This may come off as a rant but I'm annoyed by how infantilizing everything in the world is today.
Story time. My wife and I had another child a few months ago. When we take our daughter to her checkups the receptionist hands us this tablet and we have to answer a bunch of questions before we can even go back. It proceeds to ask us questions like:
Do you have any guns in the house? (None of your fucking business)
If so, how are they stored? (Again, none of your fucking business)
Name three things you love about your child (Why am I having to answer open response questions?)
What makes this organization think they have the right to ask me these invasive questions? It feels like everything is this way now. Every company or organization treats you with this infantilizing tone like they have to guide you through life.
I don't remember it being this way when I was younger. Has anyone else noticed this shift?
Maternalistic. Paternalistic would involve tough love and letting people make mistakes for the purposes of self improvement.
Yeah, I thought I might get some criticism of my use of paternalistic but I had already submitted it. Your point is valid.
We live in a societal-wide longhouse.
Payernailiztic is the correct word. The organization involved wasn't acting maternal. It was acting paternal. Taking responsibility for you, attempting to root out danger as it perceived and protect you from external threats as well as the threat of your own stupidity.
I get that it's trendy to blame the wiminz here, but western masculinity is warped to shit as well. Ignore cause for the moment, different discussion.
The government takes the paternal role in society, that's the whole issue with the single mom mill. And then everything downstream of that role (read, everything the government does) is built to accommodate that systematic assumption.
It's both. If you're not my parent you have no business being any flavor of paternalistic with me.
Hmm idk I think in a healthy society, elders act as pseudo parents to a certain degree.
In a village or shared values community, people help guide each other when you see a problem. For instance if you notice a young kid playing with a can of gasoline alone you would be, once again in an actual community, obliged to step in and "parent" for a moment in some manner.
This stifling 1984 safety at your own expense culture based on zog rules is just crap though.
Then they know me as well as my parents. That's the hard requirement. No one taking an hourly rate meets those qualifications and never will.
I see your point though.
I wouldn't have an issue with paid teachers being in charge of my children at school if they were actually part of my community. But thats the rub, we are expected to allow ideologically opposed randos have authority over us and our kids because they got a teaching cert or are a police man.
Its a fundamental breakdown of society that renders these roles hostile to each other, and not the roles themselves to a certain extent.
Came here to say this. Paternalism can be overdone to a stifling point, but that's not what we have.
Only works for White male kids.