How far are you willing to take anti-ageism

[sergeant]

Now I agree with everyone here that a 14 year old or 12 year old can often have reasoning and thinking and driving skills similar or better than adults. But tell me, how far back would your ideal rights extend?

Suppose we have a 2 year old child. Do you think a two year old child should be able to vote? Do you think that child would be able to work?

If you believe the child should be taken care of by parents, how many rights should the parents have in the caretaking? Should they:
- Be able to decide what food the child will eat
- Be able to decide what time the child goes to sleep
- Be able to search the child's belongings
- Be able to forcefully prevent the child from saying something (IE throwing a tempur tantrum in a store)
- many others...

How far do you believe the rights should extend?

[SoulRiser]

They (kids) should have the right to do absolutely anything as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights. So it makes sense to stop them throwing a temper tantrum in a public place because other people don't want to hear/see that. If a 2 year old actually WANTS to vote... lol, let them. What are the odds of that though?

Quote: - Be able to decide what food the child will eat

For the most part this is fine, as long as they aren't force-feeding them something really bad or whatever. I mean, it makes sense if the parents know what's healthy and whatnot.

Quote: - Be able to decide what time the child goes to sleep

Honestly this is kinda stupid. They'll sleep when they're tired. Putting them into bed before they're tired enough to sleep will just result in them lying awake anyway. Let 'em stay up as long as they don't make noise or whatever. They'll learn the hard way that sleep is useful.

Quote: - Be able to search the child's belongings

If the child trusts them enough to let them search their belongings, then this is fine (but then searching would not be necessary at all, would it?). If there's a valid reason for it (ie, they're plotting to kill someone or hurt people), and the parent already tried talking to them but that didn't work, then it can be OK as a last resort... but if a parent has to resort to this, they probably fucked up somewhere, and searching the kid's stuff is only going to make it worse.

Basically, I think the main point of giving the really young ones more rights is just to set a good example. A lot of the rights they can't really use properly yet, and a lot of the time it would be nonsensical (allowing temper tantrums in public places), but the whole point is to have rules that actually make sense, not just the arbitrary "because you're too young" or "because I said so" crap.

---

o wait, were all of those supposed to apply to a 2 year old? 'Cause then the searching belongings thing would be a bit different. I have never heard of a 2 year old plotting to kill anyone.

I guess if they were looking for dangerous objects or something that'd make sense then. I really don't know jack shit about 2 year olds.

[Stadium]

I agree with everything SoulRiser said.

[UnschoolShqiponjë]

Quote:Suppose we have a 2 year old child. Do you think a two year old child should be able to vote? Do you think that child would be able to work?

Okay so we are talking about a two year old then.

Vote or work? Some two year olds act so technically they already work. Most likely though most businesses would have no need for 2 year old employees. Vote? I guess if they expressed the desire and had the ability to read/write/have a general understanding of things, but likely nearly all two year olds couldn't do this nor would they express desire.

Quote:- Be able to decide what food the child will eat

Since they are buying the food they can pretty much choose what the child will eat. If a child expresses the desire to eat something else and asks for eat I don't see why the parents shouldn't try to fulfill that desire. Parents should not force the child to eat what they don't want or eat when they don't want. This forms poor eating habits.

Quote:- Be able to decide what time the child goes to sleep

The child can decide this themselves, technically. Forcing a child into an artificial sleeping schedule forms bad sleeping habits. It will create issues.

Quote:- Be able to search the child's belongings

I don't know what a two year old would have that you'd feel the need to search their crap. I also don't think the two year old would care. Not to mention if the relationship is built on trust there wouldn't be issues.

Quote:- Be able to forcefully prevent the child from saying something (IE throwing a tempur tantrum in a store)

From saying something? No. Throwing temper tantrums? As long as it isn't disturbing anyone who cares? If it is it is best to find the cause or distract the child. They are two, easily distractable.

Got anymore? This is fun to answer.

[Sunbourn]

Quote:I don't know what a two year old would have that you'd feel the need to search their crap. I also don't think the two year old would care. Not to mention if the relationship is built on trust there wouldn't be issues.

BUT THE LITTLE BASTARD MIGHT BE HOARDING PACIFIERS!

[DUBAS]

I think that as a child you lack something known as rational thinking. Since you're growing and building your own path to adulthood you still have to perfect your opinions, values, and thoughts. You are easily influenced as a child. What I mean by this is two things;

1. That this is the ideal time to go to school, it's the easiest time teachers can influence you, and as such, will get a lot of kids thinking the same way. So they'd end up voting for the same political party and having the same thoughts about politics and society. Not good.

2. If, say, the voting age would be for all ages, then parents would get their childs to vote for the same party they want to vote for and the child would be just fine with that. Why? He's incapable of rational thinking.

Anyways, that's just my opinion.

[UnschoolShqiponjë]

Quote:2. If, say, the voting age would be for all ages, then parents would get their childs to vote for the same party they want to vote for and the child would be just fine with that. Why? He's incapable of rational thinking.

Do you know how many adults would not be allowed based on the rational of "someone else told them who to vote for." To me, that is not a powerful enough reason to ban someone from voting. If laws are made that have power over someone, that person should be allowed the chance to vote for those making the laws. Regardless of age.

[SoulRiser]

It's a totally fair point for 2 year olds though. Parents could totally manipulate their vote. And then people who want to skew the results will just have lots of kids for that purpose...

[Superkamiguru]

As far as necessary.

[The man]

(11-15-2011 09:04 PM)Sunbourn Wrote:  

Quote:I don't know what a two year old would have that you'd feel the need to search their crap. I also don't think the two year old would care. Not to mention if the relationship is built on trust there wouldn't be issues.

BUT THE LITTLE BASTARD MIGHT BE HOARDING PACIFIERS!

[James Comey]

If there's anything this election cycle taught me is that perhaps lowering the voting age isn't such a great idea after all.

[Night]

I find this interesting, so I want to give my points, however late it is.

So we're talking about a 2-year-old here. Ok, so if OP or some of the others were still here I'd want to ask if they've ever met a 2-year-old? Not to be condescending, just genuinely curious.

Should a 2-year-old be able to vote? I would be inclined to say no. I'm not even going to go the "developing brains" route here. I don't think a 2-year-old has had enough experience to make a decision like that. For the most part, most 2-year-olds have a pretty cushy life (except for those who sadly don't). They're focusing on playing and being kids and the worst day of their life was that time mom/dad wouldn't buy that toy for them. 2-year-olds don't care about things like the economy, the stock market, foreign policy, etc. If you tried to explain this stuff to a 2-year-old I guarantee you you'll hear the words "This is boring can we play?" And even if you did manage to explain it all, would you trust that they'd make an informed decision based on their small amount of life experience? I know my niece might've voted for some based on if they posed with Elsa and Anna at Disney. Can I also just say, I had a little chuckle at the fact we were debating whether a toddler can vote.

Should a 2-year-old work? No. This isn't even a question for me. I don't even really like the existence of child actors/models, though I recognize their importance to the market. I actually consider children's ability to not work to be a right First of all no one in their right mind would hire a 2-year-old in the first place so I'll talk about children more broadly. If children were allowed to work like adults and teens do it would just be a mess on so many levels. First of all, poor parents would be incentivised to force their children to work. Some people would have children for the sole purpose of making them work and bring them money (I can imagine so many narcissistic parents doing this it's not even funny...). Plus just think of the type of work a child would be able to do. I'll tell you what, it's not going be cushy. It'll be unskilled labor, which is some of the most boring, grueling, and often dangerous work there is. You'd have kids out in the fields in the beating hot sun and working in factories again. There's a reason we stopped doing that.

Decide what food they eat. Sort of already do this as 2-year-olds aren't responsible for grocery shopping (probably a good thing too). So this is complicated as at this stage you're trying to develop good habits. Simply letting a 2-year-old eat whatever they want whenever is going to be a bad time. But being a dictator about what they eat is also not good (I'm reminded of my parents reminiscing about when their parents would send them to bed hungry if they wouldn't eat the dinner that was made, not good imo). I'd encourage them to try everything, but in my experience, if a toddler doesn't want to sit at the table and eat, they won't. Encourage them to try everything, and try it again after a while if they don't like it.

Decide when the child goes to sleep. So obviously you can't force anyone to sleep, but as with the food answer, you're trying to develop good habits at this stage. They need to learn that after a certain time it's time to be quiet and relax and get ready for bed (bedtime routines are so important!!!). Imo, they can play in their room or watch a movie on the couch with mom/dad or something until they can fall asleep. But if you know toddlers you know they don't like the stop going until they literally pass out. And they get cranky (they're still learning to regulate and control their emotional responses) and toddlers are enough of a handful without being cranky. I don't think you would meet a parent in the world that doesn't get a little relieved when it's bedtime.

Search a child's belongings. So we're still talking about a 2-year-old here so they don't really have much that is a secret. Maybe you're wondering where your shoes went and they took it for a game of dress up. Or perhaps a bunch of lipstick suddenly became art on the walls and you're looking for it. Or maybe they took the bottle of TUMs and have been hiding it under their bed and eating it like candy (my sister did this..). I honestly can't think of a reason you would want to search through 2-year-olds things unless you felt like you needed to. After all, you probably already know everything that should be there.

Forcefully prevent them from saying something. I agree with Soul about the temper tantrum at the store, that's part of learning to control their emotional response. The best example I can think of is telling them not to swear. Personally, I don't care if a child swears as long and they know it's not socially acceptable in public and don't do it there. I think this has to do with teaching social norms, which imo, has to be taken on a case by case basis. It's not acceptable to scream "Auntie your feet stink!" at the dinner table, however hilarious it might be.

I don't think anything I've said is ageist, just acknowledging the differences between toddlers and even a 10-year-old! Toddlers are adorably innocent and yet evil creatures still learning how to be a person and we're here to help them on that journey.

[TheVanishingSnowDove]

Quote: Toddlers are adorably innocent and yet evil creatures still learning how to be a person and we're here to help them on that journey.

That line made me want to share this.

From http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secJ6.html J.6 What methods of child rearing do anarchists advocate?

J.6.3 If children have nothing to fear, how can they be good?

Obedience that is based on fear of punishment, this-worldly or other-worldly, is not really goodness, it is merely cowardice. True morality (i.e. respect for others and one-self) comes from inner conviction based on experience, it cannot be imposed from without by fear. Nor can it be inspired by hope of reward, such as praise or the promise of heaven, which is simply bribery. If children are given as much freedom as possible from the day of birth, if parents respect them as individuals and give a positive example as well as not being forced to conform to parental expectations, they will spontaneously learn the basic principles of social behaviour, such as cleanliness, courtesy, and so forth. But they must be allowed to develop them at their own speed, at the natural stage of their growth, not when parents think they should develop them. What is "natural" timing must be discovered by observation, not by defining it a priori based on one's own expectations.

Can a child really be taught to keep themselves clean without being punished for getting dirty? According to many psychologists, it is not only possible but vitally important for the child's mental health to do so, since punishment will give the child a fixed and repressed interest in their bodily functions. As Reich and Lowen have shown various forms of compulsive and obsessive neuroses can be traced back to the punishments used in toilet training. As Neill observed: "When the mother says naughty or dirty or even tut tut, the element of right and wrong arises. The question becomes a moral one -- when it should remain a physical one." He suggested that the wrong way to deal with a child who likes to play with faeces is to tell him he is being dirty. The right way "is to allow him to live out his interest in excrement by providing him with mud or clay. In this way, he will sublimate his interest without repression. He will live through his interest; and in doing so, kill it." [Summerhill, p. 174]

Similarly, sceptics will probably question how children can be induced to eat a healthy diet without threats of punishment. The answer can be discovered by a simple experiment: set out on the table all kinds of foods, from sweets and ice cream to whole wheat bread, lettuce, sprouts, and so on, and allow the child complete freedom to choose what is desired or to eat nothing at all if he or she is not hungry. Parents will find that the average child will begin choosing a balanced diet after about a week, after the desire for prohibited or restricted foods has been satisfied. This is an example of what can be called "trusting nature." That the question of how to "train" a child to eat properly should even be an issue says volumes about how little the concept of freedom for children is accepted or even understood, in our society. Unfortunately, the concept of "training" still holds the field in this and most other areas.

The disciplinarian argument that that children must be forced to respect possessions is also defective, because it always requires some sacrifice of a child's play life (and childhood should be devoted to play, not to "preparing for adulthood," because playing is what children spontaneously do). The libertarian view is that a child should arrive at a sense of value out of his or her own free choice. This means not scolding or punishing them for breaking or damaging things. As they grow out of the stage of preadolescent indifference to possessions, they learn to respect it naturally.

"But shouldn't a child at least be punished for stealing?" it will be asked. Once again, the answer lies in the idea of trusting nature. The concept of "mine" and "yours" is adult, and children naturally develop it as they become mature, but not before. This means that normal children will "steal" -- though that is not how they regard it. They are simply trying to satisfy their acquisitive impulses; or, if they are with friends, their desire for adventure. In a society so thoroughly steeped in the idea of respect for property as ours, it is no doubt difficult for parents to resist societal pressure to punish children for "stealing." The reward for such trust, however, will be a child who grows into a healthy adolescent who respects the possessions of others, not out of a cowardly fear of punishment but from his or her own self-nature.

Most parents believe that, besides taking care of their child's physical needs, the teaching of ethical/moral values is their main responsibility and that without such teaching the child will grow up to be a "little wild animal" who acts on every whim, with no consideration for others. This idea arises mainly from the fact that most people in our society believe, at least passively, that human beings are naturally bad and that unless they are "trained" to be good they will be lazy, mean, violent, or even murderous. This, of course, is essentially the idea of "original sin" and because of its widespread acceptance, nearly all adults believe that it is their job to "improve" children. Yet according to libertarian psychologists there is no original sin. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that there is "original virtue." Wilhelm Reich found that externally imposed, compulsive morality actually causes immoral behaviour by creating cruel and perverse "secondary drives." Neill put it this way: "I find that when I smash the moral instruction a bad boy has received, he becomes a goodboy." [Op. Cit., p. 250]

[James Comey]

The issue I have with minors voting is that a lot of teen males experience and understanding in politics comes from shit like 4chan. Unfortunately that shit has already made adults terrible enough with their political decisions.

[Night]

(04-17-2017 04:26 AM)TheVanishingSnowDove Wrote:  

Quote: Toddlers are adorably innocent and yet evil creatures still learning how to be a person and we're here to help them on that journey.

That line made me want to share this.

From http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secJ6.html J.6 What methods of child rearing do anarchists advocate?

I don't think anything I said contradicts that though, to be honest.

The very title "If children have nothing to fear, how can they be good" is kind of insulting as a response to my post. You seem to be under the impression that I'm for punishing children for not being clean, or not eating. I don't recall ever even mentioning punishing the child.

Addressing the paragraph about cleanliness, I agree completely with this paragraph. Punishing a child for a simple mistake with potty training is in my opinion toxic parenting. The correct way to handle that would be, "Uh-Oh~ well that's ok mistakes happen, lets clean that up" with a warm smile.

On the eating habits, I don't necessarily agree with this one completely. While it may work for some children but I doubt it's a one size fits all. If I had a table laid out like that for me as a child I would've probably chosen chicken nuggets every time. I never said punish a child for not eating what you want them to. The only mention of a punishment for this was a story about the punishment my parents received which I even said was not good. I said encourage them to try new things, even after they've decided they didn't like it, but not forcing it on them. In my opinion, a better way would be to eat together and eat the foods they don't like in front of them, they'll want to be like mom/dad. I read an article by a woman who successfully got her extremely picky child to eat new foods by gradually introducing them to their plate. She encouraged them to try new foods, but never once forced him or punished them if they didn't eat it. She made it so they could make the choice themselves and they did. That's my opinion of what should be done. It's not really that far off from the table scenario but somewhat more controlled. I wouldn't include candy in the table scenario if I were to do it, personally.

About the possessions.. sure, I suppose, but again, not a one size fits all. I mean, if you just let your kid break all their toys with nothing to show them it's wrong, and then you keep buying new toys, how are you not teaching that kid "Well it's ok if I break this, mom/dad will just get a new one." This doesn't mean punish them though, like, get creative people!!

As for the stealing, I'm really really really not sure about that. We can't just let the kid steal with zero consequences. Maybe not punish them, but at least explain why it's wrong. I mean the fact is that stealing has real world consequences even at that age. If your kid takes some candy off the shelf a the store without you noticing, you don't think if the security notices they won't stop you?? They won't arrest the kid obviously but I wouldn't want to be learning the hard way. You might be banned from the store if they're dicks.

I noticed you bolded the part where I called toddlers evil, I feel like you failed to realize I said this in jest. Obviously, I don't think they're actually evil or bad, they're fucking adorable and sweet and innocent, but they're little devils. I mean seriously have you ever met a 2-year-old!? They have energy for daaaayyyyyssss, they're like little Tasmanian devils running around getting into stuff, can't take your eyes off them for a second. I have a 4-year old niece and a 3-year-old cousin, I'm speaking from experience. I don't think they're literally evil, they're adorable and innocent and I love them with all my heart. I also want children, and I've put years of consideration for how to raise them.

[TheVanishingSnowDove]

Sorry for sounding insulting, I never believed you were for punishing kids for those things.
It wasn't really a response to your posts. The,"Yet evil creatures" line reminded me of that article, so I just shared it. It was nothing against you.

[James Comey]

I like how this bumped thread brought a great discussion like old SS.

[StrixDesmodus]

(11-15-2011 06:11 AM)sergeant Wrote:  - Be able to decide what food the child will eat

Within reason. A parent has the right to choose the meals, but the responsibility to make them healthy and tasty. If a child is particularly picky, then the parent should be firm, but non-aggressive. When a teen is old enough to cook, they should have the right to choose meals.

Quote:- Be able to decide what time the child goes to sleep

I think SoulRiser summed this up best.

Quote:- Be able to search the child's belongings

Not without the youth's consent, except in matters of life and death.

Quote:- Be able to forcefully prevent the child from saying something (IE throwing a tempur tantrum in a store)

I do not believe parents should throw temper tantrums in stores. This is seriously my stance, because the way the parent responds to the child determines the way the child responds back. Sure, some kids can be stubborn, but a child's sense of crisis is alerted when a parent barks at them or in other ways reacts too forcefully. It's the parent's responsibility to say "no" calmly.

Quote:Miscellaneous

I believe the voting age should be fifteen, that the age for alcohol consumption should be nineteen, and that parents have the responsibility to help their children become as independent as possible.

[James Comey]

I agree with lowering the age of alcohol consumption though. The age 21 is just stupid and has no scientific backing whatsoever. It needs to be killed off.

[The man]

(01-18-2017 05:24 AM)Superkamiguru Wrote:  As far as necessary.

[James Comey]

ABOLISH THE DRINKING AGE

[Gwedin]

abolish drinking

[James Comey]

NO MOAR DRINKING TWERP