"parent" is an opressive class.

[Al77]

I was introduced to this peach on Twitter. He has just supplanted Katie Montgomery as my new favourite feminist wokesperson.

A straight white male with an insightful perspective on the intersection between the feminist view of the patriachy, child rearing and the porn industry. He proudly displays his queer teenage daughter like an accessory and has a very nice relationship with both his child, his child's mummy and his actual mummy, so don't go suggesting he has issues.

I would like to put his name forward for some sort of mumsnet award.

Best patriachy related messiah complex?

I think we need to note and be wary of the language slip here, that equates any authority or power of one human over another as abusive.

No longer is it the understanding that one can abuse their power, now, one having power is abusive in and of itself. (Not them though, no siree)

Bizarrely, this only extends to some institutions, and usually along political lines.

Humans like boundaries, it makes us feel safe. That's why there's a million rules about pronouns.

Yup.
It's also, I think, losing sight of the dynamics of rights and responsibilities.
Unlike many other relationships, the parent has the responsibilities, the child has the rights. The parent should use their authority responsibly for the benefit of the child.

It's a funny sort of tyranny, isn't it?
I mean, how many oppressors can say they've changed the nappies of the oppressed? Or made their breakfasts. Or lunches. Or teas. Or helped them with their homework? Or checked under their bed for monsters? Or read them stories or wiped their noses or washed their clothes or paid for their school trips or bought them that fucking harmonica for their birthday and regularly listen to loud, quavering versions of jingle bells?

His child is transgender and he's spent years talking about how teenagers are really just as capable as adults of consensual decision-making. This tells me all I really need to know about his motivations. I shudder to think what stories the children of these sorts of parents will tell when they are older.

So the word 'responsibility' has now become a power grab by those mean nasty adults with children. Can someone explain how I am profited by my 'power' over my kids????? Does structure in a child's life now constitute a power grab. Am in awe of this stupidity

I can see how declines and falls happen.

He appears to spend an unhealthy amount of time on twitter.

Yes having the state takeover childhood is so much better and done from a place of benevolence. Children in state care have much better outcomes! Child soldiers in Africa; the children who were brainwashed into turning their families in under communism, all demonstrate the positives of removing children from family influence!!

he's spent years talking about how teenagers are really just as capable as adults of consensual decision-making.

Maybe he's crap at that himself and assumes everyone else is too?
Does he not understand that in addition to their lack of experience, teenagers are literally immature? That's not a value judgement, its a statement of fact.

@ErrolTheDragon

he's spent years talking about how teenagers are really just as capable as adults of consensual decision-making.

Maybe he's crap at that himself and assumes everyone else is too?
Does he not understand that in addition to their lack of experience, teenagers are literally immature? That's not a value judgement, its a statement of fact.

One thing I’ve learnt as a parent of teenagers is that they are usually fine if everything goes to plan. It’s when the unexpected happens and they have to make key decisions that things become less certain (there is something to be said for the benefit of experience).

This just stinks of lazy parenting. Although as I noted above, his twitter habit probably doesn’t leave him much time for that kind of responsibility.

@WombOfOnesOwn

His child is transgender and he's spent years talking about how teenagers are really just as capable as adults of consensual decision-making. This tells me all I really need to know about his motivations. I shudder to think what stories the children of these sorts of parents will tell when they are older.

I have friends who claimed this pretty much from toddlerhood. A vague theory that a child is born perfect and able to 'work things out' for themselves.

After a few years, this family got a dog and realisation dawned, as they trained the dog, where they'd gone wrong. Too late now, of course.

Their kids are, I would say, sociopathic. Sadistic, violent horrors. I would also hazard a guess that this is because of a complete lack of rules, boundaries, etc.

The one person I know who says things like this is a man in his 40s who works with children but is not a father. It's such an immature, adolescent way of looking at things.

Of course parents have power over their children and are in a good position to exploit them if they wanted to. Children are among the most vulnerable people in any society, along with others who are unable to survive without the care of others. This is a fact worth recognising, but I think it actually already is recognised fairly well (otherwise we wouldn't have child protection laws and all kinds of child safeguarding practices) and anyway the actual fact cannot be changed. We can't make children able to care for themselves and live independently before they reach the necessary maturity. What's the alternative here? Giving a child too much power and not enough boundaries just makes them feel unsafe.

Oppressive? Jesus Christ I wish I could extract some labour out of my kids!

(OK, feeling guilty about that comment, my kids are, on the whole, good kids, who when asked will set the table/bring their washing down etc.)

It occurs to me reading this that I've never read Lord of the Flies...

@nauticant

As many of us have worked out from the trans activists, much of this "anti-" activism seems to be based on activists being angry at their mummies.

As a result, unsurprisingly many of them see MN as one of the worst places on the Internet.

And they could be justified in their relationship with their mums! Mums are flawed... it’s the unexamined generalisation that becomes toxic sexism. A good counsellor is a society changing thing!

Yes....throw off your oppressive parents so you can walk straight into the arms of other, totally well meaning adults.

Can we wind him and Jolyon up and set them off against each other?

IIIIN THE BLUE CORNER, the latest US contender....

NOAH "parents are tyrants. "parent" is an oppressive class. there are things you can do to try to minimize the abuse that's endemic to the parent/child relationship, but it's always there" BERLATZKY!

IIIIN THE RED CORNER, the home favourite....

JOLYON “So if you're a parent, the court is saying to you, some judge knows better than you what is in the interest of your child. That's an astonishingly morally offensive and logically nonsensical position for the law to find itself in.” MAUGHAM!

(crowd goes wild)

(Mumsnet viewers: "turn this rubbish off. It's all fixed")

NecessaryScene1 that is brilliant.

I’d watch that, necessary

NecessaryScene - love it. Can you please comment on more Twitterspats in this form? Animations would be good.

Ridiculous.
Parents are not an oppressive class.
He probably thinks that because he’s an oppressive parent himself and so thinks we are all like him, so he can excuse his shortcomings by saying it’s inherent in parenthood.

Oppression indicates that without the oppressor, the oppressed can live and flourish on their own. Babies and children abandoned do not live and flourish, they die of neglect. If anyone is oppressed in the parent child relationship, it is the parent because the child is entirely dependent on us for everything and we must meet that child’s constant demands and needs until they are adults and can live on their own.

That's a really good point Chestnut Stuffing. Parents are an authority figure by definition but the relationship is constantly evolving and in most families a positive one.

Making young people fearful and feel that they have no power in their interactions is setting them up to fail.

Aaaaaawful lot of people putting an aaaaawful lot of effort into alienating vulnerable children from their parents, aren't there?

@DrDavidBanner

That's a really good point Chestnut Stuffing. Parents are an authority figure by definition but the relationship is constantly evolving and in most families a positive one.

Making young people fearful and feel that they have no power in their interactions is setting them up to fail.

Something I have noticed in a lot of families where the parent denies their authority is that, really, they are still in charge, defining the nature of the "choices" that are open to the kids, and trying to influence the kids toward their views.

But all of this is done under a sort of veil.

I think that can be far more oppressive than a parent who makes it clear when they are using their authority. The child can argue against that, identify that the parent is thwarting his will, rage, whatever.

On the other hand, when there is a false sense of having asserting your own thinking, even hen your response has been skilfully managed, in a real way it usurps the child's capacity for independent thought and will.

Compare governments and other bodies that take similar approaches.

I've wondered if there is a connection between the rise of that approach to parenting, and the sort of moral authoritarianism we are now seeing approved of by many young people.

Paedo mindset.