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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   651 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 6, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Parenting win?

My 3yo has a tough life. He's got two older brothers (4, 7) and all the neighbor kids are older. The 3yo is big enough to want to play with them all, but small enough that he's not quite capable of understanding their games or communicating his thoughts. So the neighbor kids end up picking on him a lot, calling him "poop boy", taking his toys, and other misc mischief. Because they're not my kids, I can't do too much to stop the neighbor kids from being jerks. I've managed to convince the older brothers that they have some sort of brotherly-responsibility to stick up for their sibling, but there's also only so much they can do.

The 3yo is tough and violent. He's been stung by bees ~5 times over the past year, and each time he shouts "die bee", grabs the nearest rock, and smashes the bee to death several times before running over to me/mom crying that he needs a band-aid. So he's pretty good at standing up for himself when the big kids are mean by trying to punch them / throw toys / etc. I'm proud of him for sticking up for himself, but we've been trying to work with him on helping him control his violence.

We found a new tool to keep his violence in check this week.

At the beginning of the week, one of the big kids came over and dumped a bucket of water on 3yo's head when he was playing nicely by himself. I had the idea that we could get revenge by using the hose. We setup an ambush for big-neighbor-kid around the corner of the garage, and 3yo got big-kid right in the face at point blank range. The shadenfreude was great. Big-neighbor-kid learned a valuable lesson about why other people don't like getting water dumped on them and not to mess with my 3yo. 3yo now is the only one with permission to use the hose, and everyone talks about how they shouldn't mess with him anymore. 3yo also has a lot more confidence interacting with both the neighbors and his brothers, and there's been much less hitting and throwing of rocks.

Overall I feel good about how this played out, but I have some questions about what this is teaching my kids about violence. I'm a committed pacifist (in the style of the Amish), and I'm trying to raise the kids to also be pacifists. The hose-to-the-face is obviously less violent than throwing rocks: there's no potential for lasting injury, and it's not nearly as "escalatory" since the big-neighbor-kid already used water as a "weapon". But there was still lots of "evil" in 3yo's heart. He clearly wanted revenge and specifically aimed for the big-neighbor-kid's face so as to cause maximum damage.

So the lesson here wasn't perfect, but I do think it was at least "directionally correct". One common failure mode of pacifism is to become a doormat for other people to run over you---basically all objections to pacifism boil down to rejecting this failure mode---and I don't want to instill this failure mode into my children.

I'm a committed pacifist (in the style of the Amish), and I'm trying to raise the kids to also be pacifists.

There's a reason there's no Oakland Amish. This is not an argument against the values described, just a note on their evident limitations. Pacifism works when you live with other committed pacifists. Distance can replace walls and spears.

This is a straightforward example of my claim that "basically all objections to pacifism boil down to rejecting the doormat failure mode", and so whole-heartedly disagree with you :)

could you elaborate? This sounds interesting.

There's a reason there's no Oakland Amish.

There's no Amish, but there are self-declared pacifists. See for example https://oaklandcatholicworker.org.

This is not an argument against the values described, just a note on their evident limitations.

I disagree this is a limitation of pacifism. No body wants to live in "Oakland" (which I'm assuming is metonymy for any violent place). I claim that pacifism has better outcomes than non-pacifism for someone who must live in such a place. I don't think these are always strictly better outcomes for the individual, but that these better outcomes are society-wide.

Pacifism works when you live with other committed pacifists.

You imply that it doesn't work around non-pacifists, which I disagree with. Although the disagreement is probably about the aims that we should be working towards.

Distance can replace walls and spears.

Most reasonable people would prefer to be away from violence. So I don't think this is a unique jab at pacifism.

The implication is that pacifists cannot strategically interact with violence in a way that achieves their aims. But there are plenty of pacifists who would strategically reduce their distance to conflict in order to effect change that cannot be accomplished with spears. The AFSC ambulance units that helped combatants and non-combats on all sides in WWI and WWII is a standard example. In my own life, I've lived in North Korea trying to reduce conflict between them and the US.

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