It's raining, and I'm listening to Rainy Skyrim, and crocheting another sea animal, and no one is going to blast into the room in a pointless rage about nothing and demand I abandon it all to pay attention to their manic word salad. Ever again.

I can choose what I want to do with my time! If I don't have something that needs doing I can sit and work on an octopus, or whatever! And no one will complain about that, or start raging about how annoying my existence is. Because I could kick them the fuck out if they were in my house doing that!

for all the effort I have put in to patiently dealing with these conservative folk, even I am now starting to wonder why I'm wasting my time being kind to them. then I remember that there are liberals who believe it's okay to behave that way too and I bluescreen

I probably offended them with my mild comment regardless, but I do not care. Bite me. Don't show me that shit and expect me to happily follow along with your insanity.

in the future, instead of the mild comment that I made "he's complaining about the child having a mouth, but look at this guy, where does he think the child learned that from?" I will say instead "why are you showing me this? This guy is an asshole, I'm not watching this."

I'm sorry, but the person who showed me this video AT WORK is very lucky that we have a long enough track record of resolving conflicts that I'm not reporting them to HR for making me watch that as if it was funny.

but if an adult takes the time to film a video of themselves flipping out at a child for not getting off the computer fast enough, screaming and smashing the computer because "nothing should be more important to you than ME!" and that's... supposed to be funny?!

the irony here is that if a CHILD flew off the handle and had an expletive-laced temper tantrum in which they screamed at people and smashed valuable possessions. that child would, I assume, experience some kind of intense punishment (by this type of adult, I'd assume violence would be involved.)

I bet you'd see that as what it is -- cruel and controlling. But children are chattel, born to show instant obedience to adults, whose feelings are worthless and don't matter.

If I have an ending point, it's that I hope that with the expanding understanding of genetic differences like ADHD and autism, maybe we can interrupt this generational harm, and replace it with something better. Support. Kindness. Acceptance. For both children and parents.

I know it's true, that neurodivergent folk can tend to do this, because I caught myself doing it, once, before it dawned on me what I was actually doing and became determined that I wasn't going to be that kind of person.

An older woman I work with, a boomer, has children with autism and adhd and is obviously different herself. When she meets a new hire who's visibly neurodivergent she's disgruntled and insists they must be on drugs. Because she has to distance herself from people with the traits she fears in herself

"You won't ever succeed at X if you don't do Y, like I did. Tough it out. Suck it up, buttercup. I did well in school without disability accommodations, so can you!" etc. etc. etc. And they would swear they are "just trying to help" and not being cruel...

It's a reminder of their own perceived imperfection and failure. A reminder of why they were bullied. They genuinely believe those are bad traits that must be masked at any cost, including burnout or suicide. They think that what they are doing is helping their children.

People who grew up being bullied for being different, never understanding why but desperately struggling to crush their own traits out of existence, can tend to view their own self-hated traits re-emerging in their children as something to be viciously crushed.

My own family tree, known at least 4 generations back, is evidence of this on its own (my maternal great-grandmother was reputed for both what we now know are autistic traits, and also for her intense rages and cruelty to her family that resulted from her struggle to cope without assistance).

I think this is why so many late diagnosed autistic/adhd folk had horrifically awful, cruel parents. I think that these neurodiverse conditions, undiscovered and unaided, put people at a much higher risk of becoming abusive parents.

parents who take children's need for someone to care for them, provide resources and guidance, and state that that means the children owe them recompense for the inconvenience and stress the parents go through as part of that, are causing harm to them.