a friend of mine is a science educator. not a classroom teacher - he does the kind of programs you see in museums, fun experiments with lasers and dry ice and shit.
yesterday, a young girl asked him why he was allowed to pour liquid nitrogen all over his own arm but he didnāt want her doing it. I braced myself for some dumb āwell Iām an adult so Iām allowedā non-answer, but instead he surprised me by giving some of the best science (and life) advice I think you can give a young person:
āwell, itās one of those rules designed to keep you safe. and following the rules really can help you stay safe, but theyāre not perfect. sometimes, usually because theyāre too simple, the rules let you do things that arenāt safe, or donāt let you do things that are safe if you know how to do them. one of the reasons Iām good at what I do as a scientist is I try to understand how things work so I can figure out my own rules for keeping myself safe. and sometimes my rules are little more complicated than what I might hear from other people, but they work better for me. like, I let myself play with liquid nitrogen, but only in really specific ways that Iāve spent time practicing. you should follow the rules youāre given at first, but if you take the time to understand how things work, maybe you can make your own, better rules.ā
I loved this response. itās a great encapsulation of two really important things I think people need to learn and re-learn all the time: on the one hand, listen to genuine authority figures; when someone knows more than you about a subject, donāt treat their expertise as ājust another opinionā and act like your ignorance is just as good as their knowledge. but on the other hand, donāt obey anything or anyone blindly. recognize that rules and systems and established ideas are never perfect. question things, educate yourself, question things more.
and then, of course, a parent had to butt in and spoil this wonderful lesson by saying:
ābut not the rules mom comes up with!ā
everyone in the room laughed. except me. I gave her a death glare Iām pretty sure she didnāt notice.
because no. no. your rules are not above reproach if youāre a parent. the thing about the dictates of genuine authority figures - people who deserve to have power, and to have their positions respected - is that they are open to question. genuine authority figures are accountable. governments can be petitioned and protested and recalled. doctors must respect patientsā right to a second opinion. journalists have jobs terminated and credentials revoked if they fail to meet standards of integrity and diligence. scientists, to bring us back full circle, spend their entire careers trying to disprove their own hypotheses! you know who insists on being treated as infallible? megalomaniacal dictators, thatās who. oh, and parents.
Iām beyond sick and tired of this āmy house my rules, this family is not a democracy, I want my child to think critically and stand up for themselves except to me ha haā bullshit. my friend gave this kid the kind of advice that doesnāt just help people become good scientists - if enough people adopt the mentality he put forth to that girl, thatās the kind of advice that helps societies value knowledge and resist totalitarianism. and her mother shut it down because, what, she didnāt want to deal with the inconvenience of having someone question her edicts about whose job it is to wash the dishes on Mondays?
we already know youāre more likely to be a Trump supporter if youāre an authoritarian parent - and that this is a stronger predictor of your views on the current president than age, religiosity, gender, or race. Iāll say this another way in case you didnāt catch the full meaning: people who believe in the absolute, unquestionable authority of parents are more than two and a half times as likely to support Trump as people who donāt, and thatās just among Republicans. we canāt afford to treat the oppressive treatment of children or the injustice of ageist power structures in our society as a sideshow issue any longer. the mentality that parents should be treated by their children as beyond reproach and above dispute is a social cancer that has metastasized into the man currently trying to destroy the foundations of democracy in this country.
in short: parents, get the hell over yourselves before you get us all killed. and kids, learn as much as you can, and then make your own rules.
My mother is fond of quoting something that happened once at work (sheās the director of tourism for the neighboring county).
She was on the phone with my brother, who wanted to do something (I forget what, I think he wanted to go camping with some friendsĀ and she was worried it was going to be too cold that weekend or whatever)
And finally she got off the phone and sighed and said, joking, āWhen I taught them to question authority I must have laid it on thick, because now theyāre questioning mine.ā
And it got really quiet in the office. And then her secretary pipes up with āYou taught your kids to question authority???ā
Like she couldnāt believe that you would.
āYou didnāt teach yours to?ā Says mom, equally incredulous.
āNo of course not!ā
And mom says that right there in that moment she realized what was wrong with a huge part of the world.
Teach your kids to question, people.
For a short while as a child I had sanctuary from an abusive home in a lovely home with good parents. One of the things that completely shocked my taraumatized little soul was how deeply the adults respected childrenās thoughts, feelings, needs and wants.
Whenever a kid thought something was unfair, the adult would ask why it felt unfair and talk to them about it. Sometimes the reason for the rule or decision was immovable, like, āthis isnāt safeā or āthis isnāt possible with the time we have and the responsibilities that fill itā, or āhomework has to be done even if itās boring, because it helps you practice skills you will need later on.ā
In those cases, the rule wouldnāt change but the child would understand why it was a rule, and feel listened to and respected. And best of all, sometimes even if the rule didnāt change, an adult might help the child brainstorm ways to make it easier to follow the rule, or find alternatives to the thing they couldnāt have.
Sometimes, the rule or decision was for more flexible reasons, like āWe canāt do this because you need supervision, and I have work to do which means I canāt superviseā, in which case a childās suggestions, like, āWhat if I call a grandparent and see if theyāre interested in supervising?ā were encouraged and listened to.Ā
This taught the kids, me included, so much more than we ever could have learnt by being shut down by, āIām an adult and I said so.ā The system was designed to teach us to make good decisions and to give us as much information as possible about how to do that before we went out into the world. Teaching us the reasons for certain rules helped us respect them and to understand how to make good rules for ourselves going forward.
In my original household, the central rule was āDo whatever will keep you from getting hurt by the person with the most power.ā From this we learned to make choices based solely on fear of consequences, no innate ethical system, so we learned to misbehave without getting caught.
We learned that if you can force someone to do something they donāt want to, youāre allowed to, because thatās how rules are decided, the most powerful person always gets their way.
We learned that asking questions of someone with power over you is dangerous and you have to figure everything out on your own. We learned to keep secrets about how badly we were hurt. There was no oppenness, no conversation, no negotiation or questions or teaching, just fear and hatred and a lot of pain.
Which household do you think taught me the best lessons, the ones I can use to build a healthy and responsible life for myself?
