sleepy-ocean-girl:

I think it’s really remarkable how the makers of Hamilton and Les Mis somehow managed to create a musical (the gayest form of art) that is less gay than the original story.

arrogantbullyingtoerag:

hey remember when jane austen, a woman, referred to a character named richard as having “never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name” in 1817. yeah me too.

dailypattondoodle:

cryoverkiltmilk:

get-yr-social-work-rage-on:

intersectionalparenting:

isitscary:

daeranilen:

daeranilen:

daeranilen:

Earlier today, I served as the “young woman’s voice” in a panel of local experts at a Girl Scouts speaking event. One question for the panel was something to the effect of, “Should parents read their daughter’s texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?”

I was surprised when the first panelist answered the question as if it were about cyberbullying. The adult audience nodded sagely as she spoke about the importance of protecting children online.

I reached for the microphone next. I said, “As far as reading your child’s texts or logging into their social media profiles, I would say 99.9% of the time, do not do that.”

Looks of total shock answered me. I actually saw heads jerk back in surprise. Even some of my fellow panelists blinked.

Everyone stared as I explained that going behind a child’s back in such a way severs the bond of trust with the parent. When I said, “This is the most effective way to ensure that your child never tells you anything,” it was like I’d delivered a revelation.

It’s easy to talk about the disconnect between the old and the young, but I don’t think I’d ever been so slapped in the face by the reality of it. It was clear that for most of the parents I spoke to, the idea of such actions as a violation had never occurred to them at all.

It alarms me how quickly adults forget that children are people.

Apparently people are rediscovering this post somehow and I think that’s pretty cool! Having experienced similar violations of trust in my youth, this is an important issue to me, so I want to add my personal story:

Around age 13, I tried to express to my mother that I thought I might have clinical depression, and she snapped at me “not to joke about things like that.” I stopped telling my mother when I felt depressed.

Around age 15, I caught my mother reading my diary. She confessed that any time she saw me write in my diary, she would sneak into my room and read it, because I only wrote when I was upset. I stopped keeping a diary.

Around age 18, I had an emotional breakdown while on vacation because I didn’t want to go to college. I ended up seeing a therapist for – surprise surprise – depression.

Around age 21, I spoke on this panel with my mother in the audience, and afterwards I mentioned the diary incident to her with respect to this particular Q&A. Her eyes welled up, and she said, “You know I read those because I was worried you were depressed and going to hurt yourself, right?”

TL;DR: When you invade your child’s privacy, you communicate three things:

1. You do not respect their rights as an individual.
2. You do not trust them to navigate problems or seek help on their own.
3. You probably haven’t been listening to them.

Information about almost every issue that you think you have to snoop for can probably be obtained by communicating with and listening to your child.

Part of me is really excited to see that the original post got 200 notes because holy crap 200 notes, and part of me is really saddened that something so negative has resonated with so many people.

I love this post.

Too many parents wonder why their kids aren’t honest with them, and never realize their own non-receptive behavior and their failure to listen are the reasons why.

At one point or another, a child WILL keep a secret from you, but if it’s to a point where all their emotional feelings are being poured away from you as opposed to toward you, it’s probably because you haven’t been emotionally trustworthy or open. 

Adultism 😦

not to mention, you then take away one of your child’s coping mechanisms. if your parents read your journal, you’re never writing in it again. if your parents monitor your conversations with friends, you won’t tell them when you’re depressed anymore. if you have a therapist that reports what you say to your parents, you won’t tell that therapist anything. now all those methods of venting, feeling better, self-soothing, sorting out your issues, and feeling safe are gone.

“i want information” is not synonymous with “i want my child to talk to me.” those are two separate goals, but i think parents conflate them – i want my child to talk to me, but since they won’t, i’m stealing information from them. no. you didn’t ever want them to talk to you. you wanted information. if you wanted them to talk to you, if that was your entire end goal, you would have approached things completely differently. stealing information from a child ensures they will never talk to you again. but if all you want is information, then you can take it however you want and call it a parenting success.

if what you wanted was a child who talks to you, you would apply the same principles you do to literally any other human interaction in your life, and cultivate a relationship and trust.

I had to stifle my horror and revulsion at my last job, when a conversation about removing the door from a child’s bedroom came up, and I was only one not in favor of it.

May be worth noting I was the only millennial in a conversation that was otherwise full of baby boomers.

When a child starts to not tell you things, do NOT just start pressuring them or going behind their back. If it’s something like Depression and/or other mental illnesses that you think they have and they tell you they’re fine. DO NOT start to observe their every move. Try to explore another way to ask the question.

Also if you are never around your child, the worst way to try and repair that broken bond it to snoop around their things. If you want them too talk and respect you, then you need to earn it. I don’t care who you are, your child doesn’t owe you anything, least of all respect if you haven’t earned it.

If you want your child to trust you, don’t snoop around behind their back.

kingloptr:

portraitoftheoddity:

The great thing about fandom/internet friends vs. friends you meet out IRL, is that when you get to know people for the first time face-to-face, there’s this awkward process of trying to figure out juuuust how much of a dork they are, and how much you can nerd out before you scare them off. Like, you don’t wanna break out the real freaky shit right off. There’s always the impulse to hang back a little, as you try to gauge just how into a thing they are. But with fandom friends? You fucking met them in the garbage heap. You knew their fucked up narrative kinks before you even know their real name. They are screaming their passions into the void. Your friendship comes pre-loaded with already knowing the exact depths of each other’s depravity, and any ordinary-people-shit you have in common is just a bonus. 

heathergraves:

horreurscopes:

my new thing has been just… acting on my ideas. like i thought maybe my desk would look better on a different part of my room so i like. moved it? just like that! i ripped an old anatomy book and stuck the diagrams up on my wall like some kind of old timey victorian doctor. i wanted a starbucks and i walked one and a half miles back and forth in a floridian storm and goddamn it was a good coffee. life is too short babey if you think of something just do it. nike

This was weirdly motivating