We have collectively decided that children are the problem. Not the adults who built the world they inherited. Not the systems that failed them. The kids...
You can say things about children online that you would never say about any other group of people, and nobody flinches. “Kids these days.” “This generation is so soft.” Said with the smugness of someone who thinks that’s some profound cultural observation and not just... punching down at the people with the least power in any room. Kids who didn’t design the world they were handed, and are navigating conditions that would level most of the adults criticizing them.
Kids inherit the world adults built. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
And then there’s “child-free.”
Not talking about people who simply don’t want children. Valid, private, none of my fucking business. I mean the movement version. The identity. The whole community organized around active contempt for children existing in shared spaces. The “breeders” language. The fury at a child being present on a plane, in a restaurant, near them. Don't get me started on how weirdos in western society recently brainwashed and bullied others into accepting that dogs should somehow have more rights than little kids in public…
The language tells you everything. Free. As in liberated from. Children as the thing you’ve successfully escaped. That is a strange thing to build an identity around.
Children didn’t choose to be there. They’re not on the plane to inconvenience anyone. They’re new here. And the loudest voices in those spaces tend to be people with enough money to curate a life without children in it, looking down at people who don’t have that option. Punching down dressed up as a lifestyle.
Kids after Millennial have no reference point for a world without a camera in their face. None. And, I get why they're nostalgic for times they've never experienced. We, as (older) Millennials, got "The Last Great Childhood." The 80's/90's collective childhood was, as the kids say and fantasize about "peak." Delayed gratification, Saturday morning cartoons, and the expectation of third places... Even if some of our individual home lives were not wished on anyone else. Every awkward phase, every first experience, every normal bumbling moment of figuring out how to exist- It used to just disappear. There was a mercy in that. A kid at their first club night, wearing an outfit they were excited about, dancing awkwardly and having the time of their life... Those are sacred moments of simply becoming. Now they get recorded, posted, and handed to strangers to roast in the comments. Viciously. By adults.
And underneath all of that: School shooting drills as a routine part of childhood. An entire generation growing up practicing for their own potential massacre as a normal part of the school week. Plus cyberbullying, and sexual abuse material circulating at a scale that would have been incomprehensible twenty years ago.
These are not soft kids. These are kids carrying things no previous generation carried (collectively), and we have the nerve to call THEM the problem.
I’ve had to reassure single mothers more times than I can count that they don’t need to apologize for their kids. And I mean that literally. The pre-apologizing that mothers do in public, managing everyone else’s comfort around their children’s existence, on top of everything else they’re already managing.
One time, I just started dancing with some kids in the Dollar Tree and shouted “party on aisle 4!” They cheered. The mother looked relieved. Not just happy. Relieved.
In my building, a mom was trying to settle her kids down in the elevator, already apologizing before anyone said a word. I told her her kids were fine. A young man chimed in, "they're just doing what kids do." I said the people who have a problem with that are miserable. Because they are. I have always said that people who hate kids (to simplify it) hate themselves.
...To anyone feeling "triggered," this isn't a fight. This is the mirror- And I've paid the price more times than I can count, for being the only one to hold it up. I'll keep doing it anyway. Even when kids are being absolute terrors (I don't just mean bratty or obnoxious), I mean possible anomaly situations... They're still kids- All of them deserve regulated, competent adults who don't match or compete with them. If your instinct is to hurt, humiliate, or dismiss them, instead of empathize or understand as the ADULT (yes this is a lecture), you're the fucking problem and I want nothing to do with you. Let me be clear- All adults lose their cool, lose their patience, and have the human capacity to "snap" at times, but anyone who is reading this knows exactly the kind of asshole I am describing- That asshole should stay out of public spaces and get professional help.
Let me just slip in an edit here: The kids who eventually become adults, who need jobs to pay their bills, who will get into jobs they're very often not qualified for, don't have the skills or patience or energy for, aren't regulated for; don't give a shit about? That will eventually affect your life. Negatively. Especially when you need care, resources, or support... The kids who become adults that do not give af about anything, who get into positions with the slightest amount of power that they shouldn't be in, but they need the money from... tend to cause chaos in the lives of others and boy do they tend to enjoy it... "Sit with that."
Imagine if the funding, the resources, the actual political will, went toward building up kids and their struggling parents instead of keeping everyone’s nervous systems on fire. We know what works. It’s not a mystery- Stable housing, supported parents, safe schools, nutritious food (see: Kyushoku), early mental health access. We have the research. We’ve had it for decades.
Instead, most vote for and fund the downstream consequences. Prisons instead of pre-K. "Boot straps" and schadenfreude, instead of social and financial safety nets… until it's their life or someone they care about. Then suddenly it's, "well, this is completely different." We keep making the other choice, and then logging on to flex, "Fuck these kids" or "What’s wrong with kids today?"
Nothing is wrong with kids today- Everything is wrong with us.
Party on... Aisle 4.
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