androsomnos

Disclaimer: this is based solely on mine and my peers' experiences. Your silly data doesn't care about the realities of many people because these aren't statistics.

The word “child” is used to denote one's offspring and is not equal to “minor” here.

Like many other forms of bigotry and oppression, parental abuse comes as a norm to many around the world, some even promoting it as a great form of raising a child.

Wait, what?

Yes — parental abuse is oppression, no matter how you try to twist it. It is so engrained in many's minds as “just abuse” that whenever one speaks of it as oppression, they get weird looks and lashouts.

The dynamic of parent-child is really not that different from ye olde privileged/ruling class-the commoners/marginalized class. Yes, this applies to adult children too, as said oppression doesn't really stem from one's age (but is related to); but rather from the sense of ownership of another human being.

Forms of Parental Oppression

The deeply-rooted parental oppression's examples can be seen in the most common example: “I have a child” – insinuating that children are a property to be owned and not sentient beings with own feelings and thoughts.

This line of thought carries in many cases, one of them being parents disallowing their (often adult) children to do something as basic as getting higher education or marrying their loved one. Ever heard something in the lines of “this is my child and I decide what will they do”? That's one of the common examples.

Dehumanization, pressuring, stripping children off their autonomy is even praised in some countries. Tiger parenting, popular in East Asian countries, is one of these praised forms of parental oppression. Abusing your children in several, equally disgusting ways into so-called “academic success” and treating them as utter garbage is actually praised in many Asian households and seen as a good way to raise a child.

But this phenomenon isn't exclusive to East Asia. In every region you can find such a form of abuse. Let's not forget the “more common” examples such as starvation, neglect, physical abuse and so on — they all are part of the oppression.

The Silent Victims – Disabled Children

Disabled children, hikikomori/NEETs (as those two are often intertwined); they are often left out of the discourse with regards to parental oppression. Nobody is usually willing to speak for these groups, because most of them are adults. And adults surely magically gain the powers to escape their horrors, right?

Parents unwilling to accomodate to their children's disabilities — self-diagnosed or professionally diagnosed; are still abusers. Parents denying health support to their children, be it visiting a doctor, self-help groups or even denying the very existence and importance of mental health; still abusers.

From my own experience; my mother would never try to understand why am I so slow, why do I need to be told exactly what to do, why am I “lazy” — she never tried to look into it but instead preferred to call me a lazy bum who does nothing all day.

One of the most horrifying case of parental oppression of a disabled child is definitely Lacey Fletcher, who has been left to rot on a sofa for 12 years in her own feces, with no help from her parents. Some people even defended the parents that they have been good people who could do no harm and they “loved her”. If they did love her, she wouldn't rot. This is abuse.

Is this a class struggle?

It's hard to say. This oppression may end at the moment one has the resources to move out, or when one's parents die.

But the effects of said oppression will last forever. Trauma, injuries from physical abuse, many other ways of harm will last with the child. Doesn't matter when the oppression started.

But it ties to the classic class struggle — parents being the privileged class with power often have more money, more freedom and more connections with others that they can utilize to abuse and isolate their children. One of the closest and most innocent resources being the child's love.

Everyone is complicit in this form of oppression; parents, relatives, the state, various institutions who turn a blind eye to said oppression and value a parent over a child.