I have a unique insight on this. My uncle is a deranged Trump guy and posted one of those memes you’re talking about, where it was like, “This is what happens when you don’t beat your kids!”

I reached out to him, and I asked if he beat his kids (my cousins), and he became furious at me for suggesting he abuses his kids. He even got my aunt to yell at me for suggesting the same.

So, basically, they think other people’s kids should be beaten.

There was a clip of the praguer U guy talking about a kindergarten poster with the words “the world is a better place because you are in it” and he was shitting on it and then it took a turn and he goes “my dad never said a thing like that to me [and I turned out fine]” and I just felt so terrible for him, daddy issues will turn you into a piece of shit.

In the US at least it starts off with the fact that something like half of all births are totally unplanned for. Then through some combination of hubris and stupidity most Americans don’t actually make any substantial effort to learn how to be a parent. Then between the cost of it all and the general social malaise lead to the parents lashing out at the weakest and most vulnerable people in their vicinity - their children.

Of course our society facilitates this bad parenting. Family planning is extremely inaccessible and sometimes even looked down upon. The same goes for therapy or counseling. Children cost a lot and there’s very little universal support. Still though it’s kinda shocking to me that people don’t take it upon themselves to make an effort to learn and plan. Anecdotally it seems that millennials and Gen z are more inclined to that though which is good.

its probably because they see their kids as property

Because we still live under patriarchy

religion and a lingering view of children being property

Wales banned spanking (classified it as child abuse) years ago and the English media has spent that time calling it “controversial” or “nanny state”. just stop hitting your fucking kids

People view children as property who the parents should have total and complete control over. I don’t know why children are dehumanized in this way (probably patriarchy etc) but it’s pretty clear that’s where a lot of this stems from.

My siblings and I grew up experiencing frequent physical abuse over minor things. Now, as adults, the aftermath is painfully clear. One of my sisters ran away when she was still young. I’ve cut off all contact with our mother — she’s never met her grandchildren. One of my brothers struggles with drug addiction, another is chronically in debt due to a gambling addiction. The only two siblings still in touch with our mother are my brother who has a cognitive disability — caused by a grenade shard injury when he was a baby — and the brother who sexually abused my sister, and was then protected by our mother. This system is built on child abuse and neglect.

A society that eats it’s children. Capitalist society sees greed and exploitation of lower classes as natural, and child raising flies in the face of this notion as it requires empathy and investment from society. Capitalists see this as a burden. In their eyes these are people of lower status that cannot look after themselves, and people of lower status who cannot look after themselves must be nipped and bitten until they pick up the slack or die.

It is a deeply flawed and sick way to run a society.

Child abuse is normalized, if it stops being normalized then they have to reckon with what it means to be a 1) victim, 2) victimized by the very people that should love them unconditionally, 3) live in a society where this is totally okay.

I think in the context of history treating children as human beings is a very recent thing, like past 20 years kinda recent. In england child labour wasn’t abolished until 1933 you don’t have to go back that many grandparents before you had people who sent their children to work at the youngest possible age. Things like banning hitting children wasn’t implemented until 2020 ffs, schools were allowed to hit children when my parents were there. Also the idea that children are property to be utilised and if they don’t should be beaten or discarded. On the upside younger parents tend to see their children as individuals with autonomy and the culture around parenting is changing.

Ofc what I’m saying only applies to crackerland I’m not sure what its like in other places in the world.

Establishing that physical abuse and corporal punishment are normal early in life sets an expectation that high control institutions can exploit later in life. (Culture, political parties, religion, employers, etc.)

Ultimately a key cog in the same machine of uniformity that foists strict gender roles, heteronormativity, neurotypical-first culture and so on upon us.

If everyone is passively conditioned to behave in a tightly controlled way under threat of force by their ostensible guardians in youth, it’s not gonna seem unusual when various power players play off that same dynamic later in life.

Notably, this creates cycles of abuse as abused children go on to abuse their children - a self-reinforcing dynamic. Quite convenient for the aforementioned high control institutions.

Our minds shutdown when tackling incest and child abuse. Same reason why it’s impossible to have a conversation about Epstein and it’s insane implications.

I became aware of Dorothee Dussy, a french sociologist who wrote a book called “the cradle of dominations: an anthropology of incest”, this past semester and it was quite harsh but eye opening. I suggest looking into it.