Trust Kids!: Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy
Trust Kids! weaves together essays, interviews, poems, and artwork from scholars, activists, and artists about our relationships with children in all areas of our lives.
The contributors of Trust Kids! write from different backgrounds, genders, ages, and sexualities and combine past lineages with more recent child-rearing ideas to offer a fresh, inspiring perspective. Many works on parenting and families wind up re-inscribing hierarchies by declaring how kids should be liberated. Trust Kids! insists on youth autonomy, listening to youth, and questioning adult supremacy on every page. At the heart of the book are conversations about all the ways that children can be included, loved, and cared for in more generative, just, and egalitarian ways. Its essays explore the liberatory potential of consent and autonomy in relationships among children, youth, and the adults in their lives. They also trace how oppressive attitudes toward children, far from being “natural” forms of kinship with the youngest members of our families and communities, have identifiable social and historical roots.
# of Pages: 240
Book Binding: Paperback
Year of Publication: 2022
Publisher: AK Press
Language: en
ISBN: 9781849353854
Carla Bergman and Matt Hern are co-authors of Trust Kids!: Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy. Carla is an educator, filmmaker, and community organizer who has been involved in social justice movements for over two decades. She is the co-founder of the Purple Thistle Centre, a non-hierarchical youth-run arts and activism space in Vancouver, Canada. Matt is a writer, activist, and professor who has written extensively on topics of urbanism, culture, and social justice. He is the founding director of the Purple Thistle Centre and has been involved in various grassroots organizations for over 25 years. Together, Carla and Matt bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to their exploration of youth autonomy and challenging adult supremacy in society.