Children are Not the Future…They are Children

Written By Pink Flowers

Children are the future is the great American cop out, y’all — for realz!

People who follow my work closely already know my take on that weak ass phrase. Children are the future, my eye. Some of y’all are like “What you talking about, Pink? Children really are the fu…” I’mma stop you. That saying is busted on several counts. Pawning on young human beings the fate of civilization is an horrendous frigging practice that is keeping us stuck in the past IMHO (in my humble opinion). Secondly (duh!) if you mean to say, “My children will be alive after I am gone,” then say that. That is still asking a lot, since we’ve created a more and more hostile world for kids to navigate and they certainly don’t have nearly the resources to depend on. It’s more accurate to say, “Damn, I hope my kids get to grow old and have a decent life.”

Starting with the pressure on young people hearing “you the future, bitches!” and the cognitive dissonance they have to experience when they hear it spoken (even though they are usually being spoken of and not spoken to when it is spoken like the bullshit slogan it is) from the elders around them who seem dead set on fucking things up as much as possible in the present. It must also be a challenge knowing the future of the planet is in your hands, while being infantilized and restrained from expressing oneself as sovereign beings. That restraint often coming in the form of violent repression.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I make the above claim, but fuck, what do I know. I do think it’s time to drop rhetoric. Stop saying “children are the future.” Real talk: The way things are going they won’t have a future to be (or not to be). Let’s instead try saying, “our children deserve a future.” However, if that one makes your head explode, you could try “Good luck, kiddies! Lol!” That would be more in line with how we’re living (and yes that includes you and me).

Pink Flowers

Pink Flowers is a Black trans artist, peacemaker, educator, and pleasure activist whose work lives at the intersection of embodiment, governance, and cultural transformation. Trained in Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, and Navajo-informed Peacemaking practices, Pink designs spaces where conflict can be addressed, power can be examined, and joy can be reclaimed.

Her artistic and pedagogical practice draws from African trickster cosmology, Brazilian Joker traditions, shamanic ritual, and cooperative economics. She is the founder of the award-winning Falconworks Theater Company (2005–2021), which used popular theater to build civic capacity and participatory leadership in historically marginalized communities.

Pink served for over five years as a trained Peacemaker in the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, facilitating restorative processes within the New York City court system. From 2015–2018, she worked in cooperative business development with the Center for Family Life, supporting worker-owned enterprises in immigrant communities.

She currently serves as Director of Education and Training for the Inter-Cooperative Council in Ann Arbor, where she leads leadership development and conflict engagement initiatives. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Stretch Festival in Berlin and the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference.

Across ritual, performance, mediation, and institutional design, Pink’s work asks a central question:

What becomes possible when we refuse shame and choose conscious power instead?

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