Notices by Idzie (idzie@kolektiva.social)

@hakan_geijer absolutely stunning. I hope your trip was everything you hoped it would be!!

@hakan_geijer I hope it's an absolutely wonderful time!

So many of the arguments for why children should be treated the way they are, should have their autonomy further restricted, should be forced to do this or that thing, rely on claims about what supposedly "works."

The metrics for what "working" means are almost always ones I oppose (greater compliance with institutions, obeying adults, spending their time and using their minds in the way that's demanded of them regardless of their own needs and wishes), and often those claims are false even BY those flawed metrics.

But what I'm realizing is that I sometimes let myself get caught up in arguments using the framing of efficacy, when I really shouldn't.

Because I don't care and have never cared about efficacy, I don't care what "works" to force children to pay attention to teachers in schools, what improves grades, what makes children follow the rules set by their parents. I DON'T CARE

What everyone should actually be concerned with is ETHICS. That children are treated with respect, that they have as much autonomy as they reasonably can for their age, that they experience care instead of control.

And funnily enough when children feel safe, when they're respected and allowed to make their own choices, my personal experience is that they generally make more considered, safer, choices (though certainly not always the choices adults want). Because all people do better outside of authoritarian institutions of control, and that very much includes children (and the institutions of the family and of school).

@hakan_geijer Saint Death's Daughter by C. S. E. Cooney, the Murderbot diaries by Martha Wells, Ancillary Justice (and sequels) and The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie, The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (sequels are supposed to be great too, they were just too grim for me to get through personally)... If open to young adult SFF as well, I really enjoyed In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan and the earlier Wayward Children books by Seanan McGuire

All "strict" parenting is abusive. A primary focus on controlling children instead of working with & living with them in ways that respect them as people, is only ever going to be on a spectrum of "bad" to "worse."

There seems to be a lot of focus on differentiating "good" strict parenting (supposedly not abusive) and "bad" strict parenting (abusive), when any variation is wildly authoritarian and worthy of condemnation.

The abuse of children is absolutely endemic. It's the norm. Which means MOST parenting is, to some extent, also abusive.

In the same way that men must be explicitly AGAINST patriarchy to do good, non-engagement with gendered oppression means participating in it, so too adults must be ACTIVELY opposed to the oppression of children in order to not engage in normalized abuse of children.

@RiotLinguistics Once again, apologies for accidentally making it so assholes are showing up in your mentions 😭

@hakan_geijer Started with PG getting upset with Lee Shevek's well-backed claim that therapy does not prevent abuse, and being nasty and condescending as fuck about her. And just... Spiraled from there. So like, typical twitter stuff really??

@hakan_geijer So much abuse apologism. SO MUCH. Led by some of the biggest name anarchists there (Peter Gelderloos, Margaret Killjoy) 🙃

@hakan_geijer Smart choice. I have unfortunately been on twitter all day and I am SO angry 😭