It requires so much more effort to even have basic interactions anymore. We’ve spent decades designing society this way. It’s not just a personal failing; it’s the entire system. Changing the system can’t be done by one person. But Mandy has some small steps we can take, and if enough people start taking them, maybe we can make some progress and shift the design toward something less lonely.
It’s not just a lack of children’s stories that could help them develop these skills; it’s a lack of adults who can provide the example of those skills in action. It’s almost as if we don’t see the issues with emotional intelligence and mental health among young people as something older generations contributed to, by not being able to pass on our own stories as examples, because we didn’t have the skills either. We just grew up in a time when talking about it was considered taboo, and look how well that has turned out for us.
The impacts of this lack of media literacy can be found in some of the mental health struggles we have across society, with anxiety, stress, burnout, etc. We’re overwhelmed by information with no tools to manage it effectively. We don’t know what’s true, so we keep scrolling for answers that aren’t coming.
It’s not like we didn’t know this would happen. We knew. The industry just didn’t care:
This is another reminder that there’s no excuse to dismiss the damage done to human beings when they are abused. Kids do not get over it, or barely remember it. They are impacted in myriad ways well into adulthood. Not doing everything we can to limit trauma, let alone arguing for policies that create more trauma for certain groups of children, cannot be tolerated.
I’ve gotten some grief online for suggesting that murdering people who abuse children isn’t what the victim needs. Maybe, if you hear it from an expert, you’ll understand what I feel as a survivor who wouldn’t have told anyone if I knew it could lead to the death of another person, even my abuser.
