For a long time a child liberationist was the last thing anyone who spoke for chid rights wanted to be. Have they been vindicated? — Has there been a revival of the traditional child liberationist? After the influx of texts like those of John Holt, Richard Farson, Shulamith Firestone and the child liberation and deschooling movement, there was a slow process of deradicalization among those who wrote about the topic of rights for children. Child…

“Zero for Conduct” and it’s timeless power to teach us. — The 1933 French movie “Zero For Conduct” brought youth rebellion on screen through a subversive narration that reversed the pedagogical narratives of it’s time. It showed children rebelling to adult authority and framed them as heroic revolutionaries rather than brats to be tamed. The film was censored back in the…

We won’t stop hearing about it, it’s time to stop acting surprised. — tw: csa for this old article of mine I never published before Zeus and Ganymede. Romantic, isn’t it? I think it says a lot about the status of children that for most of our history the story of a God kidnapping a child and gifting horses to his parents as a consolation inspired artists as an example of ideal love or even…

Heliogabalus, High Priest of the Sun. Artist, Simeon Solomon. 1866. “Not even the wicked or frivolous women were more indecent” -Aurelius Victor. Varius Avitus Bassianus, known to history as “Elagabalus” was a Roman emperor who was born in 204 and died in 222 when he was eighteen years old. Most…

Is April 2022 the right time to rethink children’s position in society? — The World Health Organization defines child abuse in these terms: “all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility…

Are children “naturally” vulnerable or is their vulnerability socially constructed — And most importantly, does it matter? — One of the main objections to the liberation of young people is that freedom is dangerous because children are “vulnerable”. But what are they vulnerable to? Abuse. And who is perpetrating this abuse? The data tells us that its parents and guardians (https://www.statista.com/statistics/254893/child-abuse-in-the-us-by-perpetrator-relationship/). It appears then that parental power and…

The male rejection of nurturance. — While links between masculinity and violence in general are well established, little, almost nothing, has been written about the link between masculinity and violence against children. This is surprising considering how old the gendered stereotype of the nurturing mother and the authoritarian father is. The frightened child about to be…

Adultist language is harmful — don’t use it. — Why is it that adults dread being compared to children, but children strive to be compared to adults? “Babyish”, “childish”, “ infantile” and “immature” are considered insults while “adult” and “grown-up” are seen as compliments. On one hand, it makes sense, the role society pushes children to play is that…

And a dangerous one. — When the subject of protecting children from abuse comes up, there is always at least one adult who names “innocence" as one of the reasons why children should be protected from adult violence, but “innocence" has traditionally been a quality attributed only to a small group of children, and it…