up without privacy, without boundaries, and without a day affected me. I still feel paralyzed by the fear that I will be chastised for taking my life into my own hands. My horror stories are too much to get into, and I'm not going to expand upon it on a two year old comment section but I agree with everything being said in this video.
I am a social studies teacher and just came across your channel. My name is also Andrew oddly enough…but you are very wise/well spoken and I plan to work your philosophy into my own as an educator of the next generation. I thank you very much.
I remember when I stopped liking things. I used to imagine things better by running around in a weird way, I could engage in a dreamlike state while aqake by doing so and have thus very vivid thoughts. At some point though, nothing really brought me joy. No game, no story. But I realized I always had fun in memories. The rose tint on how things were as I remembered them. Though my memory was always bad, and it still is, I subconsciously tried forcing that rememberance on everything so I could enjoy things again. At some point, as memory and experience became ever closer, memory became expectation. I was thinking of myself remembering playing a game as I was playing the actual game itself. I could never express this or think if anyone else thought or felt the same way. I was very diassociated from people and the world around me. Because I never understood why everyone was so different, I acted awkwardly, was bullied, and essencially though I was some cosmic joke, that I was cursed. Only this year as I was searching for the psychologists I visited as a child is that I realized I was on the spectrum. I have no idea if knowing that as I was growing up would have made it better or worse. But even now, having gone through much more loss, adult problems and such, I still think of the middle-school days as a black-hole in my life. Still I can't imagine going through something as psychologically damaging as I was at the time by merely exisiting and thinking about the world. But there is a paradox to impressionable minds isn't there? All of that feeling of isolation has bred many ideas and creations I would not have if I hadn't experienced it.
this reminded me of so much trauma, it really is fucked up how people treat their children. thank you for this video.
I don’t have any marginalized identities, but I grew up in an authoritarian, emotionally abusive home. This was hard to hear but felt very true
Have you heard of "Taking Children Seriously"?
Yes, and I actually drew significantly from their work while writing this script :)
@@Andrewism Who are they? where can I see them?
I knew at 12 I never wanted kids and this decision makes other people infantilize me to this day. I'm 41 and got sterilized last year... after 24 years of asking doctors to sterilize me.
Not once did they discuss the options, just dismissed my thoughts and feelings I have had about my own body and limits my whole life.
I'm also apparently not a "real adult" if I don't have a kid and still cannot be trusted to listen to my instincts. I'll never know "true love" either. And I guess my fiance will have to step out of the way when I find Mr Right that will change my mind and make me want babies.
Frome 17 to 41 you kept asking, and only after so much time had you been respected...
I am 25 now, and I got the belt plenty of times. I watched my beagles get beaten until they were yelping uncontrollably.
Now I tell all of the adults in my life that I will never hit my children or animals. They always go silent and just look at me as if they are scared to challenge my beliefs.
as soon as i dropped education i was hit by a wave of guilt and was terrified that i wouldnt "get anywhere in life" because i couldnt continue with education. but soon after i realised i have more autonomy without the school system dragging me down.. now i'm aware that i'll likely never survive trying to get back to that linear, best-for-capitalism route but i also have so many more options and i know the taste of liberation.. i'm unsure where i'm headed but i just know spending even a couple years without the bullshit makes my uncertain future feel distant and unimportant
when i say "dropped education" - i slowed down school work output because of my adhd, it eventually got to a point where i could do next to nothing in or outside of school, so i simply dropped it from my head for the past 8 months or so and i'm waiting to find out the consequences
and as a trans kid i dont feel nearly safe in school nor at home, so i can put the time into trying to help as many of my friends as i can dealing w the same stuff. completely dropping school from my head really helps and i'm just thankful that i've not run into any issues with school or p*rents doing something about it
i recommend checking out "the teenage liberation handbook" by grace llewellyn. it has advice for what to do without school.
@@cattideltarune thanks
@@user-rs2gv4vk1g np!
As someone who came from a broken, violent home, the part about how violence hurts cognitive development hit hard; I can only wonder how much happier I could be if I had better parents
“If you’re an advocate for hitting children, you did not turn out fine.” 😂😭👏 Im using this next time I hear someone make that dumbass argument.
This is such well put video. And it got me thinking about a discussion I had with my therapist on how LGBTQIA+ students because they're "different" and "othered" are not seen as worthy or "smart enough" by most of their teachers/professors and peers, no matter the effort they put into school work on top of having to deal with constant harassment and bullying. It's almost as we either have to 'prove' ourselves or hide and suppress our talents until we get out of the schooling/educational system and have the freedom to express hoping people will finally see our worth and recognize our contribution to society as valid or whatever.
Holy shit i thought i was the only one who noticed this, every time i talk about it people laugh at me like im being stupid.
Im a 14yo btw, so it makes sense.
It doesn't make sense at all. You're describing stupid people being adultist.
This video made me realize my parents are amazing. I mean, i knew that, but even more so now. My parents did almost none of what you outlined in the at home section. Ik that the majority of house are like that though because i saw it with all of my friends growing up. My parents let me be my own person and when they did get on to me always had a good reason and made it a point to tell me that reason, and make sure I understand it. Even if i was to young to understand, they told me anyway. I was also homeschooled, and i completely agree, I'm glad i missed that.
being a child fucking sssssucks, man. i'm a 24 year old with depression and anxiety and this is still the happiest i've ever been in my life so far.
this video really made me appreciate my parents...
Not mine.
At least my dad.
Shows how appalling parent's (that's a lot of people!) are and how little we expect of them if we have to appreciate them not being horrid to us, as if horrid is expected, it shows how hopelessly misopaedic society/humanity is.
Would you be friendly with people or have a good onlook/attitude towards them if it was common for them to treat any other social group this way? women? gays? blacks? trans? foreigners? no, we'd call them misogynist, racist, transphobic, xenophobic etc, the only non-content of character "identity" you can't take "pride" in is any non-adult ones, "teen, child, kid etc," they're not only things you never hear someone say they're proud to be but if you look closely you see ton's of shame and insecurity about being them (as if they're the ones should be ashamed) they're even used as insults "child" well be said as if an insult was launched, imagine if "woman" or "black" was used that way? well why is it a good idea, to have EVERY woman and black be subject to that for years? (plus everyone else too) an identity which is shamed? what effect on self esteem might that have? and what will grow out of that? I already know the answers to those questions but it'd be a few novels long.
You managed to avoid the school system, I envy that so much.
Thank you so much for talking about this, it is a lot of what I needed to hear.
I’m partway through highschool and I’d just like to thank you for being a big part of radicalizing me. I’ve recently started growing a youth mutual aid network in my area and I’ve been trying to educate other kids on stuff like this, and politics in general.
You're doing a job honestly even more important than anyone realises. Keep it up.
hey what you're doing is so important! i wish i'd had resources like that in high school. keep up the good work and take care of yourself!
The way we treat children should not be ignored- the values of imperialism and capitalism are fully burned into the minds of children at school first.
I've got my own issues certainly that seep into this topic because I still have nightmares from school, but like-
as a disabled student there were some classes I would have to spend pretty much all of my time in to maybe barely pass. I'd lose sleep and most of my free time, it was unhealthy. Yet I'd have people constantly questioning how hard I was actually trying while some kids who spent like 20 min a night on the class would be praised.
Remind you of anything? Because it's just capitalism. Let me explain.
Grades are not earned. The system works backwards- they look at your effort as if the final product is the effort. "A" means you worked hard and clearly deserve it. "F" means you were lazy and didn't actually try. Regardless of reality.
Not everyone has the same resources or ability. I worked myself to the point it was clearly unhealthy for a worthless letter on a piece of paper that other people decided I needed to get. Other kids could pass me with little effort on their part while still retaining free time.
This is the same value system capitalism uses-
If you are a low earner- well fuck you, you deserve it
If you are rich- you must be a real hard worker to have gotten to that point
Reality doesn't factor in.
On top of that schools serve as a propaganda center for the state and at least mine treated the "founding fathers" like fucking demi gods.
Your work is so thoughtful and enlightening, and consistently so. I noticed on this video just how amazing the use of visual art was.
Thanks and here’s to your channel growing regardless of its value to capital.
It is very valuable to anyone lucky enough to find it despite innate (or in some cases) deliberate suppression of content like this.
as a teen who has felt the effects of ageism since i was like 6, i feel so represented, thx lol. From the moment we are born we are forced into a slave like relationship, sure its not chattel slavery and it feels stupidly hyperbolic when i phrase it like that, but when you think about it is true: We as independent, free beings are forced into subservience to figures that dont see us as much more than pets or tools, we arent allowed to oppose them for any reason, i could go on: in a way, the way we are raised, like the education system, is a form of soft indoctrination that acclimates us to the hierarchy of capitalist society. I personally had quite a good family that would treat me as an equal and that VERY rarely beat me (partly because i would not allow them not to). Well those are my two pence, i havent watched the vid yet so apologies if some of this is redundant.
Beating a child EVER is criminal and destructive. Do not excuse such behavior. It's abominable.
@@meganbaker9116 True, but they were absolute saints compared to some of the horror stories I have heard from my parents, especially second of third generation immigrants that seem to be placed under a lot of pressure to get into a good profession like law or medicine, I for one only got beaten for misbehaving as opposed to not doing well enough in some minor test in school, and I got away with a light smack at worst, never "the belt".
@@oscarwells3070 The hierarchy of suffering will always leave someone with trauma out in the cold. "I...ONLY got beaten," with all due respect, is a very messed up thing to say. I maintain that beating or hitting a child in any way EVER is criminal and damaging.
I think this is one of your best videos yet.
This....got me close to crying. Thank you SO MUCH for making this video. I remember feeling helpless and at odds with the world.....and here I am wanting to do what I can as an adult to change it. I am becoming the person I should have been I think.
Let's liberate the youth!
One of the few things I kinda agree with you on. The education system is a catastrophic failure.
I hate how kids are forced into following potentially immoral rules to the point of losing their humanity. I get that some rules are important like how you are not supposd to horseplay in ways that are detrimental to your peers, but when I say some rules, I mean some rules. When somebody tries to shush you, do you ever have the urge to shush them back? Not all rules are moral. Some of them can be immoral. That is when you have to find out the difference between morality and legality.
so glad you decided to make a video on this.
it's definitely something a lot more people need to hear about.
I tried not to be an Authoritarian with my children. My wife on the other hand did. This led to divorce.
Clearly, your wife is not a good parent compared to you. She deserved that divorce.
Honestly this makes me greatful that my parents like let me do stuff and didn’t punish in like bad ways
I wish I had this channel (and RUclips for that matter) growing up.
heck yeah subtitles :D
Love your videos. They are both a sharp and needed crituque of the current systems and able manahe to leave me feeling optomistic that there is a way out. Thanks for the amazing vid as always.
highly underrated channel.
Amazing video about youth liberation.It gave me more insight on what we should do with youth liberation as a supporter of youth liberation.
This topic is definitely one I should know more about. It's frightening how many traps there are in the system we live in, and school never seemed to be one of those. My primary education was, thankfully, done in a school that was very different than what's the norm today, but, once I was out, the soul-crushing reality was hard to adapt to.
Eager to see more videos on the topic!
This video is simply amazing. Seriously good work
Sheesh, I’m really glad my parents had faith in me. They gave me respect and autonomy and I can’t express how grateful I am for that. Happy to say that I have good relationships with both of my parents.
I want to offer that same respect and autonomy to my kids some day and maybe get them an alternative education to public school. My experience was not so great with that.
Thank you for this video, very much appreciate the subtitles! Feel a lot of hope watching this & sadness for my childhood.
Will you start crediting the art/artists you include in your videos? The points you make are so spot on but the videos are hard to watch cause its like 20 mins of uncredited artwork, which is really frustrating as a visual artist who has had my work stolen and ripped off many times. Otherwise I really enjoy the narratives you create, and the art is always stunningly cohesive with the concepts you unfurl. Just smack a citation underneath or next to the picture so its not art theft. Thank you!
I started putting credits since the video after this one, Carnival & Class Struggle, so don't worry. I've been putting it at the end of every video now. I've been making a conscious effort to not use the work of small artists though, all those art pieces you see are by well-known, often dead artists.
@@Andrewism I just watched your newest video to see if I was late to your new citing methods and although it should be acknowledged that putting the artists names on a list at the end of the video can be more helpful than having nowhere to find the names, its still not proper citation. My argument is not whether you are allowed to use the art, I think your artistic choices add so much to the videos! Im moreso advocating that there are rules for citing peoples work, whether that is from books, media, music, paintings, photography, etc. And there's nothing wrong with using the works of small artists so long as you have permission and properly cite it, in fact it can help small artists grow their following too! There are lots of art citation guides online to help you choose which form of citation is most necessary for what you are doing. I know it can take time to properly cite many pieces of work, but I think it will allow your followers to engage deeper in the things you share. Just my opinion tho! keep up the good work! Thank u for your quick reply before! I know your channel is gonna be huge soon
Thank you so much for these messages. Thank you so so much ☆♡◇
Trust , love so simple
That's the secret: that good parenting is simply a matter of putting your child, and your instincts about your child, first. The societal stuff gets in the way and messes with that. Ignore it as much as you can!
This seems like it gets complicated real quick when it comes to sexual matters. Society is quick to label anyone who has interest in someone who happens to be under 18 years old a pedo, but it seems to me that when you actually dig into it, pedos are attracted to the infantilized condition that childhood represents to them, rather than their age per se. Perhaps in a world that completely stopped infantilizing the youth, it wouldn’t be possible to be attracted like that anymore, and then the problem would disappear? Everyone brings up a child’s inability to consent, but no one talks about adults who cannot consent.
I went to a private Christian school for the first 3 years of my education, and we were too poor to afford it so I eventually went into public school. It was much worse at the Christian school, so to me, a little Christian white boy, I felt like it was liberating to be in the public school for about 2 years, which was how long it took to realize that it was the same old thing as before. Lo and behold, I rebelled and got thrown into a mental institution, then got enrolled in the “young marines” which is the military training actual children, and really I never had any freedom no matter what I did. Thing is, I never stopped being a rebel, found my way out of the church and out of school, got into drugs and almost got married to an abuser at 18, and lost half my family over my trans/queer identity, my atheist identity, and distance. It’s a madhouse growing up in this country
Friendly reminder that KND itself is a resistance against the wider oppression of children by adults. Although somewhat hierarchical, the knd as an organization support each sector equally and empower their members to autonomously structure their roles. Its a great through line for this subject, cause kids can be incredible humans- innovators and rebels against an autheoity too up its on A to explain itself to them on equal ground. Viva the emancipation of childhood.
I carry with me since I was 5 a shame and anger about what adults told me or about me. I felt like a doll, only saying pleasant stuff and forced to kiss and hug people I didn't know or like. I always do the best I can to help children out of those dynamic
once again, so insightful and important
Having grown up with unhinged and emotionally unstable family, a neurological condition that few if any schools had adequate support for, and physical health problems that doctors did not take seriously until it was almost too late, I know all too well what it feels like to not be listened to, not to be treated like a person.
If living at home during the pandemic has taught me anything, it's that there's no way to give someone a healthy childhood when shame, self hatred, distrust, and the constant need to placate aggression are part of the equation.
My cousin has a son who just turned 3, and I want to parent him in the way that I wished I was parented. To teach him the lessons I needed, not just about algebra and english, but about emotions, conflict, kindness, and self-respect. Having seen this, my desire to raise him so that he never has to go through the level of trauma I went through is stronger than ever.
Thank you so much, both for voicing my frustrations in ways I could never articulate and for helping me to guide the future generations. If I can make life even a little easier for them than it was for me, I've done my job.
Schools need massive reform but I will always be a defender of free public schools as I see them as necessary, both socially and intellectually, for a functional democracy and the removal of public of school just makes education a privilege of the rich.
I love this video, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I'm glad to see you noticing some of the same things as me.
If I were to make a video on this I would love to borrow some of your language because it's very clarifying!
Children like to go on adventures, they ask their parents but they say no. When the children are adults and have freedom they don’t want to go on adventures.
I wonder how many parents are here thinking that you don't know what you're talking about.
I'm a parent. One of my tenets is to work together with my kids. When we have a discussion over transgressions, the idea isn't punishment. The idea is that we understand what we could have done differently. We take time to understand what the results of acting on intense emotions will be.
I hope I'm doing this right.
As a parent, there isn't a day that you don't think you're doing this completely wrong.
Been co-signing this philosophy since i was a kid.
If not for discriminatory child laws i couldve had a job and moved
Into my own place by 1997. But i had to wait 8yrs to become legal.
Then another 5 for someone to hire me XD