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All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

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Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#181

Post by Markoff »

watwut wrote: post #165
Markoff wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

according google in 1925 85% Swedish kids were born to married parents and "Long-term cohort studies tracking historical Swedish registry data from the early-to-mid 1900s indicate that approximately 2.3% to 3.6% of children experienced the death of a biological parent before reaching adulthood (under 15 to 18 years of age)" so less than 4% of the kids experienced parental death, absolute majority was born into regula…

What does it mean "according to google"? Google does not track historical demographic data. Like, use actual source. Second 4% is actually a lot. In a class of 20 kids, one will have dead parent. That makes it something all kids growing during the era are aware of. To me it suggest it should be expected for some writers to write about this group.

it is not that much, it means if she had 25 (4% is 1 in 25, not 1 in 20) main characters, one of them should have dead parent if she would reflect the reality and didn't have some orphan/death fetish with significant number (way way more than 1 in 25 or even 1 in 10) of her characters being orphans/foster/neglected kids

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#182

Post by impossiblefork »

Markoff wrote: post #126
vintermann wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that Astrid Lindgren was born in 1907, got pregnant at 18 and had to give up her son to a foster home for the first few years. She grew up in a completely different world, and it's no coincidence that a lot of her stories are basically about consoling traumatized children.

I am familiar with her background she was sadly later projecting into many/most of her books. I am pretty sure vast majority of Swedish kids was growing back then in complete families without dead mother/father, same as they do nowadays regardless of marriage or divorce status. Emil of Lönneberga and The Six Bullerby Children are great books, the rest about traumatized kids/orphans not so much as kid books.

As a Swede, I can't read the Emil books because of fremdscham for the parents from those scenes where Emil feels the need to run to the carpentry shed.

The farmer class could actually be like this, before we banned it, even though she tries to write about it in a comical way, but it was always a low class thing to punish ones children and to read stories where it happens is basically intolerable at least to me.

Astrid Lindgren probably knew this though. She isn't some idiot who puts this in as comic relief, it's comic but there's a serious and intolerable feel to it too. She knows she's portraying something bad and she intends for us readers to sit with the dissonance-- the low class going-to-punish-his-children aspect, the family's love for Emil, that book in which his mother writes down what he does, that Emil is well-meaning, that everything goes well in the end and that the adult Emil becomes a nämndeman, etc.

Astrid Lindgren is one of the scariest Swedish authors because of her deliberate careful and nuanced use of moral dissonance. She's scarier than Willem Fredrik Hermans.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#183

Post by watwut »

rolfus wrote: post #57
cbolton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never occurred to me to consider efficiency in piñata, but I dislike them because it's making a game out of violence.

This is only tangentially directed at your reply, but this is the kind of statement that I'll sometimes hear other parents say, and it makes me think that they've completely forgotten what childhood was actually like. Like, the idea that normal, fun activities and sports are bad because they bear some abstract resemblance to adult violence feels very contrived and misses what childhood play is about.

Maybe they did not forgot what the childhood was like. Instead, they remember their own childhood rather then yours. Moreover, they are not you, your exact copies.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#184

Post by GJim »

locknitpicker wrote: post #44
Computer0 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a child I did not see it as violent

> As a child I did not see it as violent That's the problem. Hitting a tied up animal until it breaks is clearly a violent affair, similar how hanging puppets in nooses or putting a doll in a guillotine. I'm sure that there are kids growing up in places where bullfights are common thinking that torturing and killing a bull in a party-like atmosphere is fine.

> Hitting a tied up animal until it breaks is clearly a violent affair,

I think you will find it isn't a real animal.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#185

Post by watwut »

lynx97 wrote: post #102
WalterBright wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Children have no concept of violence or empathy or right or wrong This is not correct. I remember having a sense of shame when I was 4 when I tried to hurt another kid. Kids will also hide the things they do wrong, because they know it is wrong.

> ... because they know it is wrong No. They hide the things they do wrong because they learnt there are consequences and they dont want to get caught.

No, not all kids are a little sociopaths. They in fact hide things they have no experience of being reprimanded or punished for, because they feel bad about them. Kids do care about other kids, animals or adults in their lives. They do feel empathy - underdeveloped and sometimes weird, but they display it very clearly.

And they do care about right and wrong.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#186

Post by locknitpicker »

tyre wrote: post #46
locknitpicker wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a child I did not see it as violent That's the problem. Hitting a tied up animal until it breaks is clearly a violent affair, similar how hanging puppets in nooses or putting a doll in a guillotine. I'm sure that there are kids growing up in places where bullfights are common thinking that torturing and killing a bull in a party-like atmosphere is fine.

One of the incredible powers of childlike imagination is the ability to differentiate between hitting a piñata and hitting an actual animal.

> One of the incredible powers of childlike imagination is the ability to differentiate between hitting a piñata and hitting an actual animal.

People get arrested for hanging dolls on trees with nooses around their necks.

Some are prosecuted as hate crimes.

Do you think this is an issue from a lack of childlike imagination?

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#187

Post by Aeolun »

helpfulmandrill wrote: post #110

I can remember a lot from being a child. Mostly a sense of frustration and powerlessness. But also the way in which things seemed more interesting than they do now. Like I could be fascinated by watching a tree sway in the wind in a way which wouldn't happen now - at least, not without conscious, meditation style effort. I remember when an hour seemed like an almost intolerably long stretch of time. I also remember l…

I'm pretty sure if you just sit down on the sofa, do not stare at any screen, and do not read any book, and just start counting. Suddenly an hour will be back to an intolerably long stretch of time.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#188

Post by Aeolun »

branon wrote: post #156

I mostly remember how it felt to be a child and it's extremely important to me that I continue to do so as I get older. The best days of my life are when I can capture the perfect nostalgia, or deja vu, of the past when I was much younger. Sometimes only for a split second, sometimes longer. Increasingly I believe it's one of the few things in life that truly matters on an existential level: how children feel, and ho…

I'm not sure if reading material will help as much as playing tag.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#189

Post by Aeolun »

jan_m_savage wrote: post #160

Actually, most people are still children, in adult bodies. Just observe aggressively and you will notice a lot of childhood patterns at work in adult life around you.

I mean, yeah, but they're mostly the high-school patterns where things started to get nasty. Until 8 or so it better.

Re: All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it

#190

Post by ButlerianJihad »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #83
rolfus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only tangentially directed at your reply, but this is the kind of statement that I'll sometimes hear other parents say, and it makes me think that they've completely forgotten what childhood was actually like. Like, the idea that normal, fun activities and sports are bad because they bear some abstract resemblance to adult violence feels very contrived and misses what childhood play is about.

It's not really that abstract. You smash the shit out of a cardboard box and candy comes out. Breaking things is not fun. I also hate youtube videos of people breaking stuff for fun.

I tried reading the English Wikipedia article "Piñata" but it is a mess of cringe information, especially the 16th century background. It seems that original piñatas were clay pots, before papier-mâché came into vogue.

I was going to say, that around the American Southwest, you can find piñatas for sale that are not only abstract, but also plenty of Spongebob and Disney and MCU characters, as well as "political figures that are not particularly well-liked" by Chicanos.

However, the article also linked out to revisit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%C3%B3_de_Nadal (Merry Christmas, Catalonia!)

And not to mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Judas (Burning Man, Easter edition!)

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