The Free Open Society Project:

stealthbananas:

…Childism is the hardest form of prejudice to recognize because children are the one group that, many of us think without thinking, is naturally subordinate. Until they reach a stipulated age, they are the responsibility of their parents or guardians — those who have custody. But what does custody permit? What distinguishes it from ownership? One of the essential ingredients of childism is a claim by adults to the effect that “these children are ours to do with exactly as we see fit” or “children are here to serve, honor and obey adults.” These claims make a subordination doctrine out of natural dependency, out of the fact that children are born relatively helpless and need to be taken care of until they can take care of themselves. It seems normal to insist “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother” without any reciprocal “Honor Thy Children.”…

…In the half-a-century-old field called “Child Abuse and Neglect” (CAN) four main types of child maltreatment have been identified: physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse and emotional abuse. But these categories do not reflect how frequently the four types are combined in a given case. Listening to my adult patients in psychoanalysis who were maltreated as children, I have heard basically three stories: they tell me that they were not wanted; or that they were controlled and manipulated; or that they were not allowed to be who they felt they were. So I have come to think in terms of childism that intends (1) to eliminate or destroy children; (2) to make them play roles no child should play; or (3) to dominate them totally, narcissistically erasing their identities. Survivors make it very clear that the worst part of their experience — the most difficult to heal from, the least forgivable — was that no one protected them from it. They often make it clear, as well, that they have internalized the prejudice and direct it toward themselves….

Living while black:

“…they are fearful for their boys. They are from middle class backgrounds, people who have never been to jail, own their own homes, are not on welfare, are college-educated and doing their best to live the American dream. They enroll their kids in sports and activities, and are active PTA parents.

“This case is a reminder to them that even after following all the rules and trying to live their lives as upstanding citizens, it would only take a loose cannon with a handgun uttering racial slurs in the middle of the night to take their child away from them for good.

” “Being the father of a African-American son, this case concerns me greatly,” Dexter Dixon, a Baltimore business owner said.  “I must now have that conversation with my son, who is an Honor Roll student, great athlete, most tolerant and nicest kid you will ever know, that many people will just see you as a drug dealing, drug addicted, angry, ignorant, scary, gun-toting, criminal without even knowing you.”

“In a recent commentary, New York Times columnist Jonathan Capehart wrote about the survival rules his mother taught him, upon leaving a sheltered life and moving into a more urban Washington, DC suburb. “Don’t run in public.” (Lest someone think you’re suspicious.) “Don’t run while carrying anything in your hands.” (Lest someone think you stole something.) “Don’t talk back to the police.” (Lest you give them a reason to take you to jail or worse.)

“Adding to those rules, NPR’s Corey Dade in a recent piece added these: Dress to the nines when shopping in upscale stores lest the clerk think you cannot afford anything there and refuse you service or follow you to make sure you don’t shoplift; keep your hands at the 10 and 2 o’clock position when stopped by police and announce your every move when reaching in your wallet or glove compartment box for your registration and license, lest you be thought to be going for a gun….”

“While I hate the idea of showing “proof” that lesbian and gay couples are capable of raising healthy families, these kinds of studies are critical in breaking down the myths that are constantly being perpetuated by anti-LGBT culture.”

There is more than one definition of family, and most of the definitions we have today are tied to the idea of owning property. If something is our property, then traditional logic says we can then treat it how we like. I say that neither our partners nor our children are property and that it’s time to start figuring out how to treat them as if we believed that.