"Parents naturally want to protect their children, we must understand this is not simply a response to paedophilia-scaremongering; the drive to nurture and protect is primal instinct, natural, and legitimate. Everyone must come to see that and respect the dynamics of what we are dealing with."

If only that were the only thing going on here.

We all know that most parents love their children very deeply, and want to protect them from harm. We know how powerful the nurturing aspect of parenthood is. We appreciate and respect that. The problem has never been parenthood in and of itself.

The problem is that when greatly unequal power dynamics are introduced into any type of relationship, so that one party is wholly dependent on the other and in a very obvious subservient position, many forms of abuse are invited to occur. Power is a natural corrupting influence to human beings. And unfortunately, numerous personal and historical lessons should teach us that love and good intentions do not mitigate this terrible flaw in human behavior. In fact, in many cases love and good intentions can lead to many very negative forms of behavior and decisions when such a blatant power imbalance is extant.

When such gross power imbalances are present, love can turn into obsession, and a natural urge to protect can morph into a desire to control. The strong power of love can cause many to deliberately keep those dependent on them ignorant of information that will facilitate their move towards greater independence, to keep them "close" far longer than they actually need to be. Hate is pretty much just the flip side of love, and these power imbalances result in many families being extremely dysfunctional and bad for everyone living in them, despite the presence of genuine love and good intentions (at least on the surface for the latter).

But the subordinate party (kids, in this case) cannot leave the situation; if they try to, they are often hunted down by the law and forced to return to the "custody" of people who may deeply love them but who are unable to provide them with a stable and happy environment, and whose love may have taken several steps into its darker manifestations. They are not allowed to legally obtain employment that may enable them to gain such independence, and are often forced to subsist on the streets or seek illegal means of employment that are "underground" and not regulated for safety. Everyone needs rules to live by, don't get me wrong, but not all rules are reasonable, and those with a desire to control often set unreasonable rules as puerile displays of power to force continued dependence and to "show who is boss."

Add to this the fact that the subordinate party often becomes the hapless target of any severe emotional issues that the dominant party may have, or medical illnesses such as drug abuse and alcoholism that cause all sorts of erratic and unstable behavior from the dominant "guardian" figures. This is why the home is the location where most children are subjected to the greatest amounts of real abuse of every sort, including sexual, and even a greater degree of emotional abuse that can often combine with other problems leading to running away from home, suicide, and other negative ways of acting out. You see these dynamics played out on talk shows like The Maury Povich Show, where troubled younger people who act out in negative fashion have the full blame for the situation placed on them, with the often blatantly controlling (even if genuinely loving) parents are given all the respect and consideration simply because they are the authority figures in the situation.

It should be noted that antis ignore all of the above despite knowing about its degree of severity. They instead externalize the problem into supposed hordes of sexual predators who live outside the home, and certain aspects of pop culture (e.g., violent TV shows and video games) which are designed to distract from the real source of the problem. They also simultaneously downplay the problems caused by these power imbalances within the nuclear family unit, because their concern is primarily the protection of status quo concepts of authority, not the happiness and well-being of children living under these strictures.