I don’t think this is so much “treating children as pets” as it is “treating children like not your peers”. When your boss asks you to do something, does she say “Hey, would you mind helping me out with X? I’d really like to get it done this week.”? More than likely, she says “I need you to finish X by Friday.”
You only need to give justifications to peers. A person in a higher position of authority can make a request of a subordinate without justification. So it is with officers/privates in the military, managers/employees, and parents/children.
To adress your second point:
The point isn’t in justification. The difference I’m pointing at is the attitude and mental model of the world of the Commander, i.e. the parent. And this causes some crucial differences in behavior that aren’t accounted for by the lack of need to justify oneself or even the consideration of not being a peer.
Sure, we could say some (or perhaps even most, YMMV) workplace managers behave a certain way that is similar to those parents and children. We could say the same for militaries. I care little for what one could say about the similarities or the words that can or “should” be used.
Key point: Children are often treated by their parents in a manner completely dissimilar to every other case of family member or person with whom they live.
Key point 2: This behavior of parents towards children has sufficient differences from typical cases of social-class or not-peer behaviors for me to not label it as a standard case of such. I believe it would be very misleading. Parents often carefully control the “private life” of their children; what they eat, what they do at any given time, who they interact with, what they say, and even what they think to some extent.
Even in military settings, moreso in workplaces, these examples are not at all carefully monitored and controlled with punishments and threats of various kinds, and even those that are generally end the moment your shift ends and you walk out the door, with some exceptions regarding PR and such (e.g. politicians and people with similar occupations).
Key Point 3: Behaviors, social norms and laws differ between all those cases, and I would argue that laws and social norms, at least, are more similar between pets and children than they are between children and employees/nonofficers. If an employee doesn’t behave as a manager wishes, they are limited in their options, and the interactions and roles are socially clear. A manager cannot threaten to confiscate an employee’s phone for not properly cleaning up after themselves in the bathroom, nor are they legally and socially allowed to dole out corporal punishment for an employee that talks back to them or asks the wrong questions.
Yes, this is a touchy issue for me, so I apologize if I come across as less polite than I think.
I don’t think this is so much “treating children as pets” as it is “treating children like not your peers”. When your boss asks you to do something, does she say “Hey, would you mind helping me out with X? I’d really like to get it done this week.”? More than likely, she says “I need you to finish X by Friday.”
You only need to give justifications to peers. A person in a higher position of authority can make a request of a subordinate without justification. So it is with officers/privates in the military, managers/employees, and parents/children.
To adress your second point: The point isn’t in justification. The difference I’m pointing at is the attitude and mental model of the world of the Commander, i.e. the parent. And this causes some crucial differences in behavior that aren’t accounted for by the lack of need to justify oneself or even the consideration of not being a peer.
Sure, we could say some (or perhaps even most, YMMV) workplace managers behave a certain way that is similar to those parents and children. We could say the same for militaries. I care little for what one could say about the similarities or the words that can or “should” be used.
Key point: Children are often treated by their parents in a manner completely dissimilar to every other case of family member or person with whom they live.
Key point 2: This behavior of parents towards children has sufficient differences from typical cases of social-class or not-peer behaviors for me to not label it as a standard case of such. I believe it would be very misleading. Parents often carefully control the “private life” of their children; what they eat, what they do at any given time, who they interact with, what they say, and even what they think to some extent.
Even in military settings, moreso in workplaces, these examples are not at all carefully monitored and controlled with punishments and threats of various kinds, and even those that are generally end the moment your shift ends and you walk out the door, with some exceptions regarding PR and such (e.g. politicians and people with similar occupations).
Key Point 3: Behaviors, social norms and laws differ between all those cases, and I would argue that laws and social norms, at least, are more similar between pets and children than they are between children and employees/nonofficers. If an employee doesn’t behave as a manager wishes, they are limited in their options, and the interactions and roles are socially clear. A manager cannot threaten to confiscate an employee’s phone for not properly cleaning up after themselves in the bathroom, nor are they legally and socially allowed to dole out corporal punishment for an employee that talks back to them or asks the wrong questions.
Yes, this is a touchy issue for me, so I apologize if I come across as less polite than I think.