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Why we don’t like it when children hit us back

To all the children who have ever been told to “respect” someone that hated them.

March 21, 2023

Even those of us that are disturbed by the thought of how widespread corporal punishment still is in all ranks of society are uncomfortable at the idea of a child defending themself using violence against their oppressors and abusers. A child who hits back proves that the adults “were right all along,” that their violence was justified. Even as they would cheer an adult victim for defending themself fiercely.

Even those “child rights advocates” imagine the right child victim as one who takes it without ever stopping to love “its” owners. Tear-stained and afraid, the child is too innocent to be hit in a guilt-free manner. No one likes to imagine the Brat as Victim—the child who does, according to adultist logic, deserve being hit, because they follow their desires, because they walk the world with their head high, because they talk back, because they are loud, because they are unapologetically here, and resistant to being cast in the role of guest of a world that is just not made for them.

If we are against corporal punishment, the brat is our gotcha, the proof that it is actually not that much of an injustice. The brat unsettles us, so much that the “bad seed” is a stock character in horror, a genre that is much permeated by the adult gaze (defined as “the way children are viewed, represented and portrayed by adults; and finally society’s conception of children and the way this is perpetuated within institutions, and inherent in all interactions with children”), where the adult fear for the subversion of the structures that keep children under control is very much represented.

It might be very well true that the Brat has something unnatural and sinister about them in this world, as they are at constant war with everything that has ever been created, since everything that has been created has been built with the purpose of subjugating them. This is why it feels unnatural to watch a child hitting back instead of cowering. We feel like it’s not right. We feel like history is staring back at us, and all the horror we felt at any rebel and wayward child who has ever lived, we are feeling right now for that reject of the construct of “childhood innocence.” The child who hits back is at such clash with our construction of childhood because we defined violence in all of its forms as the province of the adult, especially the adult in authority.

The adult has an explicit sanction by the state to do violence to the child, while the child has both a social and legal prohibition to even think of defending themself with their fists. Legislation such as “parent-child tort immunity” makes this clear. The adult’s designed place is as the one who hits, and has a right and even an encouragement to do so, the one who acts, as the person. The child’s designed place is as the one who gets hit, and has an obligation to accept that, as the one who suffers acts, as the object. When a child forcibly breaks out of their place, they are reversing the supposed “natural order” in a radical way.

This is why, for the youth liberationist, there should be nothing more beautiful to witness that the child who snaps. We have an unique horror for parricide, and a terrible indifference at the 450 children murdered every year by their parents in just the USA, without even mentioning all the indirect suicides caused by parental abuse. As a Psychology Today article about so-called “parricide” puts it:

Unlike adults who kill their parents, teenagers become parricide offenders when conditions in the home are intolerable but their alternatives are limited. Unlike adults, kids cannot simply leave. The law has made it a crime for young people to run away. Juveniles who commit parricide usually do consider running away, but many do not know any place where they can seek refuge. Those who do run are generally picked up and returned home, or go back on their own: Surviving on the streets is hardly a realistic alternative for youths with meager financial resources, limited education, and few skills.

By far, the severely abused child is the most frequently encountered type of offender. According to Paul Mones, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in defending adolescent parricide offenders, more than 90 percent have been abused by their parents. In-depth portraits of such youths have frequently shown that they killed because they could no longer tolerate conditions at home. These children were psychologically abused by one or both parents and often suffered physical, sexual, and verbal abuse as well—and witnessed it given to others in the household. They did not typically have histories of severe mental illness or of serious and extensive delinquent behavior. They were not criminally sophisticated. For them, the killings represented an act of desperation—the only way out of a family situation they could no longer endure.

- Heide, Why Kids Kill Parents, 1992.

Despite these being the most frequent conditions of “parricide,” it still brings unique disgust to think about it for most people. The sympathy extended to murdering parents is never extended even to the most desperate child, who chose to kill to not be killed. They chose to stop enduring silently, and that was their greatest crime; that is the crime of the child who hits back. Hell, children aren’t even supposed to talk back. They are not supposed to be anything but grateful for the miserable pieces of space that adults carve out in a world hostile to children for them to live following adult rules. It isn’t rare for children to notice the adult monopoly on violence and force when they interact with figures like teachers, and the way they use words like “respect.” In fact, this social dynamic has been noticed quite often:

Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority” and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person” and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.

(https://soycrates.tumblr.com/post/115633137923/stimmyabby-sometimes-people-use-respect-to-mean)

But it has received almost no condemnation in the public eye. No voices have raised to contrast the adult monopoly on violence towards child bodies and child minds. No voices have raised to praise the child who hits back. Because they do deserve praise. Because the child who sets their foot down and says this belongs to me, even when it’s something like their own body that they are claiming, is committing one of the most serious crimes against adult society, who wants them dispossessed.

Sources:

“The Adult Gaze: a tool of control and oppression,” https://livingwithoutschool.com/2021/07/29/the-adult-gaze-a-tool-of-control-and-oppression

“Filicide,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filicide

That's the face he makes when he's feeling silly.

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fuck you *puts your fairydog in hanfu*

People will SHOW you, what’s important to them. Every. Time.

F- the words, F the intentions, people SHOW you what’s important to them.

They do special things for the ones they care about, make memories of the ones they love.

If they don’t, then walk away. It’s not worth the pain of being constantly reminded that you’re not a worth anything to them.

Long story short— do you, do what’s best for you.

You’re the only one who will.

When you study Shakespeare during your law school

Considering the Invasion on Tumblr desktop, does Cybertron have any clowns besides Starscream?

gofdadslfjdhgsldjsfg i've been avoiding going to the dash because of this, i'm only skulking around my own blog pages and haven't seen the cursed thing yet

yknow i'm not actually sure? the concept of entertainer, of fool, of silly over the top performers is there, actually probably more of a Thing on Velocitron, Eukaris, and Lunas 1 and 2 than most Cybertronian cultures, more in regards to rodeo clowns than circus clowns. facepaint is a thing, silly outfits could be replaced by silly kibble and temporary paint jobs. in general i don't think there's much of a cultural phenomenon of a freak show or circus that popularizes clowns? if there is a "silly clumsy stupid" archetype in performance, in today's culture it's most likely to be a junker stereotype that teaches a debateably humorous lesson about the perils of not living in line with the rules. may also end up leaning into the creepy clown aesthetic to demonize junkers a bit...

used to be the position of parody or a jester-kind of performance was more acceptable (depending on the current govt tho, there's absolutely been tyrannical regimes prior to functionism that also did not take kindly to these) but that's not the same as a clown. Micronus Prime is something of the patron god of pranks and lessons hard-learned this way, so you might say he's the deity of clowns? and Airachnid i sort of designed with a circus performer aesthetic in mind so uh. if you'd like to get stabbed, maybe call her a clown?

the weirdest part of the fnaf movie is the marketing presence made it so i had to hear people i never wanted to hear talk about fnaf talk about fnaf

So many interesting-sounding drinks in the world that I want to try for the taste

Then I read into them a tiny bit and discover they’re being marketed as supplements and have fucking. 1000% daily value of biotin or enough caffeine to kill a horse or something

*grumble mutter*

Hi, do you have any advice for someone who’s trying to make gender terms/other terms based on a story they’re making? Clarification: im wanting to make some in-world genders & identities for a world im making, said world has magic & the way magic is gonna work in this world- I believe would have some influence on how some of the people in that world view gender & such. Without spoiling anything, people can either be born with magical ability (tho they can choose not to use it) or they can use naturally occurring objects to do magic.

If this existed irl i think it would influence gender & identities & etc, in this world they would be real genders but in our IRL world then they could be used as- one of those fiction based xenogenders (of which I forget the name of). But i would just like some general advice as how to get started, please? Just- how to pick names for the identities, how to pick colors, things to think about when considering how the magic could affect gender & other identities.

You coin a lot of identities & make flags for them, and wanted to ask for help by someone who’s done this stuff before.

Please help me (if you have time 😅)

So you asked the right person but with just not quite enough details 😅 I'm currently working on making my own massive d&d based campaign where gender variance is very common not only in the pantheon of gods but also amoungst the many races that Inhabit the world.

Imma leave most of my rambling under a cut cause this is exciting me and I may type a shit ton. I'll go into much more detail there!

So the first thing to consider is the world itself. Is this a Renaissance/medieval setting? Is it a modern setting? Dose it take place in the far off future of the year 4098 or 1898? This will determine what all would be included in the gender variance and how the people would express it. If it's a medieval setting without the world being practically automated by magic, the colors for the flags would be more natural because they wouldnt nessearily have complex artificial dyes. Hell, would these people represent themselves by a flag or maybe an insignia? A tattoo? A language? A community? Just because your basing the idea of this gender variance on irl xenogenders doesn't mean you have to copy paste. /Not patronizing

Next, how common is intersexuality in this world? Are there multiple races that don't quite fit a human definition + magic? Is this gender variance considered uncommon or common? If uncommon, are they oppressed or is it generally accepted? What are, if there are any, the gender roles of this society? How would this society decide gender, birth sex? Interests? Physical attributes? Just because they are "human" doesn't nessesarily mean they are what we'd consider "cis male" or "cis female" or beyond. The words woman, man, male or female or other gendered language doesn't even have to exist within this fantasy world.

Do they speak English? Is it a made up language? It's quite a complex ask./nm. I think it's important to put as much culturally relevant context in your world before you travel into the heart of making innerworld xenogenders. Ik for my campaign, for example: gargoyles are victims of racist discrimination and those experiences are part of their culture which bleeds into their genders and cultural expectations of genders that wouldn't be considered in say.. centaur society where they aren't particularly victims of those forms of racism but arnt held as highly as certain other races and so on and so on. It sounds like you're similar to me and really want to get into the deep parts of your world so you have to figure out your base, then figure out the innerworld politics and common experiences and location and timeframe before you dive headfirst into specific xenogender experiences.

Overall, just have fun with it, avoid irl stereotypes and the wonderful thing about adding a "magic/fantasy" component is that it's the perfect way to cover up things that wouldn't make sense for the timeframe/situation/experiences. How did the air elves manage to automate cloud production with this machine? Magic! How did this automaton rise to live and speak and gain consciousness similar to 2020 ai? Magic! How did this tiny library in a tiny town have a book about some place you just dropped existing 30 hrs into the campaign?? Magic!!! It's the writers best out lol

It's all dependent on how close you wanna be to "this would actually function if this was used irl" and " idk man, magic shit". Would they make flags using natural dyes of mud/clay, berries and shells? Or would there be spells that could turn anything the specific color and shade that you need it? Are those born with magic treated better, the same or worse than those born without it? What's the social hierarchy? Would using say a wand for magic be considered a lesser item or better item than say a magic book? Are certain items socially considered more "feminine" than others? Is feminity treated as the ideal thing over masculinity, the same or lesser than? Most writers just use whatever "values" the current society they live in as a base just because it's easier.

All this to say is that it's important to, if your desire is to Garner an audience, make a world that you understand and makes you happy and a world that your audience understands and makes them happy. Be aware that, depending on your media of choice for publication (be it a ttrpg, a game, a book or even animation) if your audience needs a booklet to understand and gain definitions for the 50+ xenogenders present in your world that they will see on a daily basis, it might not jive. Ik I personally hate it when a series throws a ton of information at me the moment I open it. It's unrealistic to expect someone to read a giant book and devote hours of time before they ever even truly interact with the media. In their minds, why devote all that time and focus to learning something that may not be worth it? Have a good balance and pace, these can kill amazing games and make horrible games feel much better than they actually are. Perhaps introduce the in-world xenogenders slowly with clear definitions that they can flip back to, this not only helps people remember them but allows non-xenogendered people access to your series who want to understand but need baby steps. I only mention this because even though xenogenders are old asf, they are still relatively new in modern culture.

All these little cultural aspects, expectations, appearances, socio-political hierarchies, wealth, location, time frame, etc all determine someone's experiences within said society and therefore will influence how they fit themselves, if they choose to fit themselves, within that society. How they see those who fit within and out of that society. How they've made or haven't made community outside of it. How others treat them. Personal experiences. Gender is such a complex and personal beast and tackling it in a fantasy world where our reality is off the table is truly a feat, one many writers (often white pericishet male and white pericishet female) never bother to contend with. It's a balancing act of " do I want my fictional world to be a safe haven, accepting and example of how society should treat gender variance beyond the binary?" Or " do I want my fictional world to be closer to reality and give a voice to the real life and often painful experiences xenogender people must face in our transphobic and enbyphobic society?".

It's up to you wether you want to erase those demons or address them head on and no response is more brave than the other. There's nothing wrong with having your work represent an ideal world or harsh reality. Fiction doesn't mean it can't be truthful in its messaging.

I hope I helped you both by answering your questions and giving a little advice as someone who's been both in the depths of xenogenders and who's made a shit ton of original fantasy content and knows some of the best ways to present it. Feel free to send me some dms if you have any questions or would like some advice later down the road. Id love to assist in this project if you need me and trust my judgement.

idk if this makes sense but fuck i miss crackships. like same canon crackships, not a crossover or anything. they used to be so common yall what happened? like when did we all get so obsessed w sticking to canon or whatever i miss fics about silly stupid ships who’ve never met or who hate each other or who literally just would not talk to each other in canon like when did we lose those

fucking hate twitter because I'm in two different fandoms. One of them has really cool stories, but if I scroll too far, I get HEY YOU ENJOY X THING??? HERE'S ALL THE REASONS YOU'RE A HORRIBLE PERSON!!!!! THE ONLY WAY TO FIX THIS IS [redacted because Tumblr deserves better]

The other has pretty mid content, but important information that makes my life easier about events and updates in splatoon. The issue is that I don't have the motivation to delete my first account and I can't just uninstall Twitter outright because of account B. Honestly it's better to just not look because Twitter loves prancing around with its holier than thou attitude

Fuck twitter. Fuck Elon Musk, but also fuck the culture Twitter has developed. A Twitter refugee will never be truly welcomed on Tumblr because being on twitter requires a tolerance for some pretty heinous comments and the absolute worst of cancel culture.

Someone who belongs on Twitter is likely to agree with the sentiment that someone is a bad person for enjoying Harry Potter or dsmp or Homestuck or whatever other controversial fandom. They're the ones engaging in sexuality discourse.

It's just exhausting to deal with, and it's exhausting to have to get news over that platform because there's no other real way to do it. Nobody takes Tumblr seriously, reddit serves it's own purpose, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok just won't work for that, and facebook is Facebook. Unfortunately Twitter isn't being replaced, so we have to deal with it

I love you. I don't know anything about you except for the post about buying the hp game and donating to a trans org don't cancel each other out. I love you so much.

(Also it's v telling of those people because the extensive transphobia isn't even the issue about the game, just about *part* of the author of the series. It doesn't even mention the literal nazi who headed the development of the literal blood libel game)

Anywho. Thank you for putting yourself at risk for serious harassment by making that post.

this ask is from literally forever ago (it's been ten days but i did not mean to leave it that long sorry babe </3) but god i love you too 🥺

nd yeah absolutely. the way that people continuously try to boil it down to one issue is sooo telling. saying "oh trans genocide isn't real so i can buy the game" when it's built off of a mountain of antisemitism? there's just no way to justify buying this game without saying that you don't care about both trans and jewish people.

and of course beloved. happy to block people and delete anons from my inbox for the sake of letting people know that there is someone on their side. sending so much love always and forever to everyone unless you're buying this game and then i hope you die <3