Interesting Links for 26-05-2025

[andrewducker]

1. If you want a picture of the future, imagine an AI reassuring you that everything is okay — forever

(tags:ai thefuture comic )

2. Stillbirth surveillance shows why we must decriminalise abortion

(tags:abortion death children law uk )

3. I am not consistently this good at raising children. But this is very-much what I am aiming for

(tags:children parenting )

4. Utah lawmakers' demanded a study on gender-affirming care. Guess what they found...

(tags:transgender healthcare USA politics )

Comments

[calimac]

3) Wow. Any attempt I made as a child to explain the reasons for my disapproved behavior was immediately shut down as “talking back.” As an adult, I spent the rest of my parents’ lives resenting them for that, though I didn’t make the connection until more recently. It did not improve my adult relations with them.

[channelpenguin]

That's harsh. I am sorry that people have to suffer that growing up.

I am lucky, my parents at least tried. I mean we didn't talk things to death, but definitely the logic was (mostly) explained when needed. Neither of my parents were "rebels" but neither would they unthinkingly do what someone else "told them" "just because". It had to make some sense.

The biggest gap was that I was (and perhaps still am) more willing than they to "cut my nose off to spite my face" than pragmatically and strategically quietly conform when it would actually have been to my advantage. Though I did learn this skill later :-) But we discussed that fairly logically. I was pretty emotional as a kid and often would beg that they listened to my words more than my tone, but sensibly, the rest of the would would not, so I guess they were trying to train me in a good direction.

[calimac]

Oh yes, that’s another thing. When my father would make a declaration, my brother would ask, “Why?” That would initiate the same ritual, every time.
“Because I say so.”
“Why do you say so?”
“Because I’m the Dad.” (Notice that doesn’t answer the question.)
“Why are you the Dad?” (At which point my brother has lost the thread.)
No answer to that one.

[andrewducker]

Yup, the actions of someone who doesn't want to raise thinking people, they want to raise obedient servants.

[andrewducker]

I hear about parents who were like that. Mostly American. Thankfully we can be better than that. I'm sorry you had to go through it.

[jducoeur]

Is the US actually worse than average in that respect? It's possible, but I dunno.

I agree that it's the stereotype, and I certainly know plenty of folks who lived through it, but there are also lots of us who had mutually-respectful relationships with their parents. While they occasionally annoy me, I'm still friends with both of my parents, and I know plenty of folks for whom that's true as well.

The bad ones get most of the airtime (because everyone likes to talk about bad examples), but I'd be curious what the actual statistics look like, both here and elsewhere.

[andrewducker]

It's probably just a stereotype in some ways. And probably more some states than others.

[cmcmck]

And I'm sure you can imagine what they thought of my behaviour...........

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Not only that, but attempts to ask or clarify *what* the disapproved behaviour was.

[andrewducker]

It's just such a terrible way to raise a child.

[calimac]

It's impatience. What the child did wrong is obvious to the parent, so they don't want to take the trouble to explain it to the child (or, even worse, think the child is only pretending not to know what they did wrong), especially as that might prompt requests for further explanation (or "talking back").

[calimac]

Oh yes, that too.

[cmcmck]

This might both amuse and interest you:

https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/05/26/trans-protest-downing-street-london-supreme-court/

[andrewducker]

Indeed it did!

[haggis]

In the spirit of 3, I offer this

https://sandersstudies.tumblr.com/post/784545261838057472

I would be fascinated to hear from the OP's parents. That sounds like an ideal to aim for but I don't know if it would always work.

[andrewducker]

Nothing *always* works :-)

[liv]

Childrearing: there's no foolproof way to consistently get children to behave (i.e. do what adults want) because they are in fact autonomous people. Also little children are sometimes emotionally overwhelmed and may be unable to do anything at all in the moment other than scream and lash out, it doesn't matter how well they understand they reasons why it's important not to act like that, or what incentives they have for stopping that problem behaviour, they just can't.

The same is true of adults really; very few adults make the morally and socially desirable choice at all times in all circumstances. So whether you enforce behaviour through punishment or respectful discussion or physical force or whatever is not really a question of effectiveness, it's a moral question. A person may believe it's wrong to threaten a child or to coerce them, and that is a reasonable position to hold. But neither a fearful child nor a respected child is always going to behave perfectly, cos they're human and humans don't behave perfectly.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. But accepting that we're not going to get perfect behaviour, and that things are always going to be a compromise seems to get us good results, and means the kids are being (slowly) prepared for taking responsibility and making their own decisions, which is one of my major goals in raising kids.