news from a 15 year old boy i tutor: “there’s a kid in my religion class who i have no idea if they’re a boy or a girl, so when i see them i just call them ‘fam.’ [at my plaintive look of i-don’t-know-if-i-heard-you-right] you know, like family”
The youth have spoken and fam is the gender neutral bro
tangentially related: in Baltimore, linguists observed the organic develop of the gender neutral third-person singular pronoun “yo,” among schoolchildren.
Guys, this is such an important article to read. I’m deadass considering reading the article and recording it so that it is more accessible and more people can be exposed to it. It’s a long one, yes, and there’s some uncomfortable subjects, but it’s absolutely worth the read. I daresay it’s an essential read, especially for adults. It touches not just upon how the alt-right indoctrinates kids, but how we, as adults, create an environment in which they are vulnerable. And that has to change.
this is such an important read. as a person who interacts with teenage boys daily, this was very informative. I’m glad I read it.
I just had the best encounter with a child at Kmart. I was in the aisle shopping, and this girl and her dad come around the corner. The girl sees me and excitedly exclaims “There’s a human here!!” to which the father replied “Yes, there’s humans everywhere.”
Wholesome encounter with a baby alien or fae.
Person recording: “Say frog!”
Child: “Fuck.”
Person recording: “Say frog!”
Child: “Fuck!”
Person recording: “Frog!”
[Person offscreen giggles]
Child: “Fuck!”
[Person offscreen bursts into laughter]
She’s trying her best 😂
Her face is like “Wow Im hilarious”
she looking like bitch that’s what i said lol
I forgot to tell you guys the cutest Passover story!
So last week my congregation held its annual communal Seder (I led it, actually!) and after dinner, all of the kids went off to find the Afikomen. I thought I heard them say they found it out in the foyer, but then when I went to check in on their progress, a few of them told me the search was still going on. Another ten minutes passed, and when I went back out in the foyer, most of the kids were just hanging out, watching on and giving hints while the smallest of the children looked around for the Afikomen.
I asked them what the deal was and they explained to me that the guy who had initially hid the Afikomen put it up in a spot that was kind of up high, so naturally it was the older kids who found it. They decided this wasn’t fair to the others, so the 11-12 year-olds re-hid it for the 7-10 year-olds, and then told them that once they had found the Afikomen, that they should then re-hide again it for the 4-6 year-old kids.
So without any adult input, a group of about 15 children between the ages of 4-12 made the group decision to have an equal-opportunity Afikomen hunt for kids of all ages and sizes.
I just think that’s the best and sweetest thing, and it makes me so proud of the kids at our schul and gives me hope for the future.
When people get pregnant, they will give up smoking, give up alcohol, give up coffee and soda, give up fondue and raw cheese, give up cold cuts and sushi, all because they have heard somewhere, from someone, that these things can be bad for the baby. They don’t know the research, haven’t looked at the studies, can’t talk about sample sizes and control groups. But their dedication to their future child’s safety is so strong, their caution is so overpowering, that they give up these things just in case.
So it baffles me when those same people will insist on spanking their kids.
People are so invested in this ability to hit their kids without judgement or consequence, that it absolutely confounds me.
Growing up autistic often involves not being believed. Your experiences of being tired, stressed, and overwhelmed are constantly minimized. “How could you be tired? You haven’t done anything all day.” “How could you be stressed? You’re eight.” “Look at the other children, how much fun they’re having. If we go home now you’ll miss out on all the fun!” If you find certain tasks particularly challenging, you are told it really isn’t that hard, you just have to [brief and unhelpful description of task].
There are no upsides to denying or minimizing someone’s pain, except that it frees the person doing the minimizing from having to deal with it. Even if the child is “only doing it for attention”, worst case scenario they give their child attention. What’s so terrible about that? Because the alternative is that they are teaching their child not to value and trust their own experience, and that is immensely damaging. It can mean the child might not recognize when they’re being emotionally abused. It can lead to mental health issues, burnout, and many other problems.
Not everyone responds to a given situation in the same way. If someone tells you something bothers them, just because you’re not bothered by it doesn’t mean they’re lying or exaggerating.
Sit down, I’m going to tell you a story.
Imagine a little girl, a 4’9” fifth grader with dimples and twinkling blue eyes. Oh, look, she’s going to the school library. Perhaps she’s going to rent Little Women, or read On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder!
Five minutes later, she exits the library holding a large stack of books called “Horrible Histories.”
And she’s thumbing through one called “Angry Aztecs.”
Record scratch. Freeze frame.
Yup, that’s me! The only history geek in a fifty mile radius. Living in Bumhicksville, Nowhere (name changed, but very accurate) is pretty terrible, and going to school at Caucasian Christian School of Goodness (again, a name change, but an apt description) is even worse. I snapped a bit while I was attending, due to the lack of permissible self-expression, but horrible histories were my guiding light.
Flash forward six months.
Our teacher wants us to do a history project about an ancient civilization. Since our curriculum is Eurocentricism.JPEG, most kids pick the Greeks or Romans (and completely skip over all of the good stuff, like orgies and gladiator fights) in their presentations.
I choose my favorite ancient civilization:
The Aztecs.
My teachers knew I’d been reading Horrible Histories, but what they didn’t know was that I’d also been avidly reading all about Aztec mythology. I walk up to the front of the class, pull on a turquoise skull mask, and raise my arms to the sky.
My teacher goes sheet white.
I give my presentation and skip nothing. Nothing. Every detail of the sacrifices, every dirty, disgusting part.
It all culminates when I point to the calendar.
“It’s May!” I shout, my little girl voice rising an octave. My teacher looks like she’s about to phone the police. “The Aztecs called May Toxcatl.”
No one moves or breathed. I continue blithely.
“Toxcatl was a month dedicated to the worship of the god of the night, Tezcatlipoca.” I’m still going. Everyone is afraid. Marie, one of my classmates, looks like she’s about to cry.
“They’d dress a brave warrior as the god all year, and at the end-“ I pull the red streamers out from behind my display, shouting: “They’d sacrifice him!”
The kids shriek as the streamers of “blood” roll out across the floor.
The principal walked in, hearing the commotion, just in time for me to really get into character and shout “BLOOD FOR THE GOD OF THE NIGHT!”
And that’s how Horrible Histories and all mentions of the Aztecs were banned from my school.
A fucking hero
“BLOOD FOR THE GOD OF NIGHT”
tiny little ones are amazing and also terrifying
BLOOD FOR THE GOD OF NIGHT
It’s always nice to know that I wasn’t the only one who was a complete weirdo as a child :D
I really wish there were more resources out there for me to become familiar with Aztec mythology cos it’s amazing
@madrassoup I feel like you’ll appreciate this
On, like, a cellular level.
This is fucking delightful.
THAT’S A FUCKING STRAIGHT JACKET FOR BABIES WHAT THE FUCK DON’T ADD A LITTLE SMILEY FACE WITH SOME HEARTS AND PUT THE WORD SNUGGLE IN THERE THAT’S HORRIFYING
You guys have clearly never dealt with babies, it’s called swaddling you dumbasses and it helps calm a baby down and it makes it easier for a mother to hold onto/nurse a very fussy baby.
also it makes babies less likely to like poke themselves in their eyes or scratch their faces up with their demon infant nails
seriously, baby nails are incredibly sharp and a baby does not need to claw themselves up
swaddling is an ancient as fuck technique to keep your baby warm, safe, and calm (it simulates being held which helps make babies chill) and this particular invention means swaddling without all the fabric which will help keep babies cooler in warm climates, and also allow for changing diapers and the like without unswaddling them
sit yo asses down and learn to care for a small hairless human
this site hates babies what do you expect
*sees a crib* THATS A FUCKING CAGE FOR BABIES WHAT THE FUCK
There’s a new girl in my kindergarten class who’s autistic and it’s like she’s barely / not really verbal but like idk she opened up to me a little, I don’t tell people I’m on the spectrum at work because they already treat me horribly because I’m the only poc there but like she’s a little Latina girl who I know exactly how she feels and like I was like “hey Nina, If you don’t wanna talk it’s okay, just thumbs up or thumbs down if you understand the (math) problem? Okay?” So we sorta made like a thumbs up and thumbs down thing between us and today it was the most surreal thing because I like “I know they tell you to make eye contact but I’m gonna tell you a trick, look at their neck, chin, hair, and whatever is behind them, I don’t like eye contact very much either? Thumbs up?” And she said with the smallest voice “Thankyou , for not saying I’m dumb” I wanna be the person I needed when I was her age
So very true
Kids that young are essentially gender neutral, and are still being taught ‘gender norms’ by adults who should know better.
I have the world’s most precious nephew. When he was 3, he asked his mom and grandma if he could be a girl. Now, my family is smart. Both his mom and his grandma asked “why?” He said it was so he could have long hair.
His mom showed him photos of famous musicians with long hair, along with Johnny Depp. His grandma showed him photos of Brad Pitt, Troy Polamalu, and Jared Leto with long hair. Then they told him “Boys can have long hair, see?” He said “oh” and went on about his life being a boy.
When he was 4, this same nephew decided again that he wanted to be a girl. This time, the reason was so he could wear skirts and paint his nails. Same reaction: his mom and grandma showed him photos of men in kilts, and men with painted nails, and said “boys can do that, too.” He said “oh”, and decided he was okay being a boy.
At the root of it, he didn’t really want to be a girl. He just wanted to do the same things he saw his mama doing. When he understood he didn’t have to be a girl to do those things, he shrugged it off and was cool with being a boy.
Now, if he ever adamantly decides that he is a girl, not that he wants to be a girl, myself, his mom, and his grandma will be okay with that. We just want to make sure he actually is transgender instead of deciding “oh he wants to do these things, so he is a girl.” We are extremely firm believers in making educated decisions.
I feel that a transgender four year old is more like a cat who is vegan because the cat’s owner’s misunderstood the cat eating grass to mean it is vegan.
👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆
This is grossly misunderstanding how transgender children behave. There are kids who are extremely adamant from a very young age that they are transgender. Kids who experience traumatic dysphoria from a very young age. Kids who, if they were pushed to ‘just wait and see’, would be actively traumatized by that.
Taking the experience of a kid who is not trans and using that as a way to delegitmize the existence of and experience of transgender people is disgusting, and it’s no less disgusting when you do it to a small child than when you do it to an adult.
The diagnostic criteria for transgender children – the thing that @mistresskabooms‘ doctor told me when we were getting her set up for HRT – is “consistent, insistent and persistent.” The child above does not meet that criteria. A child who is four and meets that criteria absolutely is transgender, not the puppet of their parents, and is a child who should be supported in whatever way is appropriate for that child, as determined by that child’s parents and medical team. (And it isn’t just one doctor that you see – MK’s medical and support team consists of more than five medical professionals as well as her parents. Yes, she is older than the kids being talked about, but guess what? It’s the same damn professionals who handle kids of this age, and the diagnostic process is the same (source: MK’s psychologist), so I can speak pretty educatedly to how that process works.)
The idea that the parents of transgender kids are fulfilling some sort of political agenda through their children as opposed to providing for the health of their children is likewise equally disgusting. Knock it the fuck off. I’m embarrassed that someone I used to follow reblogged this post unironically. And tagged it “important”. It’s only important to realize how terrible this post is.
The experience of being a parent to a transgender child is the experience of protecting your kid from people who want to undercut them at every turn, want to tell them – regardless of age – that they’re not old enough to understand, that they should wait, that they can’t possibly make that determination. It does not matter where the people who think they know better than a child, that child’s parents and their medical team artificially decide to make that cutoff, there will people who want to say “oh, you’re too young.” That doesn’t come from genuine concern; it’s transphobic, and it manifests regardless of the child’s age. There will always be a reason why transphobes think a person shouldn’t transition.
(Case in point: my parents, who were convinced that MK needed to wait to start HRT until she was an adult, at minimum. Fortunately, I listened to MK, and to her doctors, and didn’t make her wait, and she’s happier and healthier for it.)
Anyone who takes this point of view should be embarrassed that they ever did, and I can only hope that they’ll research enough to be thoroughly embarrassed. Transgender kids have enough to deal with without concern trolls second-guessing their parents and medical teams.
#fucking thank you #but also i would like to add that even if a child doesnt adamantly and consistently insist that theyre trans #doesnt mean theyre not #i knew from a v young age what i could and could not talk to my parents abt #some of it came from experience where id try to talk to them abt a thing and receive a bad reaction #and id file that away as the type of thing not to bring up again #some of it was by listening to them talk #in the v same instance that i learned abt transgender ppl i learned that my parents thought it was wrong #it was an afab athlete who identified male and medically transitioned and he was on tv doing an interview abt #his sports days from before he transitioned and i asked for clarification and my folks said he got a sex change #and my little eyes got wide and i said ‘thats possible?’ bc the man on tv had a beard and a deep voice and looked like a man™ #and they proceeded to tell me how no matter how much they mutilate their bodies theyll never really be the gender they want #and that its sad and we should pray for them #and i thought ‘he looks like a real man to me. well i guess i cant talk to them abt this either’ #and when i was 12 crying myself to sleep @ night bc i wasnt a man i decided i could never transition bc it would kill my parents #so sometimes kids know early on but cant say anything bc theyll get hit or punished #tw: transphobia
That sounds terrible and I’m so sorry. :( Internet hugs if they are wanted.
Insistent, consistent, persistent doesn’t have to be out loud. You knew inside your heart who you were, even if you couldn’t say it out loud. If you’d had a supportive environment, you could have said it. You were insistent in your own heart, you were consistent over time, you were persistent because you followed that train of thought in your own mind. Just because your parents forced you to stay closeted doesn’t mean you didn’t meet that criteria. By your own words, you seemed to do so.
Again, I’m so sorry that your parents hurt you like that. I hope you have a more supportive environment now. :(
I think people severely underestimate children’s ability to understand themselves. as a six year old when I first learnt people don’t have to get married my first thought was “thank god” and I didn’t even know that was something I was worried about before then but I realise now I was aro/ace a long time before I knew what that was When my sister first came out to us as transgender I was only like, seven or eight and I have this really distinct memory of mulling this over at Sainsbury’s thinking “I don’t like being a girl, am I transgender?” But I dismissed it because I knew at heart I wasn’t a boy, and I didn’t realise there were other options. And I never brought it up because I knew people would assume I was just latching on to my sister’s newly revealed identity and I didn’t want to seem like a copycat. And that was like, my whole childhood. Just years of being told “there’s time to figure out who you are” when I’d already known in my heart for so long. All this “I know you don’t want kids now but that could change”, “when you’re more mature you’ll realise you didn’t really have anything to be stressed about”, “someday you’ll find someone who makes you happy”, blah blah blah we just don’t allow children to express themselves as people because so many of us just don’t think of them as fully developed people. But they are, they have personalities and wants and needs and identities so long before they have a language to describe them to us. And even is sometime down the road their identity changes, or they realise that they just didn’t fully understand some aspect of themselves, don’t we owe them the security of knowing that we will stand by whoever they are today? Don’t they deserve to know that we’ll love them for who they are right now instead of scrabbling to defend some hypothetical future version of themselves? fuck man
showed my mom’s 2nd grade class my tarantula and they asked if he could understand them and i said nah he only speaks spanish and that is how i got a dozen eight year olds to yell que pasa at a tarantula
baby: *incomprehensible babbling*
me: WHAT!? really??? no way :0
This is actually really good for babies’ brain development. You’re laying the groundwork for conversation, teaching them through example that people take turns talking and listening.
Did you know that babies from affluent families hear an average of thirty MILLION more words before age 5 than babies in families below the poverty line? For context, Les Miserables is about 650,000 words and it looks like this:
So it’s like reading this book 46 times.* And that’s not the total number of spoken words, that’s the GAP between affluent and poor babies. And these are the years in which the brain undergoes the most development. It’s mind-boggling.
So what I’m saying is: keep doing the thing. Do it to all babies, all the time. Narrate your day. Ask them for opinions. (“Should we buy the large bag of potatoes or the small bag?” “Gaabooglagje.” “Yes, just as I thought.”) Point out colors and shapes and letters. Let them scribble outside the lines and treat their babble like talk. Sing them nursery rhymes and Raffi songs and songs from the radio. All of these things are going to build their brains to prepare them for kindergarten and beyond.
*Please do not read Les Mis 46 times to an infant. They don’t even care about the Parisian sewer system.
i love when my preschoolers pretend to be talking on the phone bc if u leave them to their own devices and observe they just start saying things they’ve heard adults say into the phone like “hello i have an appointment, i’d like some rice”
When my sister was three, my Dad worked from home a lot. He runs his own business and deals a lot with customers and with red tape and other things.
Naturally, my sister had picked up a lot of these phrases. And as a result she could fake her way pretty well through an adult phone conversation.
This became relevant when telemarketers called the business line one day. My dad told the guy “Let me turn you over to my assistant” and promptly handed the phone to my three year old sister.
Mind, I don’t actually recall any of the dialogue. I do remember my sister keeping the guy on the phone for a good couple of minutes, asking him questions related to payment and things. Finally, the guy wised up. I don’t remember what my sister said, but I do remember the last lines-
“Ma’am, how old are you?”
“Three” c:
*click*
I absolutely love children
I’m the hotdog girl
I was on the phone with my 7-year-old cousin and can i say that i have a newfound respect for him like damn
He has pokemon sun and his team??
Nothing but wishiwashi and incineroar
Like what the fuck
How in the shit
He BEAT THE GAME with this team
5 fish fucks and an angry ass cat
I’m scared of him and his five fish
How??
I asked and all he said was “I believe in them” he’s gonna be the purest badass when he grows up
