OK, I guess I'm doing this. Since people keep telling me a parent's ability to control their kids isn't problematic, a thread of ways it's legally acceptable to control your child in the US in hella problematic ways:

Children have no rights to medical care w/o parental consent. If their parents don't believe in medicine, tough shit. If parents don't think psychiatric treatment is valid, sucks to be you. This is especially terrifying for disabled kids.

Think parents denying kids medical care is rare? That's cute. How about ABA, a form of abuse mandated onto autistic kids as young as 3 years old? How about refusing birth control to teenagers w/ endometriosis? How about prohibiting vaccines?

Children have no rights to an education w/o parental consent. That manifests in several dangerous ways. One major variation is homeschooling, which removes a child from a support network to connect to in case of abuse. But another way is religious schools for queer kids.

Children have no right to religion. If your child doesn't believe in the same faith as you, they can still be dragged to church. A seventeen year old wants to convert to another religion? Welp. Sucks to be you.

Children have no right to expression. That means, parents can monitor a child's online life, their conversations w/ friends, etc. And if you think that's just keeping kids safe, try being a queer kid or a kid of another faith in a fundamentalist home.

Children have no right to privacy. This is a BIG ONE in 2020. Parents can put whatever video or photo they want of their kids online w/o their consent & that digital profile will follow them lifelong even if they didn't want it.

Children have no right to keep money they make on the job. Sure there's laws to protect celebrity kids but not so much a fifteen year old working at the local McDonald's. They also have no right to decide not to work as family businesses are exempt under child labor law.

Children have no right to their name. They cannot decide what their first or last name is. While this impacts trans kids especially, also consider kids whose parents remarry & they want a say in their last name & aren't legally allowed it.

Children have no right to be raised in their birth culture. If you're adopted outside your culture, & your adoptive parents don't want you to access it, oh well.

Children have no right to genetic information. That is, if they're adopted, they've no right to know the genetic/medical issues of their birth parents. And even if not, they've no right to the genetic/medical issues of their parents AT ALL. That impacts lifelong health.

Children have no say in food. If a child wants to be vegetarian or vegan for religious reasons, that doesn't need to be respected. If a child has food allergies the parents don't believe in, that doesn't have to be maintained. Parents can force kids to diet in unhealthy ways.

So please. I'm all ears. Tell me again how children are not in some way under a dangerous amount of control by their parents in the US. I'll wait.

I don't know if parents are an oppressor class or kids are marginalized or whatever. I don't know the proper language to use to discuss these power dynamics. But they exist & in some countries there's very little way around them & we need to talk about that.