Thanks to Max Hope (https://maxhope.co.uk/write-on/), the facilitator, researcher, activist, and writer supporting changemakers to share their ideas and passions through writing. On the Write On Changemakers Facebook Group Max posts writing prompts such as the title to this blog.
This is my extended answer to the question:
A change I long to see is ending the vilification and intolerance of children, to understand that they are not the problem and should not have their fundamental rights sabotaged. I hope that the culture at large can begin to uphold and honour caregivers who are enabling children to retain their autonomy, by not succumbing to traditional authoritarian, punitive systems set up to create conformity, compliance, and submission, to the detriment of one’s human needs.
The fairy-tale fallacy that childhood (and parenthood) is all sunny afternoons of baking and bubbles is so damaging. It is as mistaken and antiquated at the "seen and not heard" proverb dating back to at least the 15th century (recorded in a collection of homilies by a Roman Catholic clergyman around 1450). After at least 570 years (not to mention the earlier cultural and historical habits of patriarchal systems from pre-history!) of being told by authority that children are inferior to adults and must be overruled, this dogma is well and truly ingrained into our cultural psyche.
Even when parents endeavour to go against the punitive tide, there is often still a little (or possibly not-so-little) voice from somewhere deeply buried that, when triggered, can bring up disrespectful, derogatory statements and/or thoughts towards a child who is expressing an unmet need. This throws a parent, striving for non-violent communication into inner turmoil! I know this because, as hard as it is for me to admit, I hear this voice and the turmoil is real! The shocking sound of this internal voice has led me to do a lot of inner psychological work to understand where it comes from and how to gently quieten it. (This will be the bones of another blog).
I long for an understanding, judgement-free community, even wider society that can nourish and hold me while I help my children, who, due to being human, struggle with intense feelings and emotions. The current culture is very quick to judge and shame both parents and children for nonconformity. I wish that the children who are aggressive, shout, answer back, won't listen, can't sit still and all the other 'unaccepted behaviours', didn't get branded as 'naughty', 'mean', 'bad' or even 'unkind'. I want the collective to stop putting so much pressure on parents to raise compliant, obedient children. What the culture at large doesn't seem to realise is the children's sovereignty is at stake.
Changing expectations from that erroneous notion of a 'good' or 'well-behaved' child, or possibly even removing any expectations at all will alleviate the difficult emotions parents feel when their children simply aren't capable of meeting demands imposed upon them.
There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
(Image from Eloise Wilkin's Baby's Mother Goose, 1958)
Like many, for a long time I believed I had to be ‘good’ like the girl in the poem and if I wasn’t able to, I must try to hide my needs, so I wasn’t seen as ‘horrid’. Yet, these human, physical and emotional needs don’t dissolve. They get pushed into the shadow, become repressed and create an internal battle. In ‘Psychology and Religion’ (1938) Carl Jung explains,
“Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than
he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is
embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”
Changing the disastrous concept of childhood from the binary good = obedient/quiet, and bad = horrid/evil, to the more biologically and psychologically rational judgement that 'humans are a myriad of emotions that are all valid' is a beautiful dream. We must flip the notion that children who are not obedient and quiet are the enemy. They are the collateral damage from our fear-based obedience to cultural dogma – if we don't follow the creed we might be seen as 'bad' or 'naughty'. We need to make having needs and emotions socially acceptable – including the needs of adults, because we have carried on these learnt behaviours from our own childhoods.
We need spaces and communities that make room for our shadows – for all the noise, difficult emotions, even physical outbursts. Parents and carers need support to create tolerant, non-punitive environments for children to thrive in because natural human emotions can be hard to handle without the right support and therapeutic and/or physical ‘container’.
This is only amplified when parents are already exhausted from the 24 hour demands of capitalist, patriarchal, nuclear family life and the reality that adults have so many of their own unmet needs, due to growing up in a punitive, shame-based culture themselves. When drained, stressed-out parents remark on (scream about!) how tiresome, tedious, rude, or annoying their child is, I wish the collective could be there to step in and say,
"Hey, I hear you. I see how tired and under pressure you are. I see that it is
unbelievably difficult balancing all your metaphorical and actual plates. Let me
offer you some help, some comfort. Let me help you lower that bar you have
raised so high due to ingrained/inherited beliefs. You are not a bad person, and
your child is not a bad person. You are both simply struggling right now and
need some time to rest and reconnect. Allow us to offer you the support and
loving space to find the strength, determination, and patience to create the
loving boundaries you need to provide your children with a respectful, consent-
based platform. Let me offer you that support...not just now in this crisis
moment, but regularly, often and without conditions. Let us be there to assist
you along the way, with tangible help so these moments of crisis become less
frequent.”
Let's work together to create a new paradigm of respect, tolerance and understanding so the next generation do not have to spend so much time healing the wounds from generations of unmet needs. Let’s change the binary good (obedient) and bad (evil), so the next generation of adults don’t have to hide away their needs, or true selves in fear of punishment or removal of love. Let’s replace ‘naughty’ which actually means 'being malicious with intent' with something like ‘dysregulated’ or ‘overwhelmed’ and know that people (children and adults) aren’t bad or naughty for having needs, it just hasn’t been socially acceptable to express them.