I can't help but notice how much it ties with navigating the world as a disabled person that is "useless". Like, I can heavily relate to children and the way they can trigger resentment in people. I have experiences of triggering resentment by existing as someone disabled around people who were not emotionally mature enough to not make me feel like a burden forced to carry. Idk, I just think it's interesting how children and certain disabled people can be treated and viewed very similarly; with lack of seeing human in the other person and instead, how you said "But instead of viewing children as friends and neighbors whom I could show up for graciously whenever I was able, I came to see them as a heavy obligation I could never stand.". Being treated as a heavy obligation is really traumatising. Thank you for sharing this topic with others and discussing it so honestly and openly.
In my experience, the more I worked with my childhood trauma, the better and more sensitive I became to children; just as I become better in my mind to the past child–me.
This is so raw and real. I have a ton of childhood trauma, and every stage of my kid's life has been about trying to unpack what that age was like for me (despite decades of therapy before having kids) while remaining present for him. I don't always get it right. But I also think that's one of the gifts of parenthood - it killed what was left of my extreme perfectionism because it is totally impossible to be a perfect parent.
I "hated" kids until I started to transition and made sure no kids would ever develop inside my body. I also don't know how to form an healthy parenting relationship with them cause I never got that chance. I also happen to be very uncomfortable around younger children cause I have a hard time adapting to use simpler vocabulary. But with teenagers, I'm very okay...even more if I get to interact with them only for a short amount of time and then ship them back to their parents!
Honestly, I just think not everyone is made to become a parent, and it's very important to respect those who decide to not embrace this journey.
Great article. The hardest part of being a parent (esp for me as an autistic / queer / poly parent) is the system- the doctor, the government, the school system- they all assume you also see your kid as property and when you don’t assist them (or god forbid respect your child) you are labeled an enemy. The second hardest part is people who I love taking out their hatred of the very valid points in this article out on parents and children. Really love how in all of these articles this month you’ve outlined how it is literally mutual aid and community care to support children and families (but not the structure of family as we know it u know what I mean)
As a mentally ill autistic mum i have a deep fear of having my child taken from me. It’s very unlikely but more due to my privileges than any justice.
Recently I was at a bbq with some conservative cousins i don’t see very often and my seven year old started asking questions about how the world works. I gave my usual answer “because of capitalism” and then we started our usual conversations in which i explained what are generally considered to be radical perspectives in a normal neutral way.
My cousin couldn’t cope, spit-taking and then contributing his own perspectives like “but the owners take on the risk” etc. Even his teenaged son was jumping in saying like “that’s just the way the world is” which made me profoundly sad.
So my point is that even when it was my *own child* (noting my possessive language here) whom I was educating in neutral factual ways, I was socially sanctioned for it.
This whole series has been wonderful, and makes me reflect on why I can be annoyed about hearing about the children of relatives but love interacting with my chosen family’s children and even enjoyed teaching. It’s all mirrors of society and what it’s done to you (and the nuance of course).
The dysphoria comes from the opposing direction, seeing children hurts because I can't have them (even though I'd probably wouldn't if I could, but the it'd be *my* decision at least). Which is closely tied up how society at large views women who can't reproduce on one hand, and the fact pretty much everyone will see you as a gross sex pervert for even wanting it on the other hand.
I'm not quite sure the specific case about losing custody is a good example to use for institutional control, considering the judge placed her in court guardianship during an extant custody case to allow her to change her name because the girl was so embarrassed about it she refused to share it with anyone and he considered her to have better insight into the situation than her parents. I think its moreso a demonstration of the absurd level of control adults have about children and the ways in which they can profoundly fuck up their lives based on their own personal whims, rather than the institutional control exerted over parents.
If you want an example for that, you try to find an article about the situation here in Germany, where a court ruling ages ago placed an arbitrary limit on the number of second names you can give a child, a childs assigned gender needs to be clearly apparent from the name, and all names need to have been documented in sources considered credible by the state, whether thats genealogical or linguistical works, or government documents.
That is a better example, thank you! I remember finding it shocking to learn that Germany controls which names you can give to a kid, or how many names you give them. (I now know that other European countries control this as well).
I also bring up custody throughout this piece knowing that it should make the readers' ears prick up a little bit -- haven't I been saying all along that children should not be property? I absolutely have. And at present, the legal construction of child as property both severely restricts the autonomy that the child has over their own life, and is used a tool for generating greater societal compliance out of the parent. A person is really only 'allowed' to show up to care for a child if they own them, which sets them and the child apart and gives the parent all the more reason to uphold normative values. Just want to highlight that contradiction is here consciously and that yeah, a lot of the parents who make mistakes or make out-of-left-field decisions that affect their kids' lives are not necessarily acting in the right where the kid is concerned, even if I'm sympathetic to their own autonomy more broadly.
Am a an intermittently transfeminine person, and I weirdly connected to a lot of this. One the reasons I stopped estrogen the last time was really hating the thought of growing organs specifically for feeding children, and like the visceral disgust and horror at the thought of being pregnant, at least in a world without Star Trek level medical science. I couldn't square taking drugs to make my body more optimized for children.
And yet I've actually kinda always wanted them. At the rate I'm moving through life I don't think I'll be ready until long after it'd be responsible to have them though, even if I could grow them in a tank or something.
This post is so wise and thoughtful. When I was younger, I couldn't wait to get to the age when people would stop asking me when I was going to have kids (I have now, and it's great). I can't say I hated kids, I was never around them, but I did have a lot of the same reservations you had about them. On top of that, I never understood why we were expected to sacrifice so much to make more people, when there are already billions of people around. I'm glad that some people have kids, and I've met some really great parents, but it's a weird thing to expect from everyone.
Once again Devon drops something not only incredible, but something I could have written if I were a MUCH better writer. Thank you Devon, for constantly making me feel seen.
This is really interesting. I can really relate to a lot of it.
I don't have kids, I've never wanted kids, but I get on really well with my friends' kids. I think because they like the fact that I talk to them as a person. I'm actually pretty scared of kids I don't know though. A perfect example came as I was writing this, a group of five or six kids between the ages of maybe six and ten knocked on the door and I was too freaked out to answer this because I didn't know any of them and I didn't know how to respond.
I think they scare me because I was bullied as a kid, even now I'm 40 I associate groups of children with being picked on and laughed at. I'd never really thought of the trauma aspect of seeing yourself at that age though. You've given me something to talk to my therapist about when I next see them!
Your posts always give me a lot to think about, and this month on children’s rights is especially on point. I really appreciate you and your writing. Thank you!
It’s funny- the fact you spoke to kids like they are just people, is amazing to me. They are people, just smaller and less experienced sometimes. But every kid I’ve ever known has grown up to say how much they appreciated adults who talked to them like humans instead of lesser beings.
I can't help but notice how much it ties with navigating the world as a disabled person that is "useless". Like, I can heavily relate to children and the way they can trigger resentment in people. I have experiences of triggering resentment by existing as someone disabled around people who were not emotionally mature enough to not make me feel like a burden forced to carry. Idk, I just think it's interesting how children and certain disabled people can be treated and viewed very similarly; with lack of seeing human in the other person and instead, how you said "But instead of viewing children as friends and neighbors whom I could show up for graciously whenever I was able, I came to see them as a heavy obligation I could never stand.". Being treated as a heavy obligation is really traumatising. Thank you for sharing this topic with others and discussing it so honestly and openly.
In my experience, the more I worked with my childhood trauma, the better and more sensitive I became to children; just as I become better in my mind to the past child–me.
This is so raw and real. I have a ton of childhood trauma, and every stage of my kid's life has been about trying to unpack what that age was like for me (despite decades of therapy before having kids) while remaining present for him. I don't always get it right. But I also think that's one of the gifts of parenthood - it killed what was left of my extreme perfectionism because it is totally impossible to be a perfect parent.
I "hated" kids until I started to transition and made sure no kids would ever develop inside my body. I also don't know how to form an healthy parenting relationship with them cause I never got that chance. I also happen to be very uncomfortable around younger children cause I have a hard time adapting to use simpler vocabulary. But with teenagers, I'm very okay...even more if I get to interact with them only for a short amount of time and then ship them back to their parents!
Honestly, I just think not everyone is made to become a parent, and it's very important to respect those who decide to not embrace this journey.
Great article. The hardest part of being a parent (esp for me as an autistic / queer / poly parent) is the system- the doctor, the government, the school system- they all assume you also see your kid as property and when you don’t assist them (or god forbid respect your child) you are labeled an enemy. The second hardest part is people who I love taking out their hatred of the very valid points in this article out on parents and children. Really love how in all of these articles this month you’ve outlined how it is literally mutual aid and community care to support children and families (but not the structure of family as we know it u know what I mean)
Your article stirred up so much inside me. Imma put those comments in my journal. thank you
Oh man i am loving child liberation month.
As a mentally ill autistic mum i have a deep fear of having my child taken from me. It’s very unlikely but more due to my privileges than any justice.
Recently I was at a bbq with some conservative cousins i don’t see very often and my seven year old started asking questions about how the world works. I gave my usual answer “because of capitalism” and then we started our usual conversations in which i explained what are generally considered to be radical perspectives in a normal neutral way.
My cousin couldn’t cope, spit-taking and then contributing his own perspectives like “but the owners take on the risk” etc. Even his teenaged son was jumping in saying like “that’s just the way the world is” which made me profoundly sad.
So my point is that even when it was my *own child* (noting my possessive language here) whom I was educating in neutral factual ways, I was socially sanctioned for it.
This whole series has been wonderful, and makes me reflect on why I can be annoyed about hearing about the children of relatives but love interacting with my chosen family’s children and even enjoyed teaching. It’s all mirrors of society and what it’s done to you (and the nuance of course).
The dysphoria comes from the opposing direction, seeing children hurts because I can't have them (even though I'd probably wouldn't if I could, but the it'd be *my* decision at least). Which is closely tied up how society at large views women who can't reproduce on one hand, and the fact pretty much everyone will see you as a gross sex pervert for even wanting it on the other hand.
I'm not quite sure the specific case about losing custody is a good example to use for institutional control, considering the judge placed her in court guardianship during an extant custody case to allow her to change her name because the girl was so embarrassed about it she refused to share it with anyone and he considered her to have better insight into the situation than her parents. I think its moreso a demonstration of the absurd level of control adults have about children and the ways in which they can profoundly fuck up their lives based on their own personal whims, rather than the institutional control exerted over parents.
If you want an example for that, you try to find an article about the situation here in Germany, where a court ruling ages ago placed an arbitrary limit on the number of second names you can give a child, a childs assigned gender needs to be clearly apparent from the name, and all names need to have been documented in sources considered credible by the state, whether thats genealogical or linguistical works, or government documents.
That is a better example, thank you! I remember finding it shocking to learn that Germany controls which names you can give to a kid, or how many names you give them. (I now know that other European countries control this as well).
I also bring up custody throughout this piece knowing that it should make the readers' ears prick up a little bit -- haven't I been saying all along that children should not be property? I absolutely have. And at present, the legal construction of child as property both severely restricts the autonomy that the child has over their own life, and is used a tool for generating greater societal compliance out of the parent. A person is really only 'allowed' to show up to care for a child if they own them, which sets them and the child apart and gives the parent all the more reason to uphold normative values. Just want to highlight that contradiction is here consciously and that yeah, a lot of the parents who make mistakes or make out-of-left-field decisions that affect their kids' lives are not necessarily acting in the right where the kid is concerned, even if I'm sympathetic to their own autonomy more broadly.
Am a an intermittently transfeminine person, and I weirdly connected to a lot of this. One the reasons I stopped estrogen the last time was really hating the thought of growing organs specifically for feeding children, and like the visceral disgust and horror at the thought of being pregnant, at least in a world without Star Trek level medical science. I couldn't square taking drugs to make my body more optimized for children.
And yet I've actually kinda always wanted them. At the rate I'm moving through life I don't think I'll be ready until long after it'd be responsible to have them though, even if I could grow them in a tank or something.
This post is so wise and thoughtful. When I was younger, I couldn't wait to get to the age when people would stop asking me when I was going to have kids (I have now, and it's great). I can't say I hated kids, I was never around them, but I did have a lot of the same reservations you had about them. On top of that, I never understood why we were expected to sacrifice so much to make more people, when there are already billions of people around. I'm glad that some people have kids, and I've met some really great parents, but it's a weird thing to expect from everyone.
Once again Devon drops something not only incredible, but something I could have written if I were a MUCH better writer. Thank you Devon, for constantly making me feel seen.
This is really interesting. I can really relate to a lot of it.
I don't have kids, I've never wanted kids, but I get on really well with my friends' kids. I think because they like the fact that I talk to them as a person. I'm actually pretty scared of kids I don't know though. A perfect example came as I was writing this, a group of five or six kids between the ages of maybe six and ten knocked on the door and I was too freaked out to answer this because I didn't know any of them and I didn't know how to respond.
I think they scare me because I was bullied as a kid, even now I'm 40 I associate groups of children with being picked on and laughed at. I'd never really thought of the trauma aspect of seeing yourself at that age though. You've given me something to talk to my therapist about when I next see them!
Too real. Respect.
Your posts always give me a lot to think about, and this month on children’s rights is especially on point. I really appreciate you and your writing. Thank you!
It’s funny- the fact you spoke to kids like they are just people, is amazing to me. They are people, just smaller and less experienced sometimes. But every kid I’ve ever known has grown up to say how much they appreciated adults who talked to them like humans instead of lesser beings.