#i get it teach your kids bodily autonomy and don't force hugs if they don't want to give hugs! all for that!

[little-mouse-adventures]

lol how do i tell my sister-in-law, who is currently complaining about this, that the reason none of her siblings or sibling-in-laws comment on the pics of her kids that she puts in the family chat is because her eldest (2.5yrs) was born in the height of covid and while she wanted to keep him safe, all she did was ensure that no one was allowed close to him (legit have never hugged/ held him, save for 5 min when he was 3weeks old and she had to pee), so now the kid has no rapport with anyone other than his mother and grandfather and will actively ignore everyone else, and her youngest is 4.5 months old and i've met him like twice. like, i'm sorry, but you have done nothing to encourage a relationship between your children and their relatives - going so far as to actively not include us in anything related to the kids (can't make name suggestions, never invites us over, actively hid that she was pregnant the second time around till she was 5.5 months in, started packing up her own child's little family birthday party when we pulled in the driveway because we arrived a bit later than she wanted after only telling us the plan for the evening that morning), and now you're cross we don't fawn over your kids? especially when you post about a dozen pics a day? there are people i follow on instagram who post pics of their kids, and i feel about the same level of reaction to those pics as i do to the pics of my own nephews because i have about the same level of interaction! but we can't say that because my SIL is one of those always-the-victim people who doesn't see herself as being part of the problem.

[firinnish]

Very few people wake up in the morning and think, "Today I'd like to be as evil as possible! Mwahaha! I'll do some consent violations in the morning, a light bit of harassment in the afternoon, and in the evening I think I'll gaslight my girlfriend. Being evil is so fun!"

Some fraction of abusers may be deliberate abusers - people who explicitly think things like "if I can't get sex the moral way then I'll just rape someone" - but I don't think it's the majority of abuse that happens.

A very, very large amount of abuse comes from warped and unhealthy beliefs.

I'll give you an example. A man believes "it's a wife's sacred duty to provide her husband with sex". Maybe he got that belief from his parents, or his church, or some bad advice he got as a kid, or whatever. He might be the perfect gentleman when he's dating a woman, because when they're "just dating" he doesn't believe he's owed anything. But then suddenly, after marriage, he flips and becomes abusive. Maybe if his wife doesn't give him sex, he hits her. Maybe he justifies that to himself by thinking, "Well, it was wrong for me to hit her, but it was also wrong for her to deny me sex, so really we both made mistakes and we should both own up and move on." You see how unhealthy that is? You see how fucked up it is to treat "denying sex" as an equivalent wrong to assault? That's how you get men who are convinced they definitely aren't abusers, who are also committing horrifying acts of abuse. This wrong belief - "my wife owes me sex" - warps their behaviour in unacceptable ways, and often makes arguing with the abuser into a futile exercise. You just can't discuss anything sensibly with someone who thinks "sure I shouldn't have hit you, but you denied me sex so you wronged me first and you should apologise" is a sane argument to make.

For another example, a parent believes "hitting kids is important to maintain discipline or they'll grow up soft". The parent doesn't set out wanting to abuse their kid. They're not aiming to traumatise and scar the child. The effects of their actions are still abusive and traumatising, because hitting children is abusive and traumatising. Yet the parent is trying to help their child by ensuring they don't grow up "soft" - an outcome which, in their warped belief system, is unacceptable and harmful. There's no contradiction here; you can cause harm without intending to cause harm.

Girls can sometimes learn warped beliefs. An example is, "it's okay for me to hit other people because girls are weak and can't cause real damage, but it's never okay for boys to hit me because it's never okay to hit a girl". A genuinely abusive woman might think, "of course it's okay for me to punch my boyfriend and throw things at him, because he raised his voice to me first, and raising your voice to a woman is basically literally violence". It's much, much rarer for girls' warped beliefs to really hurt people, but it absolutely happens. And part of the reason that it's so much rarer is that we generally don't teach girls so many bad beliefs about what they're entitled to demand of others. When we teach kids "the bigger stronger person in a relationship is allowed to physically control and dominate the smaller person and that's okay because they're bigger", that's a warped belief that both boys & girls can pick up on - and generally it'll be priming male kids to become abusers & female kids to become abuse victims. Both outcomes are very bad.

What beliefs do we teach kids when we force them to hug and kiss family members without their consent? It's often something like, "Keeping the peace and maintaining expected levels of physical contact within social relationships is much more important than your bodily autonomy", or "it's normal and natural to be offended and hurt if someone doesn't want to hug/kiss you". Kids pick up on that and some of them learn, "it's okay for me to force my partner to have physical contact with me". Others learn, "if I ever refuse physical contact with someone who requests it, I'm hurting them and being rude by refusing". Some learn both and have dysfunctional relationships their whole lives.

What beliefs do you teach kids when you spank them? "Authority figures are allowed to use violence to get the behaviours they want." Men are much more likely to see themselves as the "authority figure" or the "head of household" later in life, so they're much more likely to take that warped belief and hurt people with it. Women still learn the belief, and some of them are perfectly lovely to their partners but viciously abusive to their children. See, that's the insidious thing about this kind of abusiveness. It can lay dormant for years and years until the person interacts with someone who their beliefs say it's "okay" to abuse - and then suddenly a seemingly "perfectly nice" person becomes evil.

What makes an abuser an abuser is how they protect those bad beliefs. You can be someone who thought "a wife owes sex to her husband" without becoming an abuser - if, when your wife lets you know that she's not comfortable with that and wouldn't have married you under that premise, you change your mind. You go, "Oh, yeah, now that I think about it, I've not really questioned it before, but that is kind of sexist. You're right. Neither of us owes the other sex. I'd rather only have sex when we're both enthusiastic about it."

Abusers get defensive, and the logic patterns start getting.... twisty. "It's just my traditional belief. My parents and my church taught me that wives owe sex to their husbands, so when you claim you don't owe me sex, it's like you're attacking my whole religion. Actually, I'm going to need you to apologise not only for cruelly denying me sex, but also for that attack on my religion. I'm feeling really hurt now and I'm going to need even more sex to make up for this. I mean, how could you be so hurtful as to accuse me of raping you? Don't you see how that could harm my reputation?"

Abusive parents do the same thing. They'll hit kids and then say, "Stop crying! If the neighbours hear you crying, what will they think? It'd be so embarrassing if the neighbours thought I was abusing you. How dare you damage my reputation like that? I don't need to apologise to you for spanking you, because I have a right to do that as your parent. In fact, you need to apologise to me for crying when I hit you! How dare you cry? It makes me feel like a bad parent when you cry, and that's very ungrateful of you! Don't you know everything I do for you?" and so on.

A good parent would stop, notice their kid is crying, notice that hitting their kid doesn't achieve anything, listen to their kid asking not to be hit, and change their mind about whether what they're currently doing is a good idea.

That is what you need to model for your kids.

Changing your mind - without defensiveness, without warping the situation, without escalation. Just listening & rethinking.

That's the skill you need to teach your boys so that they think, "Hang on a second. Shouting at my girlfriend for not having dinner on the table when I got home, when she works two jobs and I work one, doesn't actually seem fair. Maybe I should question the assumptions that led me to expect that from her...?"

And it's also the same skill you need to teach your girls so that they think, "Hang on, why am I bending over backwards to please this asshole who demands that I do literally all the chores? Maybe I should question the assumption that it's reasonable to ask that of me? Is that really a fair role for me?"

Teach all your kids true, correct beliefs - like "your consent matters because everyone's consent matters" and "nobody should touch anyone else's body without their consent except in a genuine safety emergency" and "it's okay for everyone to have different preferences" and "it's never okay, under any circumstances, to use violence to get your way" and "it's awesome and powerful to be able to change your mind if you realise a belief you have is hurting you or the people around you".

I see a lot of posts saying "teach boys about consent".

While that is true, a lot of parents will do that and fail to see how their own actions are the problem.

If you've spanked him, he's less likely to understand consent.

If you've forced him to sit on Santa's lap, he's less likely to understand consent.

If you've forced him to give hugs and kisses to family members, he's less likely to understand consent.

If you've grabbed him in order to force him to sit still, he's less likely to understand consent.

If you've labeled him as "too sensitive" for not wanting to be touched, he's less likely to understand consent.

If you've assumed he's okay with something because he technically allowed it even though he felt pressured, he's less likely to understand consent.

If you're only going to criticize his actions but not your own, it won't work.

[mental-mona]

Omg so much this!!! There's always that one relative who's all "give me a hug and a kiss!" and then gets offended when the kid doesn't want to and tries to guilt them into it. Parents effectively or literally teaching kids that they have bodily autonomy, but not with relatives is just a really bad message. Being like a friend's mom and basically teaching your kids from birth thru adulthood that they have zero bodily autonomy and must show physical affection every time Mom or anyone else wants...yuck. Pretty pretty please don't do that. (Did I mention that this mom only had sons?)

Script in my family that I wish had been in place when I was little: "Relative, if [Adult Autistic Sister][small child] wants to hug you, they will. If not, too bad, it's their body and they decide who touches it. Please don't try to guilt them or force them into it."

Always, always ask, with both kids and adults. Modeling consent and boundaries can only be a good thing.

Can we normalize asking children if we can hug them?

Children deserve a right to make decisions about this sort of thing. Forcing children to hug or kiss relatives they don’t want to can not only be upsetting, but also teaches them that they should do things they’re not comfortable with to not hurt someone’s feelings. I don’t think I have to spell out why that’s a problem.

Teaching children about this is good for their emotional well being but also teaches them about consent both giving and receiving it.