The more I think about the terminology, the more disgusted I feel by it's influence on today's society.
By treating it's population like children, it creates a ripple effect on the minds of people who lack autonomy and critical thinking.
As one who's endured this treatment, it makes me sick when I think of how much of my own potential was suppressed by those that deemed me incapable of achieving great things.
How can one be expected to grow if we treat them forever like children?
It's like society has no concept of anything between "Victorian child labor" and "uwu little baby til 25 uwu." People are increasingly treated as if they have no autonomy whatsoever and they eat that shit up in order to just mindlessly consume media and do little else with their time.
All more the reason why even though my Autism was made the scapegoat more times than I can count, I fought for the freedom to grow and understand, even though some adults didn't even want me to grow, but rather stay a child. It's beyond disturbing.
But isn't that exactly the point? I mean obviously we can't have child labor anywhere in the west, so we force child labor upon countries where it receives little to no attention, while our masters keep us domesticated with endless scrolls and social media. If we were encouraged to read, socialize, debate and actually use our brains, we become dangerous.
I suppose so. It seems some people aren't really built to do their own thinking.
Especially when those people were forced by their own adults to not think for themselves, but just memorize what they've been told.
I had no idea it was so big a topic (per a visit to the Wikipedia infantilization entry).
Reminds me of an argument I had with my mom many moons ago. I was expressing how I felt it important to not do "baby talk" with my first born "because it was fake", and I felt it important for him to experience who/how I actually was. So, in other words, I didn't do the "Oooh, little <name>ie, you're such a cute little boy... oh yes you are! Oh yes you are!", blah, blah. I've no idea how I became motivated along those lines. But, anyway, she picked him up and started doing such, and he responded with the biggest smile.. and my dad looked at me and said something something like, "So much for your dumb-assed theories, <my name>... <wink>...."
And, well... okay... she seemed to be right in a way. And yet I still consider that kind of interaction with infants/kids to be a sort of "talking down", and it annoys me. But, as my dad not-at-all subtly hint, what do I know?
I'm not saying that kind of talk to infants/kids necessarily constitutes infantilization, but the first couple paragraphs into that Wikipedia entry brought this story to mind, so....
iirc baby talk can help a tiny bit with language acquisition but its far better to just talk normally, but yeah the talking down part is a massive part of infantalization. im disabled, mute and autistic, a few years ago for my partners birthday we went to the zoo (one of their favorite places), and this random lady while we were waiting for one of the other people in the polycule to go to the bathrom starts talking across me (as if im not there), about me to my partner, and then when she finally includes me in the conversation she goes "if you behave well maybe you'll get a toy" all baby talk like.
i cannot tell you how furious i was and the only reason why no confrontation happened is my partner is not one to terp me being rude (which is its own thing that they are better at now) and the lady didn't know any auslan.