The talk I gave tonight was primarily about how babies, as well as young children, experience hyperconsciousness, something that is often considered one of the main reasons why children at these stages are ‘difficult’ to handle.
Kids man, they encompass some of the most phenomenal thought processes and it is all driven by the fact that this whole world is completely new to them. If you want to see abstract ideas constructed in a matter of seconds, talk to a child. Their grasp is unbelievable.
Even if you feel that children whine, cry, and scream too much… in considering how they’re in a world they had no prior concept of, and are subject to an uncontrollable amount of stimuli every waking moment…. I still believe they’re handling it all fairly well.
This conference made me realize how much of a passion I have for destigmatizing childhood behaviors. There’s a sort of ‘Ahh..’ moment that people come to when they see that children actually have reasons for everything they do, that they shouldn’t be viewed as underdeveloped ‘functioning’ adults but should instead be recognized as humans in a separate yet equally important stage of life.
I’ve also been doing some work in researching and writing about children as an oppressed class, I’m finding ways to incorporate my previous sentiments into that.
when I was 5 or 6 we had a father-daughter day at my school where you eat lunch together and play games and shit, but my dad didn’t wanna come so I went on my own. but my mum called my uncle real last minute and he immediately got off work and drove straight over to eat lunch w me so I wasn’t alone, and he even picked flowers from his garden to give to me and that’s when I realised that anyone can be a father but not everybody can be a dad