Quote
December 16, 2012
56 notes
"The arguments against the enfranchisement of children are identical to those used to oppose suffrage for women, immigrants, former slaves, the illiterate and the poor in general. “They are innocent and cannot understand politics. They will be taken advantage of and manipulated by the political interests of those more sophisticated than they. They aren’t ready for the responsibility.” But what readies people for responsibility is being allowed to take some. People become informed and savvy about those areas of life where they can exercise some power. It is powerlessness that creates passivity. When children are treated with respect, given choice and expected to have opinions that matter, they have options and make choices. I wonder what it must have been like, what dignity it must have conferred on children of the Iroquois Confederacy that any child over three was welcome to speak about matters of group importance in the tribal councils…. Nevertheless, children resist, both their own condition and the pressures to take on the perpetrator roles of the adults around them. Children have far less tolerance for overt injustice than do adults. From Soweto to Managua we have seen young people take to the streets and force the issue, propelling mass movements forward into open rebellion almost faster than adults could build organizations behind them."

— Aurora Levins Morales, Medicine Stories: History, Culture and the Politics of Integrity (via boyprincessdiaries)

(Source: theboyprincessdiaries, via swallowtailskies)

Tags: ageism activism quotes adultism

Link
October 16, 2011
37 notes
I am asking for something specific @ Notes of a Compulsive Self-Disclosurist

My son may be small but he has fairly big ideas about how respect feels. He understands that when you won’t look into someone’s eyes you aren’t really listening. He too translates eye rolling into disdain and impatience. He fully gets the inequality of other people making choices on his behalf and shit does he hate that! He is just as offended by being interrupted as the rest of us. He too has hurt feelings if his ideas get blatantly brushed off. Human to human relating doesn’t actually change all that much from age to age. Children are capable of incredible bluntness, sharp-wittedness and unprompted compassion. And it’s true; children can be loud, obnoxious, disrespectful and needy. And they can be told so; nine out of ten kids will quit once their behavior is called out. I’m not sure this statistic stays true for adults.

Here’s what’s frustrating about the sub-cultures I have brushed elbows with, the activists, earth-firsters, queers, anarchists, radical leftists (I realize I’ve got some generalizing going on here but I trust your self-reflectiveness, you know if I’m talking about you and I trust that you’ll keep reading either way). Every one of these little worlds takes diversity, inclusion, and strict political correctness quite seriously. Every ism in the universe is deconstructed and bashed around and spent hours upon hours of potluck time rapping about it all. Each group expects the culture to change according to their seemingly common sense of equality and human rights. What’s so funny is that ultimately, raising children equates to this: you, child, need more than I do and I am willing to give you what you need first. Meeting children’s needs models what these groups ask of the world: care for others especially when others have less. Yet these very groups all too often exclude children, perhaps not always consciously but so often by way of disregarding simple things like event times or spaces and their kid-friendliness. Excluding children by default excludes the parents tied to them.

Just a couple excerpts from a really important post.

Tags: adultism ageism children respect social justice radical spaces