The Other Child Abuse
I wanna chat a little about [trigger warning] pervasive practices of child abuse, y’all — for realz!
I was at the Field Museum in Chicago with my little queer/trans/kink posse. I’d broken away from the group for an exhibit on indigenous history in the Great Lakes region (and to have a little face to face with my charming Brazilian friend who is teaching me Portuguese). A little person (7 y.o., I’d guess) had succumbed to curiosity over the exhibit. They pointed things out all “what’s that?” The guardian (that’s a safer assumption than “the mom”) was clearly fed up and yelled at the young ball of enthusiasm, “Stop asking questions!” I was like, “Damn!”
I call “soft” abuse behavior/language that brings immediate relief from a trying or uncomfortable situation, while effectively cutting off the emotional, intellectual and social growth of the target. Did that adult want that child to stifle their curiosity? I don’t imagine that was the outcome expected. People seem to forget that a child that age is still latent and extremely impressionable and desperate for approval and unconditional acceptance from those they depend only to live!
I’m not going to compare the kind of verbal abuse and psychological manipulation enacted on young people, to the physical abuse to which kids are subjected. Both types of abuse cause the target to retreat for safety and self-protection, once they realize that their caregivers are dangerous. You may call it exaggerating, but imagine living in a world where most of the humans you encounter are 2 - 3 times your body mass and capable of serious acts of harm. I witness people with a well developed intellectual capacity, using that superiority to brutalize young minds…and it’s pervasive and widely accepted.
My shrink compares the warfare on young bodies to [trigger warning] slavery. Even the language of that kind of punishment (I will whip your ass) is fraught will allusion to Black bodies hitched like beasts while the overseer gives them lashes. How have people missed that as the origin of the practice, specifically in Black descendants of captured Africans, is kind of beyond me…or maybe it makes perfect sense. The sense of humanity—what it means to be a human being —was forged in a culture where the people enacted violence on dehumanized “property.” It goes back to the notion that children are owned by their parents as opposed to living under the care of the people responsible for them.
I can go on about it, but it seems so obvious as not to require too much evidence or explanation. Don’t fucking beat your kids…ever! Don’t undermine that person in your care in developing into a fully realized, authentic, and self-sufficient adult. Don’t do it! Just frigging don’t. Feel free to disagree. I promise not to flame you. I can’t speak for anybody else, I encourage all positions. How else can we learn from each other?
