In order to have complete child liberation, you have to set rules on parents how to raise and present themselves in front of their child. Children tend to adapt the belief system their parents have until they are closer to their teen years when they adapt their own, and the majority of times it ends up to be some version of their parents beliefs at the end. When I was young, I decided that I don't believe in the catholic church. I went to experiment by visiting different types of christian churches. I even went as far in my experimentation to go to a Scientology center. Even though my husband is a baptist, I still ended up going back to the catholic church. It was the only church that felt like home.

In case you weren't aware, concerned aunt: One of the major arguments against giving women suffrage during the serious discussions over it in the early 20th century was that it was pointless because most women would simply vote exactly as their husbands did, and they would never escape the influence of their husbands enough to develop separate beliefs, values, etc. The question of whether or not that would have been a valid reason to deny women freedom of choice and the right to vote aside, we saw what has happened since then.

Btw, in case you were ever wondering: I have chosen a very different religion from all the rest of my family, and I left the Catholic Church from which I was born and raised to revere at the grand old age of 12. My entire family, including (and particularly) those who raised me, are utterly unlike me in almost every imaginable :-)

If the parents are uneasy about sexual matters, the kids tend to adapt that. The parents doesn't even have to say anything about sex. They just have to behave in a way when the subject is presented to them. If you think kids learn more by the parent's lecture, then you are strongly mistaken. Kid's learn more by their parent's behavior. No matter how many times you say don't do that, if you do it, your child would most likely do it again. There is a reason for the saying "do what I say not what I do."

Agreed. This is why I often say that children's bad behavior is often a reflection of their parents' behavior. Adults make bad decisions on a regular basis, not far less often than younger people do. Imagine if most adults actually strove to live up to the exalted mythology of their alleged great wisdom and experience.

Everyone knows that the first five years are the most important in child development. Are we going to set rules and parameters on parent's behavior and teaching? If we want kid's to not believe in god until they are older and understand it more, we just need to tell parent's that they can't practice any religion while the child is young especially those first five years. I call those years the trial and error years, the formative years. What they see their parents do, they try it themselves. There is a reason why they sell the electrical outlet covers, they see mommy and daddy plug in electrical appliances all the time so they do it too. My daughter didn't know anything about religion at 1 and 1/2 years old, but knew that the rosary beads meant talking to someone who was not there. I saw her a number of time taking my beads, bowing her head, and babbling. I didn't tell her to do that, but she seen me do it that is why she does it. She is trying it out. If you want young kids to be more free in their sexuality, then you must demand their parents to be very free in expressing their sexuality with one another in front of their child. Let the child witness you having sex rather than shutting the door, hiding underneath the covers during those first five years.

I get what you're saying here, concerned aunt. But the thing is, in our current society, parents have the power to enforce being the dominant adults in their child's life. They often deny their child to work among many adults outside their immediate family (if that); they often strictly control watching what various adults may do on TV; and they especially deny their children the right to make adult friends (I'm not even talking about lovers here). As a result, save for a few "authorized" adults (like teachers, coaches, etc.), children in our present, heavily age segregated, and heavily information restricted world spend very little time around adults outside of their parents and these few other authorized and heavily regulated adult authority figures (who act pretty much like parents do!).

For the record, I do not think parents should be prohibited from being themselves around their kids, or discussing their beliefs and value systems with them. Not at all; this should be a parental right, IMO. The thing is, kids should have the right, if they choose, to take a trip with an adult friend of theirs to his/her Universalist church to learn about that religion, even as they agree to attend a Roman Catholic church with their parents the previous Sunday to learn about that religion; and they should be allowed to freely discuss the tenets of atheism and secular humanism with an adult neighbor who respects them and whom they enjoy spending time with--all without their parents having the power to prohibit it. The same can apply to topics other than spiritual belief systems or philosophies, of course.

Is it fair that we tell parents that we demand them to behave and parent a certain way so the child could freely express their sexuality without shame and regrets when they are young. I think that isn't fair either. If the parent express emotions against sexual desires between themselves; even though if it was consensual sex, the child is going to feel shame once the child comes home. It is like a wife cheating on her husband. It is all good during the act, but once she confront the people she loves the feeling of guilt comes.

If the parents act that way around their child, then they have to take accountability for their child feeling bad if they condemn or harshly judge activities their child has enjoyed willfully engaging in. After all, if they cared about how their child felt as much as how they themselves feel about any given issue, they could always say things to their child like, "I don't agree with what you do for these reasons [...], but I'm sure you have your reasons for thinking otherwise, and I still love and respect you as a person despite not approving of everything you do. We can't always be expected to think alike on every issue, as we are not the same person; and because of that, what works for me may not always work for you, and vice versa..."

However, if in a more liberated and enlightened society, the child was allowed to access information about alternative viewpoints to their parents', and freely discuss a variety of viewpoints with other adults and peers without their parents or the state prohibiting it, they will likely not feel as alone in their beliefs, and receive a good degree of support from outside their home--just as we MAPs do when we come here :-)

You are deceiving yourselves if you could do it without the parent. A child first love would always be his parents, the people who raise them. If they are not okay with it, you are risking this child to be hurt.

I think if the child really wanted to be with a certain adult whom they loved, and who was clearly good to them and respected them on all levels, and the parents refused to acknowledge this on the basis of purely moralism-based reasons, then the parents are responsible for hurting the child more than anyone. If the other adult in question was a genuinely bad person, then in that case, the parents would have a good and totally justifiable reason to object and intervene; and if the other adult attempted to come between such a child and genuinely respectful and open-minded parents for purely selfish reasons related to the above, in that case the other adult would be the party responsible for hurting the child.

No party on any side of a given issue should ever be given an "I'm not at fault no matter what type person I am, or what I do" card. That just encourages that particular party to abuse whatever power and/or influence they may have with impunity, if they know they will always be treated as being in the right by default.

In a youth liberated society, where intergenerational relationships and even regular friendships could be carried out openly, then I believe there would be many cases where parents would be objectively willing to meet the adult partner or friend and give him/her a fair chance before deciding to object. I think parents should be held up to good standards of behavior and fair play just as any other group of people should.

Kids haven't built their walls up to limit the emotional pain like adults so it hits them harder. I feel if I went through what I went through as a teenager instead, it wouldn't be so devastating. It took me until high school to finally take a step forward from what had happen.

What if you had support available to you as a child that you didn't in the society and time you grew up in? What if your parents were unable to choose to forcibly deny you seeking that support? If such was the case, concerned aunt, I'd wager that your experience may have been less devastating, perhaps considerably so.