Racing Turtles

Pisses me off when some products are designed exclusively for children. like I'm not saying we should get RID of stuff designed for kids, but why can't there ALSO be fruit snacks for the working adult. You know. Squeezy apple sauce pouches that say "Yes Debra, I am twenty-six years old and eating an apple sauce pouch on the train as it is a convenient, spoonless, healthy snack, and I refuse to be ashamed of that, goddamnit." Popsicles that say on the stick "FUN FACT: Remember to renew your passport at least 7-9 months ahead of the expiry date, as many countries will not let you travel if you have less than 6 months of validity left." Do you see my vision.

And there are so many reasons a kid might be quiet. I was quiet because I felt safer when I was quiet. Because I WAS BEING ABUSED. And I had to go through even more abuse at school because the teachers there wouldn't lift a finger to stop it.

Flashback to the time my science teacher said, "If you don't want to be bullied, don't make yourself a target."

Throwback to when my teacher said to me that i "basically chose to be bullied"💀

Do you know what the only thing that stopped the kids who bullied me when I was being bullied so badly I came home crying daily my entire fifth grade?

It wasn’t any of my mom’s suggestions, which were go to the teacher, go to the principal, just keep going to an adult because *surely* that will *eventually* help even though obviously it wasn’t and my life was turning into a living hell in the meantime while the authorities she put all her faith in did nothing and she didn’t lift a finger because she thought I needed to handle it on my own to learn *responsibility*. The teachers said either what this post did, or to just ignore them. Obviously none of that worked.

You know what did work?

One week when my mom was out of town, my dad was waiting by the bus stop for me. He drove his car over to some of the kids who had been picking on me, and scared the living daylight out of them by rolling down the window and asking them “so you think it’s funny to make little girls cry?” He didn’t *do* anything to them. Just scared the little shitheads so badly they hopefully never bullied anyone else ever again because they realized there would be fucking consequences.

My best friend and I didn’t have a single other issue the rest of the year. From anyone who had bullied us, not just that particular group. For the rest of the year we were left completely alone by people who had up until then tormented us every time the adults’ backs were turned.

So there you have it. Actual consequences and the fear of god (or a very angry father) are the only things that will stop bullies. Not ignoring them. And certainly not stoking their wrath more and then turning your back on them in the hopes they’ll go ‘pick on someone else’.

Rudolph Tegner - Aphrodite (plaster), 1939

#this is what my camp counselors all looked like to me as a kid#in my last year at camp they were revealed to be regular schlubby sun-damaged people (SINCE WHEN?)#but to camper mbl all the effortlessly strong and fast and tireless grownups looked like this#distantly from the beach while watching us have mild calamities in boats.#not THAT much more clothed than this BUT with stark tanlines. Yeah#This is what the hands and forearms of a summer camp counselor always look like#just put those reflective shades on n there it is(via @manyblinkinglights)

it's always bad for adults to interact with minors, which is why when I was born my mother was positioned at the window and I was birthed down a giant slip n slide that safely transported me to the hospital grounds, where I was quickly accepted and raised by a gang of feral babies who were born under similar circumstances. and that's why my posts are so bad

Hey what the fuck happens in homestuck

When studies show that underage drinking is harmful, it's banned easily. But when studies show that spanking is harmful, it remains legal and parents still insist on doing it.

Age restrictions on purchasing cigarettes pass easily. But laws prohibiting smoking where children are forced to breathe in secondhand smoke are much harder to pass.

Children under a certain age are prohibited from using most social media websites. But adults are allowed to post videos of their children's meltdowns.

Teenagers need their parents' permission to get body modifications. But parents can get their babies' ears pierced.

Anyone who genuinely wants to protect children would not panic about the children's own choices while ignoring what adults force on them. Anyone who genuinely wants to protect children would not insist that studies on the dangers of children's own choices be fully trusted and obeyed while ignoring and arguing with studies on the dangers of how adults treat children.

But many adults just want to control children, not protect them.

honestly, i wish when i was a kid adults had said to me "lying is a thing most people do quite a bit of in social situations, its going to be useful to know how and when to do it, because if you dont you will often seem rude and offputting" instead of just "its bad to lie dont lie" because. guess who often seems rude and offputting.

🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯

im gonna be real i do think we need to spend more time as a society encouraging adults to play pretend in structured ways bc what i’m getting from a variety of sources is we all like to make fake shit and pretend to be people we are not

No fr adults would be a lot healthier if their need for play was more easily satisfied. Play is a fundamental human need that does not go away when we exit childhood but it’s treated as childish and frivolous. No bitch that’s how we process our experiences and knowledge and practice emotions of all kinds in a safe space!! Learn how to play again!

what bugs me about it is every other animal on earth engages in play behaviors all the time. for their entire lives. yet for humans for some reason play isn’t considered normal once you’re a certain age? come on bro. crows are rolling down peoples windshields and sheep are jumping on trampolines. go have fun too

Yeah and it isn't JUST the adult negatively impacted by this cultural belief that play isn't "adult". It's common for adults to bond with kids through play -board games, toys, art, unstructured imagining, Whatever- and this idea that play is somehow age-restricted abruptly ends that. They may see it as living up to the expectations of adulthood and "acting their age" but that's not how the kid experiences it; they just know that one day this adult who they cared about and who they thought cared about them decided they didn't want to spent time with them anymore.

1. This is awesome and amazing and should be celebrated

2. This person looks SO HAPPY and I love that for them

3. That Snorlax is crocheted. Crochet cannot be replicated by machine. It physically cannot... So someone, a human, made that thing, by HAND. As a crocheter myself, that is incredible and should also be celebrated.

Still mandelacatalogue crossover

*Try to make a good relationship with the imitated one*

petting zoos are pretty fucking tight is it normal for a 21 year old to go to a petting zoo.

is it normal for a man to love? to cherish and to yearn? you tell me

*slams fist down on a beautifully crafted oak desk*

This is the bare minimum of decent human behavior for ANY gender. If you are an adult and someone who is not an adult wants to have a relationship with you, it is your duty to, at bare minimum, turn them away.

and like... having crushes on adults is a Normal Adolescent Thing, but it doesn’t mean they’re ready for--or for that matter, want--an actual relationship with said adult. it’s a goddamn developmental phase for kids working out their sexuality, and treating it as a chance to get laid is fucking monstrous.

Really the faster you establish that all adults are just kids in adult suits the more life makes sense

so i will never understand tumblrs obsession with reactionary politics and the death of nuance but here we are.

children need healthy platonic friendships with adults. children need all manner of platonic relationships with adults and segregating children from ALL interactions with adults simply because some adults would like to cause them harm not only doesnt stop that from happening but also makes children EVEN MORE susceptible to abuse.

children should have literally no shortage of adults in their lives who they know, feel comfortable with, and are safe around. isolation ALWAYS increases the risk of abuse. children who dont have positive interactions cant identify behavior that isnt okay because they dont know any better! a child that has a healthy network of adults in their life does! they can compare behavior between adults and say “this isnt how everyone else treats me and i feel weird about it. maybe i can ask xyz who doesnt treat me this way if this is weird or not”

this also gives them more places to turn when things go wrong. a child whos in trouble but only has their parents and peers has a very limited number of options. ESPECIALLY if their parents are the adults in their lives who are harming them, which is overwhelmingly the more likely option. children are much more likely to abused by a family member than by a stranger. a child with more adult friendships, like for example, the woman who works at the library and always talks to them about tv shows they love, the guy from the comic book store who they see every week and who always recommends them new titles to try, the college age coach of their after school sport, the nurse from their school who they eat lunch with because the feel more comfortable there, that child has a large number of adults who they can now turn to in a crisis.

yes, there will always be bad people with bad intentions, but the solution isnt to isolate children from all adults therefore making them even more susceptible to harm if and when it happens. the solution is to surround children with as many examples of healthy positive relationships as possible so that they can easily identify when a situation is not right and then have an unlimited number of resources to go to for help.

When I was 16, I was hit on by what I will generously describe as a silver fox. He was charming. He was also a professor at a local art college. He said he was interested in seeing my portfolio and asked for my phone number. Being interested in a career in art at the time, i thought it was sensible.

And then almost immediately i realized i was an idiot. I was so careful with my identity online as a teenager, yet here I was just giving personal information out to random strangers. Random adults. I was going to end up murdered on the news if I wasn’t careful.

But I didn’t want to rope my parents in because that would have meant admitting that I had done a foolish thing and at that age, there was no greater horror or shame. So instead I went to my French teacher, a jovial eccentric that I spent my free period with, by choice, watching claymation movies and talking about comic books.

When I told her about the interaction, she was immediately concerned without being judgmental or disappointed, and that was honestly such a gift. She helped me track him down. Her support empowered me to be able to trust my instincts, the people around me, and to go forth with a solution that I arrived at myself, rather than immediately going to my parents or pretending nothing had happened and hoping it would go away.

So when the dude called later, breathing heavy and asking if i thought he was attractive, i KNEW he was being a creep. And with my sister’s help (because I didn’t know how to phrase things strongly without being terribly rude, and she seriously didn’t give a fuck) we told him off and then called his employer to express our concerns. He never called again.

Just because an adult is friendly with a young person doesn’t automatically make them predatory. Predatory behaviors make them predatory.

I will never be a friend to the children and the teenagers in my life like I would be a friend to someone my own age, but that doesn’t make my friendship with them any less real or genuine. It’s just a different set of parameters.