it can be very frustrating to see the debates on this site about autonomy for children

as someone who vividly remembers how fucking awful it was to be a child

in multiple ways, including:

1.

the ways that childhood (as it presently exists, in all real-life societies we can currently build) is just inherently awful for everyone.

-due to lack of any way to assure a right to autonomy, in a world where children are required to do certain things whether they want to or not

-(some of which may be truly awful for them… and some of which would be awful for pretty much anyone. Including the adults who claim they remember childhood as a good time… but would still fight you like hell, if you actually tried to make them live through all that same stuff again.)

but also

2.

in ways specific to being a child with certain uncommonly bad behavior problems… and certain extremely severe aversions and fears and challenges… in regard to many things I had to face in life.

-challenges which did not have any clear, provable cause. Because “what makes individual people the way they are?” is a vastly complex thing, and is simply beyond any attempts at deducing clear provable causes.

-challenges which were handled about as well as they could be, by my most involved caregivers

-but not by everyone (because that would have been impossible to ensure)

-and even the best efforts, from the most respectful people in my life, couldn’t convince me to willingly to do all the things I had to do (for reasons of health, safety, legality, etc.) within the timeframe I had to do them in.

anyway.

when i see this whole type of problem discussed, I see a bunch of disagreeing viewpoints

and the closest ones to my own viewpoint, tend to be the ones that argue for full respect of children’s autonomy.

and yet.

those ones always go further than my own mind is capable of going, when rationally analyzing my own experiences.

because those ones always say things like, “You NEVER have to force a child to do something the child doesn’t want to. If a thing is really necessary, there is ALWAYS a way to convince the child to understand why the thing is necessary, and get them to be okay with it.”

…And that clashes with my own experience for a bunch of reasons.

because it implies that my mind, my motivations, my will, as a child, were a lot more possible to control and manipulate from outside than they ever really were, in my experience.

as I said. There is not a simple, provable explanation for why people are the way they are.

There are complex webs of factors, all influencing it– but no universal rule.

Any time you say something like “People who have (this) experience will end up acting like (this)”… there will be exceptions.

Lots of exceptions. So many that the rule becomes almost useless, in practice.

Because the factors involved are always more complex than any description you can ever put into words.

to take one example I’ve seen:

“Children have to be forced to go to the doctor and get vaccines, because they’d NEVER agree to that willingly”

…and the counterpoint… closer to my own beliefs, but overshooting them by quite a bit:

“if you properly explain the reasons for needing vaccines, and give the child the right resources to manage the fear of it, they will ALWAYS agree to it willingly.”

At best, this implies that all children are born innately perfect logicians– that the things they’re required to consent to are supported by flawless logic, and that it is 100% possible to convince every child of that, through the correct application of reasoned arguments.

At worst, it implies that the feelings, convictions and motivations of every child are so malleable that any adult, with the right manipulation, can shape them into whatever is convenient in the moment.

In either case, it implies that it’s always possible to get a kid to do the necessary thing without a fight.

Would you say that about antivaxxer adults?

And if you won’t, but you will say it about children… then you’re just saying that children are all, in every case, perfectly controllable, if you know the right hacks.

How the fuck is that “autonomy”?