Intersections of youth and other aspects of the kyriarchy

[sqbr]

naraht's post Adult privilege linking to The Adult Privilege Checklist has a great discussion in the comments poking at the various aspects of adult privilege and possible criticisms of the list. hl's response The Opression of Chilhood. In which I try for emotionless and hard analysis (and fail) got me thinking about intersections.

I don't have any major point, just some thoughts.

So:

• I think a lot of "why don't people pull themselves up by their bootstraps" classism/racism glosses over the fact that children REALLY can't do this. (Not that it's fair to expect it of anyone, but noone's going to deny it's stupid to expect it of say a baby)
  
• Control over sexuality and identity is a MAJOR issue for intersex children, and anyone else with an "abnormal" but functional body who is operated on without their consent "for their own good".
  
• The way children are forced into their parents ethnic/cultural values is a serious issue for interracial/international adoptees.
  

There's more along those lines, but if I wait until I have more to say I'll never get around to posting this :)

EDIT: Adult Privilege Linkspam and A Transformational Politic (bell hooks).

I find myself pondering the similarities and differences with the treatment of disabled people, especially those with cognitive disabilities.

Comments

[sqbr]

Oh yes. I was thinking more of the "If you can't pay for health care you should just get two jobs" argument, but people do expect kids to transcend their environment in a lot of ways.

I am superficially a great example of self improvement: I went to a terrible primary school but taught myself a lot of stuff off educational tv and books etc, then got a scholarship to a good highschool and then a scholarship to do a Phd, all despite my parents not having much money for most of that period.
But
(a)I'm very academic, and people shouldn't have to be as academic as me to get a halfway decent education (my medium-scholarly siblings didn't get scholarships and ended up dropping out of their local state highschool, though they ended up in tertiary education after a few rough years)
(b)I would have been screwed if Australia didn't have a mostly ok state-funded education system, especially for my undergraduate degree.
(c) My parents are very pro-education, encouraged and helped me learn, and did things like taking me to a lot of scholarship application exams.