No like here’s the thing: children are an oppressed class. I mean that 100% sincerely. Children m are an oppressed class. They quite literally do not have the right to be free human beings.
Reposting from my twitter here, but: you wouldn't prevent an adult from speaking to their friend or eating when they were hungry. In your personal life that's abusive behavior, in the work sphere a suppression of workers' rights. Other places these rights are violated include: prison.
In Education and Peace, Maria Montessori describes the culture of war and identifies it as originating, on a personal level, in the struggle between the adult and the child that begins as soon as the child is born. This is the very first conflict. The adult subjects the child to their own wants and needs and completely disregards the needs, development and personhood of the child. This struggle continues throughout childhood, between both parents and children and other adults and children:
“Both the adult and the child are unaware of their own characteristic natures. They fight one another in a secret struggle that has gone on for countless generations and is becoming more violent today in our complicated and nerve-racking culture. The adult defeats the child; and once the child reaches adulthood the characteristic signs of the peace that is only an aftermath of war—destruction on one hand and painful adjustment on the other—remain with him for the rest of his life.”
This conflict positions children and adults relative to each other as two distinct classes, one with power and one without. Of course, there are other conflicts at play here—race is a huge one, gender another. And that’s not to say children can’t have power over parents, etc. But one of the most fundamental class conflicts is between adults and children.
Children exist in a state of war from day one. Their environment is completely unsuitable to them; they’re treated as if that’s their fault. They’ve literally been alive for less than a decade. Any action they take is done as a result of class conflict.
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