Adultism/Memory

Is adultism real or is adult "oppression" just a part of parenting, growing up, etc?

In John Ball's essay, he claims that "the systematic disrespect and mistreatment over years simply because of being young are major sources of trouble" (541). He then goes on to list common occurrences of adultism in our society: physical and sexual abuse, other punishments and threats, denied control, verbal interactions, and community incidents. I agree to some extent that many of these may contribute to low self-esteem, depression, etc., but out of all the occurrences I think the first two only have true lasting effects (also i agree with the other essays about unfair practices by the police and criminal justice system) . The other three (denied control, verbal interactions, and community incidents) just seem like part of the process of growing up. With other types of discrimination, one might feel it permeates their lives everyday and is a product of something larger within society, but with those three occurrences, the person knows that as they grow, their acceptance into society will come. I remember many times as a kid watching older kids play basketball and wanting to join, but obviously I wasn't at their level of competition. I knew my time would come though. A lot of adultism has to do with biology and cognition, and to claim that kids are being discriminated against by not letting them interact on an adult level is kind of silly. The majority of us are not Matilda. I believe that adults, relatively speaking, do treat kids with dignity and that with other types of oppression, we as a society knowingly treat oppressed people without dignity. Other oppression is arbitrary, and adultism is an inherently common experience. Reading about this though will make me start thinking about how kids are treated and what things I can do to treat them better.

On a totally separate note, this is a cool musical project about memory.