I’m a father myself and if my kid was out on the street, you can bet your ass I would be too, because as long as I have a roof, so do they.
How did paternalism come to mean patronizing those who are less capable and treating them like subhuman chattel, instead of treating them like someone we love in our care?
I think largely it stems from the targeted infantilization of disabled people throughout most of Western history. Adults who are stripped of rights and treated like children for the convenience of a society that doesn’t feel like helping them (see: institutions) tend to start seeing parental roles in their life as sinister, because they tend to make decisions on their behalf and remove any personal agency they may otherwise be afforded.
Combine this with fundraising efforts that once again, treat disabled people as pitiable, helpless, and childlike, all to raise money that never actually goes towards helping them (see: telethon), and you have a system ripe to force people who want an actual life to push away offered help and become radically independent.
That, and unfortunately, an attitude like yours is relatively uncommon. Being patronized and dehumanized by their parents seems to be a much more familiar experience to most than being loved by them.
“paternalism”
I’m a father myself and if my kid was out on the street, you can bet your ass I would be too, because as long as I have a roof, so do they.
How did paternalism come to mean patronizing those who are less capable and treating them like subhuman chattel, instead of treating them like someone we love in our care?
They just want to criminalize homelessness and throw them in jail. That’s it. That’s all this is.
I think largely it stems from the targeted infantilization of disabled people throughout most of Western history. Adults who are stripped of rights and treated like children for the convenience of a society that doesn’t feel like helping them (see: institutions) tend to start seeing parental roles in their life as sinister, because they tend to make decisions on their behalf and remove any personal agency they may otherwise be afforded.
Combine this with fundraising efforts that once again, treat disabled people as pitiable, helpless, and childlike, all to raise money that never actually goes towards helping them (see: telethon), and you have a system ripe to force people who want an actual life to push away offered help and become radically independent.
That, and unfortunately, an attitude like yours is relatively uncommon. Being patronized and dehumanized by their parents seems to be a much more familiar experience to most than being loved by them.