Trying To Edge A Sneeze Is Literal Hell. Either Sneeze Or Stop Yourself, And Make The Decision Quickly

Why we don’t like it when children hit us back

To all the children who have ever been told to “respect” someone that hated them.

March 21, 2023

Even those of us that are disturbed by the thought of how widespread corporal punishment still is in all ranks of society are uncomfortable at the idea of a child defending themself using violence against their oppressors and abusers. A child who hits back proves that the adults “were right all along,” that their violence was justified. Even as they would cheer an adult victim for defending themself fiercely.

Even those “child rights advocates” imagine the right child victim as one who takes it without ever stopping to love “its” owners. Tear-stained and afraid, the child is too innocent to be hit in a guilt-free manner. No one likes to imagine the Brat as Victim—the child who does, according to adultist logic, deserve being hit, because they follow their desires, because they walk the world with their head high, because they talk back, because they are loud, because they are unapologetically here, and resistant to being cast in the role of guest of a world that is just not made for them.

If we are against corporal punishment, the brat is our gotcha, the proof that it is actually not that much of an injustice. The brat unsettles us, so much that the “bad seed” is a stock character in horror, a genre that is much permeated by the adult gaze (defined as “the way children are viewed, represented and portrayed by adults; and finally society’s conception of children and the way this is perpetuated within institutions, and inherent in all interactions with children”), where the adult fear for the subversion of the structures that keep children under control is very much represented.

It might be very well true that the Brat has something unnatural and sinister about them in this world, as they are at constant war with everything that has ever been created, since everything that has been created has been built with the purpose of subjugating them. This is why it feels unnatural to watch a child hitting back instead of cowering. We feel like it’s not right. We feel like history is staring back at us, and all the horror we felt at any rebel and wayward child who has ever lived, we are feeling right now for that reject of the construct of “childhood innocence.” The child who hits back is at such clash with our construction of childhood because we defined violence in all of its forms as the province of the adult, especially the adult in authority.

The adult has an explicit sanction by the state to do violence to the child, while the child has both a social and legal prohibition to even think of defending themself with their fists. Legislation such as “parent-child tort immunity” makes this clear. The adult’s designed place is as the one who hits, and has a right and even an encouragement to do so, the one who acts, as the person. The child’s designed place is as the one who gets hit, and has an obligation to accept that, as the one who suffers acts, as the object. When a child forcibly breaks out of their place, they are reversing the supposed “natural order” in a radical way.

This is why, for the youth liberationist, there should be nothing more beautiful to witness that the child who snaps. We have an unique horror for parricide, and a terrible indifference at the 450 children murdered every year by their parents in just the USA, without even mentioning all the indirect suicides caused by parental abuse. As a Psychology Today article about so-called “parricide” puts it:

Unlike adults who kill their parents, teenagers become parricide offenders when conditions in the home are intolerable but their alternatives are limited. Unlike adults, kids cannot simply leave. The law has made it a crime for young people to run away. Juveniles who commit parricide usually do consider running away, but many do not know any place where they can seek refuge. Those who do run are generally picked up and returned home, or go back on their own: Surviving on the streets is hardly a realistic alternative for youths with meager financial resources, limited education, and few skills.

By far, the severely abused child is the most frequently encountered type of offender. According to Paul Mones, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in defending adolescent parricide offenders, more than 90 percent have been abused by their parents. In-depth portraits of such youths have frequently shown that they killed because they could no longer tolerate conditions at home. These children were psychologically abused by one or both parents and often suffered physical, sexual, and verbal abuse as well—and witnessed it given to others in the household. They did not typically have histories of severe mental illness or of serious and extensive delinquent behavior. They were not criminally sophisticated. For them, the killings represented an act of desperation—the only way out of a family situation they could no longer endure.

- Heide, Why Kids Kill Parents, 1992.

Despite these being the most frequent conditions of “parricide,” it still brings unique disgust to think about it for most people. The sympathy extended to murdering parents is never extended even to the most desperate child, who chose to kill to not be killed. They chose to stop enduring silently, and that was their greatest crime; that is the crime of the child who hits back. Hell, children aren’t even supposed to talk back. They are not supposed to be anything but grateful for the miserable pieces of space that adults carve out in a world hostile to children for them to live following adult rules. It isn’t rare for children to notice the adult monopoly on violence and force when they interact with figures like teachers, and the way they use words like “respect.” In fact, this social dynamic has been noticed quite often:

Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority” and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person” and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.

(https://soycrates.tumblr.com/post/115633137923/stimmyabby-sometimes-people-use-respect-to-mean)

But it has received almost no condemnation in the public eye. No voices have raised to contrast the adult monopoly on violence towards child bodies and child minds. No voices have raised to praise the child who hits back. Because they do deserve praise. Because the child who sets their foot down and says this belongs to me, even when it’s something like their own body that they are claiming, is committing one of the most serious crimes against adult society, who wants them dispossessed.

Sources:

“The Adult Gaze: a tool of control and oppression,” https://livingwithoutschool.com/2021/07/29/the-adult-gaze-a-tool-of-control-and-oppression

“Filicide,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filicide

Reblog if you stand against order, civilization, and goodness itself

when you get this, please respond with five things that make you happy! then, send to your last ten people in your notifs (anonymously). you never know who might benefit from spreading positivity♡

:0 oh I didn't think I'd get this. Cool! My first ask!

Uh let's see...

Anything orange or peach (both color and flavor

The fact the my mom just let me buy my first pack of boxer-briefs without ridicule

Men with long hair

Wearing hoodies and basketball shorts as pajamas :)

SNOW. SNOW STORMS FJFJCJJ

SSSSSSSSSSNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOWWWWW

i wish i never learned about attachment styles because every time i look up mine, it basically says i’m the worst

everygirl should get. 10 hrs a day to play video games 8 hrs to lie on the floor 6-8 hrs to do literally nothing 22 hours to sleep per day.

happy Thursday the 20th

Hello, I understand this might be a long shot, but I'm a Palestinian citizen in urgent need of assistance. I have type 1 diabetes, and because of the current situation in Gaza, I’m unable to get my Humalog insulin injection. I'm seeking your support to get just one injection today to save my life. I need financial help to buy insulin for this week and am still $263 short. I apologize if you've already seen this request, but any amount you can donate would mean the world to me. My donation link is in my pinned post. Thank you, and may you be blessed. ❤️🇵🇸

If anybody you have anything to donate, please help her. I don't have anything myself, so all I can do is this

abused kids daydreaming: but what if there was a situation where I got hurt... and someone cared and comforted me? what then??

abused kids: oh no I'm selfish and stupid for imagining this! How could I think my pain would matter enough for someone to comfort me, I need to get over myself and start living in the real life! Comfort doesn't exist and if I'm not tough I'm not going to make it!

Welcome, esteemed guests! Tonight's mental shit show will feature stories such as:

"I've Convinced Myself That All of my Co-workers Hate my Guts and Want me Gone! Do They have a Reason? Probably! But it Wouldn't Matter if They Didn't!"

Brought to you by the Rsd/ Undiagnosed ADHD foundation, The Slow Workers Union, and the Corporation for Teaching Autistics Social Cues.

Followed by: "I'm Trying to Keep Myself From Soiling my Pants and Keep Them From Falling"

Funded by: The Lactose Intolerant Idiot Research Fund, The People Who bought Their Pants Size Too Big and Lost Weight so They Feel Even Bigger Council, and The Belt Hater Advocacy Group

And for the Finale: "They're Making me Work Faster Than I Normally Would and I Can Barely Keep Up. My Body is Tired, and I Want to Quit. I Just Want to Go Home and Do Nothing More Than Sleep for a Year or Two."

Sponsored by: The PRMMI (People's Republic of Mistki and Mommy Issues), Tired Autistics Running on Energy Drinks and Daydreams Inc., www.No-I-wont-go-to-therapy-ill-keep-venting-here.org, and viewers like you :)

Please silence all devices, take any crying children outside, and enjoy the show.

Yes and now I have no work ethic and I work slow as hell :D

Gifted kid burnout? More like “you have undiagnosed adhd or autism (or both) and because you did well in school as a child no one knew there was anything going on and now school has become more challenging both content and structure-wise to the point where your normal methods for succeeding are no longer working and everyone around you just thinks you’re being lazy”