43 min listen
How Much Privacy Should We Give Our Kids?
FromStrange Fruit
ratings:
Length:
42 minutes
Released:
May 24, 2019
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Welcome to a new season of Strange Fruit!
In her essay “'Children do not deserve privacy,' and other abusive myths masked as good parenting," Oakland-based writer and educator Amber Butts examines the complicated feelings she holds for the ex-stepfather who raised and provided for her. “His metric for goodness was stepping up and taking care of a child that wasn’t his,” she writes. “But my ex-stepfather is not a good man.”
It wasn’t until Butts saw a social media post where a mother said she knocks on the door before entering her kids’ rooms that Butt was reminded of the lack of privacy she had as a child and she began to reflect on how refusing children privacy is one of several abusive practices mislabeled as good parenting.
We discuss the need for parents and caregivers to actively work to examine and undo the “misleading metrics” of good parenting that they inherited from previous generations.
Butts says children deserve houses that aren’t prisons. “Anything that mirrors how the state achieves control must be questioned and obliterated, especially when that influences how we care for our babies," she writes. "Children deserve privacy in the homes that they are in. Children deserve love beyond conditions. This is a requirement. They should not have to prove this."
In her essay “'Children do not deserve privacy,' and other abusive myths masked as good parenting," Oakland-based writer and educator Amber Butts examines the complicated feelings she holds for the ex-stepfather who raised and provided for her. “His metric for goodness was stepping up and taking care of a child that wasn’t his,” she writes. “But my ex-stepfather is not a good man.”
It wasn’t until Butts saw a social media post where a mother said she knocks on the door before entering her kids’ rooms that Butt was reminded of the lack of privacy she had as a child and she began to reflect on how refusing children privacy is one of several abusive practices mislabeled as good parenting.
We discuss the need for parents and caregivers to actively work to examine and undo the “misleading metrics” of good parenting that they inherited from previous generations.
Butts says children deserve houses that aren’t prisons. “Anything that mirrors how the state achieves control must be questioned and obliterated, especially when that influences how we care for our babies," she writes. "Children deserve privacy in the homes that they are in. Children deserve love beyond conditions. This is a requirement. They should not have to prove this."
Released:
May 24, 2019
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Strange Fruit #31: Urmi Basu of New Light India; Kaitlyn Hunt, Statutory Rape & Queer Relationships: Activism runs in Urmi Basu's family; her grandfather was a doctor who set up a school for _dalit_ children (India's untouchable caste) in his own home. Urmi says her family "always challenged everything that's traditional in India." Thirteen years ago, she combined her passion for gender equality and her background and education in social work—along with 10,000 rupees, or $200—to found [New Light India](http://www.newlightindia.org/). New Light is non-profit organization based in the red light district of Calcutta, intended to help victims of sex trafficking and provide healthcare to people living with HIV/AIDS. With an estimated 40,000 new trafficked sex workers in the city each year, it's no small task. But Urmi is a woman of great determination. She was in Louisville recently and she sat down to talk with us about her work, and how sex trafficking in India is part of the larger globa by Strange Fruit