Seeing their attempts at indoctrination fail to take hold the indoctrinated can only imagine they have been stymied by some equal and opposite form of indoctrination. That we might be sincere about creating the space for each young person to find their own way, to make up their own mind is impossible from their perspective.
That we wait on the outcomes of experiments and study to determine what is best? Just a lie.
If the research showed spanking were healthy and effective I’d support it. It’d be easy to support. People I have loved and respected swear by it. It makes sense if you don’t think about it too hard. But the data are crystal clear— so I had to adjust. There is no “good whopping” — we know better now.
@futurebird "Healthy" and "effective" in what sense? Should there not be an understanding of values which precedes quantification? The things we treat a priori are usually the most steeped in ideology.
*Not an anti-science rant, just my shameless nuance mongering
Healthy in the sense that there are not instances of child abuse in correlation with physical punishment.
Effective in the sense that the child is less likely to have discipline problems at school or legal problems as an adult. Spanked children are not more obedient. It fails to do the thing most people think it is most effective for.
@futurebird Reasonable definitions, but even if they were met quantitatively and scientifically, would that make it "okay"? My position is that there's an ethical consideration regarding exercising physical violence against a child that extends beyond effectiveness. Ends don't always justify means. I think we need to be careful about falling into technocratic traps. Science is extremely valuable, but it needs to be integrated into a broader worldview.
@CedarTea
But you’d need to spend as much time thinking about the definition of violence. Spanking isn’t enacted as violence in the minds of the people who use it and this matters. It also matters that the outcome is no different than real violence.
@futurebird Absolutely true, and a lot of ink has been spilled over that definition with no authoritative answer. This kind of stuff is not easy at all and is incredibly fraught. It's especially notable that differing base assumptions will be inherently ideological.
Science alone can't rescue us from the Nietzschean death of god. But when used in concert with other tools, it can be a big help.
@futurebird It depends. My late father spanked me when I was a child for engaging in violence or destroying property. He wanted to “nip that in the bud” before I grew up unchecked—which would result in the cops disciplining me with deadly force.
There is not a “one method for all kids” solution, even those in the same house hold.
One dad admitted publicly when it came to his daughter, a talk was all she needed. His son however needed to test the belt quite often! 😂
@darnell
This is one of the reasons spanking persists as a method. With a constant and loving parent it’s often not harmful. What is important is to recognize that it’s never more effective or needed. Some parents don’t know of any other way or their elders pressure them in to it. But there really is no evidence that it’s more effective than other forms of consistent and caring discipline.
@futurebird@darnell again, peer reviewed scientific studies show that beating children or animals, does not produce the desired outcomes, unlike positive reinforcement.
@futurebird@darnell From my perspective, the problem with corporeal punishment is not related to whether it is effective or not. Even if it were shown to be the most effective method, it cannot escape a simple fact:
Parents are angry when they a beating their kids. It is nearly impossible not to be. So, whether we wnat to or not we end up teaching a kid to associate anger with violent response.
When you add in the fact that punishment is positively reinforcing for the person doing the punishment under all circumstances (research: Prospect Theory), the situation becomes worse.
@bertwells@futurebird As I mentioned earlier, it depends on the kid. One thing we do not need is kids acting as if their actions do not have consequences (even disturbing & violent actions), otherwise you end up with a monster as an adult.
Some kids only need a chat, others being grounded works. Others need a spanking. Also the situation is key too. Parents need wisdom to determine which corrective measure is best for their child.
@darnell@bertwells What’s really interesting is when you study “effective” spanking (what little there is) it comes with a conversation & time out to think, it is consistent & never delivered in anger. And that’s because it’s not the spaking that’s working. It’s the desire of the child to not disappoint an adult they trust & respect. It’s the consistency. It’s the calm. The spanking is incidental: could be replaced with “I’m not putting up a star for you today”
@futurebird@darnell@bertwells I gave up spanking when I spanked my eldest on the butt and she put her fists on her hips and said, "That didn't hurt!" My immediate impulse was to hit harder but I had sense enough to go "OHHH NO, this stops HERE!" Time-out from then on.
There is another issue at play which is very statistical in nature and absolutely unavoidable when discussing the “effectiveness” of negative reinforcements like corporeal punishment. Almost all people are deluded into thinking that negative reinforcement “works” and that positive reinforcement “doesn’t work” by our inability to intuitively understand statistics.
When a person has a poor performance (a “below the mean” event). The law of “reversion to the mean” states that the next performance will probably be better (but not necessarily at or above the mean). Similarly, a good (above the mean) performance, is likely to be followed by one that is not so good.
This is just how things are, independently of whether we praise or punish.
But we don’t “feel” it. What we feel is that when someone does bad, and we punish them, the most likely “better” performance next time is because of the punishment. And when we someone does well, and we praise them, the most likely “worse” performance next time is because we praised them.
So we build up anecdotal evidence in our minds that punishment “works” and that praise feeds false pride and failure.
It is difficult to buck this trend. The only antidote I know of is a conscious choice to not punish, no matter how we feel.
No child needs spanking. Especially not black children. There are heaps of trauma we have passed down buying into the idea that it’s possible to “spank a kid safe” or buying in to the idea some kids are so bad, so hard-headed nothing else will reach them. But this just isn’t true.
I’m not some wishy washy hippie. I live and teach in the Bronx. I have seen a bad child once or twice.
@futurebird@bertwells It depends on the child though. I had some relatives who were rather violent when they were kids, where “conversations” did not work. Their mother ended up sending him to a tough, militaristic school (a cross between “scared straight” & boot camp).
It was rough & they used physical discipline, but it did straighten him out. (It was a last resort for his family & I am glad it worked)
@futurebird@darnell@bertwells Controversial opinion: One proportionate, timely, and judicious smack can cure a hundred follies, and save a thousand vain words.
I used to think it was possible. But there just isn’t evidence that supports it. What maybe true is that a trusted adult choosing a much more serious punishment one they have not used before helps a child examine their actions with more care. Makes them not want to disappoint their elder to that degree ever again.
eg. “You will stay in and not get to help with any of the chores.” was my wake up call at age 8–
@futurebird@darnell@bertwells The use of corporal punishment is based on a profound understanding of human nature, that, like with animals, carrots, and sticks lead, or beat us into the fold of wisdom. Still, I would not have you think I'm being contrary for it's own sake, or am advocating corporal punishment as a general rule, but I do not accept that it's not sometimes the shortest, sharpest route to correcting poor behaviour. The power of mere words isn't limitless.
@futurebird@squig@darnell@bertwells One time--ONE TIME--eldest was acting up at a restaurant and we said, "If you don't stop that, we're leaving." She didn't stop. We left, without ordering, and ate something boring at home. Thereafter, all we had to say was "Do you remember that time at Shoney's?" and she straightened right up.
@squig@darnell@bertwells If you think not getting to do chores sounds like a reward… reframe your chores! Are you trustworthy enough to operate the vacuum cleaner? This is where my mom had my mind — so being told she thought I was basically so bad at listening that I could do nothing? Well. It was memorable.
“this won’t work on the bad kids I have to deal with”
you’d be shocked. but you need to pay attention to the significance of every action.
@TruthSandwich@futurebird@darnell@bertwells Nonsense. You snowflakes need to grow up and realize what a savage Hell we are being tortured in, and adapt to reality as it is, not as you wish it were, in your rainbow-drenched illusions.
It can be really upsetting to learn, if you were a child who was both loved and hit. That the hitting could have been skipped and nothing would have been lost. (and maybe some things might have been gained) I was only spanked by my grandparents who were convinced my parents were crazy snowflake hippies for not spanking us and who feared as sensitive precocious black children the world would destroy us. It did not.
@futurebird@TruthSandwich@bertwells I had the shit kicked out of me at public school, and though it was upsetting at the time, I look back on it with fondness, and am not traumatized in the slightest. Those older kids were doing something my father should have done - knock all the pretension out of me, and cure me from the curse of living in fear. Look, there is no definitive 'right' or 'wrong' on corporal punishment. I favor it - when correctly applied - and all the haters can suck a lemon.
@squig@futurebird@TruthSandwich Sparta was a brittle authoritarian society. On its own terms it was a failure: for a society literally organized around military principles, it sucked at winning battles. Like the proverbial Stopped Clock, which is usually wrong but right at least twice a day, Sparta the Military State mostly lost its battles, but occasionally would win because you can’t lose ‘em all.
I have been around some winners in my life, elite athletes who are aggressive nightmares for their opponents; killers you might say. NONE of them were raised or trained by “spartan” methods. On the other hand, EVERY parent I ever knew who bought in to a punishing “spartan” training philosophy for their kids ended up with a kid who couldn’t compete when it mattered.
Because fear is a losing mindset, and punishment teaches fear above all else.
@bertwells@squig@futurebird@TruthSandwich Also, I know that following “300” there were a bunch of people doing articles debunking, so to speak, Sparta (the fictional one presented in the movie)
I really liked this blog series “This. Isn’t. Sparta.” For anyone who’s interested.
@Wraithe@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich I go by Plutarch's Lives, which contains vivid accounts of the culture of Sparta, including severe discipline, and how children were encouraged to steal, because it taught guile, and stealth, but if they got caught, they'd be beaten, or flogged. Spartans slept on wooden palates, and valued a tough, ascetic, agricultaral way of life, interspersed with bloody wars. At the time, Spartans were as feared as they were admired, for their stoic bravery.
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich From the article I linked to:
“By Plutarch’s day, Sparta had been reduced to little more than a tourist attraction under Roman rule.”
Look, I think the Corinthian helmets look cool too. And 30 or so years ago. I was very solid on my spear and shield work.
But the historical actual fact is that when push came to shove, the Spartans got tanked by other societies (with their own issues to be clear)
That’s why you can read Plutarchs descriptions of the Spartans and find them appealing.
What has changed is that we (society in general & compressing a lot of history) decided that there was no “divine right of kings” and that force of arms shouldn’t be the way everything gets decided.
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich I never said, war doesn’t happen, and Putin is going to end up getting his ass kicked. It looks like. I said “how everything gets decided“ please don’t pretend you read Plutarch and then mime not understanding basic English.
(My apologies, of course if English is your second or 3rd language )
@Wraithe@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich In the old days, warriors on the battlefield had spears, and swords, and arrows were flying in all directions, and when people met on the battlefield, they had to look their opponent in the eyes, and be drenched in their blood, of have one's own blood drawn. That was the Age of Real Men, not little pygmies who can shoot someone from a mile away.
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich Absolutely! The age of real Men!
Aside from the women who also have been taking the field for centuries.
And they died fighting face to face like men!
I mean unless you were shot by a ballista (roman) from 200 yards away, or killed by burning balls of pitch (Greek) from 500 yards away or trampled by cavalry or chariots (celts, scythians, Romans, mongols)or or shot by an arrow…or…or…
@Wraithe@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich I'd rather be burned with a ball of pitch, shot in the face by an arrow, or be trampled by a herd of bulls, than die while asleep in my bed, by a missile that some asshole launched from a hundred miles away.
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich Absolutely. Personally I think requiring leaders to be IN the fights they start but 🤷🏻♀️.
But to bring this allllll around full circle:
striking children is a cowardly, venal, counterproductive act.
Period. There is no reason someone who outmasses someone else 5- 1 needs to strike them to impose their will.
I’ve NEVER had to lay hand on a kid other than to separate a fight or move them from danger
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich Yes, I saw that, you believe it worked out for you. If you feel it did, good for you; for the vast majority of people; it doesn’t. And there are huge amounts of studies and documentation, and evidence that say that.
And obviously, my opinion is mostly based on feeling that it is cowardice (and to be fair, a little bit of frustration mixed in ) to strike a child.
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich I had impartial corporal punishment as a kid, I’m a father. I’ve hunted, been shot at, been a bouncer, had beloved animals die in my lap, and on and on.
Please spare me your “well maybe one day you’ll understand life”. It’s a joke, but not a funny one.
Violence is violence. Pain is pain. Children and animals don’t consent to that shit and can’t.
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich Nah eventually you’ll stop or I’ll drift off into another game of world of warships and forget you exist. I’m good thanks.
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich there is no child who has not experienced pain. Pain is our lot in life as humans.
What you were suggesting is that other people need to heap more pain into what life already provides.
That’s horseshit.
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich No I’m not. I agree with the aphorisms you’re posting. What I’m saying is that you don’t seem to understand that they have nothing to do with corporal punishment and yet are trying to use them to justify corporal punishment.
Both of them speak of the benefits we gain from the struggles we face.
Your parents beating you. Should not be. One of the struggles that you face as a child.
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich First off, no, not really it’s a pretty minor piece of shit thing to happen coming from your parent.
Secondly the lesson is “avoid getting slapped on the ass by your parent“. Not “don’t do whatever you got slapped for”
and now, my parent is a minor threat to me, instead of someone I trust.
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich First off, that’s not corporal punishment. You’re changing the subject.
Secondly:
Yes, that is the exact lesson.
Prison doesn’t teach people of the moral error of their ways. If it did.
No one would go back in.
some people do come out with that impression. Most do not.
they mostly come out with “I’d rather not do that again”
Which again, is 90% of the point
@squig@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich Cool, that’s your right. I think you’re incorrect and I think that you should put some actual thought into those little quotes that you post.
And hell, for all, I know, you thinking that corporal punishment turned out ok for you is how you cope. If so, I wish you a safe journey.
Corporal made me angrier. Every time it happened. No matter how impartially it was done. It made me more determined to “act out”
Lots of us crash into life. The answer isn’t to crash others. It’s to guide. I don’t know you, but your father inflicting physical pain on you likely wouldn’t have changed things
@Wraithe@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich My dog knows that if she goes in the road, I'll be angry, and inflict pain, that's why she won't ever get run over by a car, and the lesson was well learned, with the help of my mighty hand, and her soft, weak, you'd better fear me, ass.
I don’t know how to tell you this, but your dog fearing your “mighty” (do I really have to comment on how that sounds?) hand, in no way guarantees she will never run into a road. Not how life works.
Also, kids? Not dogs. They can be communicated with. With words.
@squig Exactly! You get it now, right? They don’t understand WHY you’re hurting them, they just know you are. Because your words don’t mean anything to them, just the fact that you’re inflicting pain
@squig Also, I’m not gonna lie, I was mostly mocking the sentiment because it’s complete bullshit.
Even young children, while they may not understand exact words, they understand tone. I have example of example of example from my own life. Now whether they’re listening to you or not, that’s a different question.
The idea that you have to inflict pain for someone to learn, is rubbish. (See my later. Comment about shitty BDSM manuals)
@bertwells@futurebird@TruthSandwich Also, sorry, I should have untagged you folks 200 replies ago. My apologies. 😂
I’m assuming y’all muted this long ago, but still…
@squig@TruthSandwich@darnell@bertwells But since my grandparents did not spare the rod I loathed admitting they had done anything less than what was optimal. They were formidable and intelligent people. They raised my parents and aunts and uncles who are basically perfect as far as I can tell. But then— I started reading research on children and punishments— my eyes were opened!
@futurebird@TruthSandwich@darnell@bertwells Is it not possible that with the benefit of hindsight, people have a tendency to cherry-pick all the things that didn't bother them at the time, but they now feel SHOULD bother them, and are guilty of a little bit of revisionism?
@squig@TruthSandwich@darnell@bertwells I still wouldn’t say they were “wrong” to spank me. It was what they knew and in their hands I was in little danger. (consistent, never in anger, etc.) They did nothing wrong.
But I will learn and do even better.
And many young people are not as lucky as you or I.
@futurebird@TruthSandwich@darnell@bertwells A good question is 'where does corporal punishment end, and child abuse begin?' and that is pretty subjective, in a world of billions of people. True it is that those who administer a bit of pain out of egoless love, are the polar opposite of those who beat children because they are angry, or to vent their sadistic impulses.
The damage done to the child's soul might live on for generations.
A child (<>teenager) cannot run away.
His/her basic sense of trust (#Urvertrauen) will often become irreparably damaged, unable to develop the required trust for a stable long-term relationship.
@futurebird My theory is that spanking did often work when used judiciously in the 19th century and earlier because society was very different. The message the child recieved was the intended one of a wake-up call and a correction. But society has changed in many ways since then so that in recent generations the only message children recieve from a spanking is that someone they trust is threatening their physical safety. That is why we get the conclusions we do from all the data collected after the 19th century.
I’ve very recently (and far too late) come to the conclusion that a lot of kids (myself, and my own kids included) would do chores much more willingly if they had company to share the work, especially the parents. This comes out of the whole “coaching” strategy that helps deal with ADHD. I still see it in myself. When I was with my partner, I was great at doing stuff around the house, preparing meals, etc. But by myself, all the good intentions in the world haven’t helped me accomplish as much around my place. Right now my coach is my dog, who enjoys shared custody, and at least we get the “regular exercise” thing done 😊
Back to the reframing - I once had a very difficult gr. 10 science class, made up of students who showed poor academic progress, and as a result were usually grouped in the same single section together for all their classes. They had a self-reinforcing negative attitude towards school. It was a constant exercise in understanding each kid's psychology, and working with, or around it. My one shining moment was coming up with the class motto: “The only thing worse than taking Grade 10 Science, is taking Grade 10 Science again” 😄 - I usually pulled that one out when we were doing one of the less interesting tasks. Not proud of the sentiment, but it got them right back to work with a grumbly, “Oh... Yeah... Okay” and instilled a “We're all in this together" feeling that included their teacher.
@Mina@bertwells@futurebird You do realize that “simple conversations” will not work with every child. Some kids do need spankings (& I was one of them). My cousins were also spanked, but usually it involved them either being violent towards each other (a big “no no” in my family) or damaging property.
There is no “one method works for every child,” & parents need to adjust accordingly.
Actions must have consequences, related to the deeds, but punishments simply don't do the job. They inspire fear, they make children try to hide their shit better, but they won't make them understand.
I am a parent of two. I know lots and lots of other parents. None (I'm lying: there is one, I know) would even think of hitting their children. It's simply not an option.
I can't believe, you were a so much worse person than every single child I know.
@Mina@bertwells@futurebird As I stated before, it depends on the child. Not every child will listen to words. Some do require spankings, others can simply be grounded, while others a simple conversation works.
If a kid is being violent, they will get spanked. This has been a general rule with my extended family, as a violent kid unchecked usually turns into a violent adult. Being spanked by a loving parent is not detrimental.
@darnell@Mina@futurebird Like I said before, if my dad hadn’t punished me, I wouldnt have learned. But that is only true given who we both were.
Physical violence from a parent or guardian, whether given in love or anger, is wrong. I love my late dad, even tho he did wrong in hitting me, just like he loved me, even tho I did wrong in “deserving” it.
What I owe my dad - for him taking the harm of having an unruly kid and having to beat me - is to learn a better way.
I don’t judge parents or guardians who do what they feel they must. Only an arrogant asshole would judge like that. But I do know some better ways. They are harder, and I recognize that.
@bertwells@darnell@Mina
It is true that without consequences we never learn. They just don’t need to be hitting to work. And hitting isn’t even very effective. It can suffice but we can do better and at the same time remove a great potential for danger and harm.
@futurebird@bertwells@darnell@Mina Consequences don't always have to be negative. The "consequence" that most furthers learning is the joy of knowing and doing more than you were able to before.
My kids both went to high schools where the model for more serious discipline was restorative justice. Sometimes it was abbreviated, but always the student, when calm, reflected on who they had harmed, for example, if a room had to be cleared because the student was becoming enraged, who lost time,
@bertwells@futurebird@darnell there's much truth in what you're saying, although it's not true that anger is always involved.
My mother could only spank me when she was angry, but my father would only ever do it when he was not. It was always a cool, clinical operation with him. I suspect he feared that if he lashed out in anger, he might do real harm.
One should never be angry when so much as yelling at a kid let alone spanking. My point is that even when done “correctly” all guard rails on it still fails to magically produce better discipline. And in reality not everyone follows the “never yell in anger” rule even if they claim that they do. Yelling can be fixed with an apology.
@futurebird@darnell I was spanked as a kid, by caring parents. I never felt abused, and when it happened, I saw the connection to my actions and it made sense at the time. My stepfather (who is still around, and lovely) had this funny practice of later coming to talk to me, and apologizing.
Here’s the thing - When I thought about it later in life, I realized that spanking never stopped me from doing stupid stuff. There was never a moment when I was doing something (that would earn a spanking) that I thought about possible consequences. Maybe you can blame ADHD impulsiveness for that. Anyway, for me, at least, it was useless as a preventative measure. If you take that away, it’s just an assault that might momentarily make the parent feel better, or give them a release. Not a good reason to hit a kid.
@MichaelPorter@futurebird@darnell I distinctly remember young me thinking "it's only pain, and it's over soon". Fortunately I was not super rebellious.
@RogerBW@futurebird@darnell I had similar thoughts - I think the spankings stopped when I stopped reacting to them. 😄
My father still laughs at the futility of sending me to my room - I was more than happy to go there and read or listen to the radio. But timeouts are good.
I didn’t know what a trans person was 20 years ago. The first time I encountered the idea it sounded like something silly and attention getting— why over complicate gender! Over time I realized I’d never considered what it would be like to feel totally at odds with the gender I was assigned. But I also uncovered and healed trauma that came from my own moments not fitting in. I studied. I learned.
I don’t have an agenda. I’m trying to do my best that is all. For real.
@futurebird I was aware of transsexuals and reassignment surgery when I was in elementary school in the 70s. Trinidad, Colorado was a few miles away from my grandpa's ranch and was well known. Stanley Biber, a veteran surgeon returning from Korea, decided to move to Trinidad because he had heard that the town needed a surgeon. "Taking a trip to Trinidad" used to be an expression. Even on South Park, in which elementary school teacher Mr. Garrison undergoes a sex-change operation.
@futurebird I think that's a hard one for many people because they have trouble understanding there's a difference between what actually exists and what they know about. A few decades ago there wasn't much talk about trans people, and it was something that many people hadn't heard about (I'm Gen X, so at one point it was a new concept for me too), but of course trans people existed, it's just that they were marginalized to the point of invisibility, at least in Western societies. Instead of realizing this, many people think it's a recent "invention", and if that's so there must be someone who invented it and, for some evil reason, is indoctrinating society. Which seems silly if one thinks that by that same logic before the law of Universal Gravitation was formulated particles didn't attract each other with a force that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.
And this is why I live an out life as a trans person these days. Having transitioned 31 years ago, I remind people by my existence that trans people have been around for a lot longer than it might have been obvious.
We were invisible because in those days, the standards under which we were permitted to access medical transition required us to be "stealth" after we transitioned, living entirely pretending to be cis women, cutting all ties with people in your former life, and so on. It was a shattering traumatic way to require things be done, and became (for me) exhausting. I stopped after 12 years, though I maintained my privacy in some contexts.
Just figured that might not be a perspective people here would have.
It was just assumed - and in practice, it really was mostly true - that if you were out as trans, you'd be unable to function: there were no laws against discrimination in any respect, whether in housing, public accommodations, work, or any other sphere. When I transitioned, I was fired without reference by my then-work, had to drop out of my Master's program, lost contact with my family and friends. Going forward without being stealthy would be likely to be a short path to being unhoused, unemployed, and fairly soon, unalive.
Plus, cis people put a lot of pressure on the clinic to make sure that they weren't turning out any "freaks". You had to be thin enough, pretty enough, white enough, heterosexual enough, and a bunch of other stuff, for them to let you transition. Basically, as one doctor put it in an unguarded moment of anger, "if you're not fuckable, you're not trans." And it was just assumed that being known to be trans would be the end of your potential as a sexual partner, which meant the end of your value (in their eyes) as a woman in society. Obviously, no one would want to have sex with a trans woman.
And I've spoken exclusively of trans women here, because in those days it was basically impossible for trans men to access medical transition. But theirs is not my story to tell.
@oldladyplays@markusl@javierlazarosanz@futurebird I always have appreciated you Cait, but it's moments like this that I just am grateful for you being in this space with us and sharing. I know it ain't easy to always put yourself out there, but means a lot to us younger girls 💖
@futurebird I first met an out Trans person while in high school, she was a fellow regular at a local gaming store (which despite being a place founded by mostly old white men to play military miniatures games, was welcoming and supportive of her). It was remarkable largely because it wasn't anything unusual she was just another gamer playing many of the same rpgs and other games we were all playing (this was in the late 1980's so it was, in fact, pretty unusual)
@tkinias@futurebird thinking back on it now it was pretty remarkable. And to be clear this was a pretty unusual game store in many ways - it was two stories in size, a custom built building just for the game store with the upper floor being mostly a massive gaming space. The store was founded by really serious Napoleonic Miniatures gamers but they also carried rpgs and let teens hang out there and play games
@futurebird There's a meme about spanking I'm totally going to mess up but
"If you suggest spanking is what made you turn out okay, you did NOT turn out okay" (I think in the sense of "You need therapy" not "you are a horrible person")
Also regarding trans and intersex people-
I learned about intersex people in 10th grade biology. this was the most basic biology course you can take, and not at a particularly great school (it was hemorrhaging funding from test scores)
But trans people? I was the one who brought them up at my catholic school, because while I was on the internet, I discovered trans voices, and I BELIEVED these people (I only saw binary trans voices so it's not like it made me know I was different. Just that I wanted to help). If nothing else, I believed they were telling the truth about their own experiences. But we were also taught that god doesn't make mistakes.
So I brought the topic up the next time the priest was visiting our school. And he told me "(Legal Name), God doesn't make mistakes, but Nature does"
Which was basically his way of saying "These people are certainly telling the truth about their experiences". I don't think the statement has Aged well, but it was pretty significant for the time (especially given the catholic church's current views on trans people)
@futurebird
Some time around 20yr ago (2002, maybe?) I was sitting at a coffee shop working on a paper when a very small trans student org plonked down at the table next to me and starting talking about the issues they were grappling with—really basic stuff like “how do you go to the bathroom on campus?”
It was one of those moments when things I thought I knew suddenly got thrown into confusion, and I was never able to think about gender the same way again.
@futurebird Been thinking about this and the conversations it's spawned and it made me realize that children don't have the right to self-defense. I might be one of those annoying children's rights people right now, but now I just imagine a world in which children were empowered and had a tangible right to self-defense. At first in my mind it started by acknowledging those few kids who don't take a beating any more and stand up to their beaters and how I should reconcile the reality of those children. Ultimately I landed on the fact that self-defense is often considered a non-option in America (can't speak for other places). Any resistance is labeled deviant, disruptive, disordered or worse.
@futurebird Such a very gray line between "indoctrination" and "common sense".
My favorite came from, of all places, the fire department. Apparently firefighting techniques that were used from time immemorial and passed down to the next generation of firefighters were not only wrong, but made things worse, such as using fans to clear smoke and improve visibility.
@futurebird Something my wife and I agreed on, which can be rare, is no hitting, and no “because I said so”. The latter can be more frustrating as a parent, but if you can’t articulate a reason for your actions, maybe it’s an emotional reaction. Not that kids can always understand the reasoning. In any case, kids need room to make choices. Choices have consequences. Consequences can be learned. Spankings teach that pain can be used to control behavior. Not the kind of kid I want.
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