Childhood, Disability, and Public Space
There’s been a flareup in the feminist blogosphere in the last couple of days of a long-running argument about childhood misbehavior and the social obligations of parents. In a thread over at Feministe, several people, on both sides of the debate, analogized childhood to disability, arguing about whether and how kids’ behavior in public spaces can be compared to that of adults with disabilities.
So I’d like to talk a little about the relationship between childhood and disability today. It’s a subject that I have some familiarity with, and it’s one that has relevance to both children’s rights and disability activism — two topics this blog has addressed in the past.
People who dislike children (not people who aren’t into having kids of their own, or people who are uninterested in kids, or people who are annoyed by bad parents — people who dislike children) tend to have a recurring constellation of complaints about them. For instance:
They’re dirty. They touch everything. They’ve got no social skills. They’ve got no regard for personal space. They’re loud. They say inappropriate things. They do inappropriate things. They’re creepy. They’re demanding.
So I’d like to talk a little about the relationship between childhood and disability today. It’s a subject that I have some familiarity with, and it’s one that has relevance to both children’s rights and disability activism — two topics this blog has addressed in the past.
People who dislike children (not people who aren’t into having kids of their own, or people who are uninterested in kids, or people who are annoyed by bad parents — people who dislike children) tend to have a recurring constellation of complaints about them. For instance:
They’re dirty. They touch everything. They’ve got no social skills. They’ve got no regard for personal space. They’re loud. They say inappropriate things. They do inappropriate things. They’re creepy. They’re demanding.
