RE: WHO is a child? - Xtianty and Islam please
September 25, 2012 at 7:27 pm
(This post was last modified: September 25, 2012 at 7:27 pm by Darkstar.)
Basically, children are treated like children because they are. However, there are a lot of mistakes that parents are allowed to make with their 'parental rights'. Feeding kids vegetables they don't like because they would otherwise have an unbalanced diet is one thing; doing it to 'build character' is another.
It is not the same to keep a child away from a dangerous religion as it is to force them into a non/less dangerous one. You can say that they don't have to believe, but let's face it; they believe anything their parents tell them from Santa to the tooth fairy. They might grow out of those someday, even if their parents don't tell them the truth, but breaking out of a religion is much harder.
Then there is the concept of bed-time. Little brats will be little brats, so if they won't change from the primary punishment (sleep deprivation) then you'll have to enforce the rules.
The real problem, the one in the title of this thread, is the question of who exactly constitutes a 'kid'. One cannot define it with an arbitrary age, as people mature at different rates. In the end, it is up to the parent to know when to give more trust to their child. I have, throughout most of my life, been treated like a child. There is still the 'teenager' model; a child with a later bedtime. As a teen, I was assumed to lack vital skills in taking care of myself, and to be incapable of responsibility when not being monitered in some way. Now that I am at college, my mother has to trust me to some extent, but it is clear to me that she worries too much about me; a product of this lack of trust. When a parent assumes that you are relatively incompetent due to your age, and you are not, it is very demeaning.
It is not the same to keep a child away from a dangerous religion as it is to force them into a non/less dangerous one. You can say that they don't have to believe, but let's face it; they believe anything their parents tell them from Santa to the tooth fairy. They might grow out of those someday, even if their parents don't tell them the truth, but breaking out of a religion is much harder.
Then there is the concept of bed-time. Little brats will be little brats, so if they won't change from the primary punishment (sleep deprivation) then you'll have to enforce the rules.
The real problem, the one in the title of this thread, is the question of who exactly constitutes a 'kid'. One cannot define it with an arbitrary age, as people mature at different rates. In the end, it is up to the parent to know when to give more trust to their child. I have, throughout most of my life, been treated like a child. There is still the 'teenager' model; a child with a later bedtime. As a teen, I was assumed to lack vital skills in taking care of myself, and to be incapable of responsibility when not being monitered in some way. Now that I am at college, my mother has to trust me to some extent, but it is clear to me that she worries too much about me; a product of this lack of trust. When a parent assumes that you are relatively incompetent due to your age, and you are not, it is very demeaning.
John Adams Wrote:The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
