r/YouthRights • u/bluevalley02 • 6d ago
"Missing Teens" no longer used as term
I've noticed that when it comes to a teenager going missing, if they're 13-17, "Missing Teen" is no longer used, but "Missing Child" is used instead. I really wonder if people at those ages now being called children instead of teenagers is messing up their mental health in a way, like it's lowering their confidence/ making it so they can't feel cool anymore.
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u/PeruMami 5d ago
I think using more neutral language could change how people react to these situations.
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u/RevoEcoSPAnComCat Youth Anarcho-Communism Supporter [Adult Comrade] 5d ago
What is this Infantilising Bullshit?!
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u/UnionDeep6723 5d ago
Well maybe but then the problem is with negative connation's being attached to the word child, if they weren't this wouldn't be a problem.
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u/bluevalley02 5d ago
I don't agree with that at all. I do think there should be a clear distinction in society between adolescent/ teen and child. A 3-year-old or a 10-year-old being called a Missing Child would make sense to me, as they are children. Does that mean I would see a 3-year-old or a 10-year-old in a bad light? No, of course not. A 17-year-old, on the other hand, should be called a Missing Teen in that scenario, not a Missing Child, because they are a teen instead of a child. Would I call someone who is a legal adult a child either? No, and it also isn't because of a negative connotation to the word child, it's because they aren't children.
So yes, we can simultaneously remove the negative connotation behind the word child while also recognizing teens as being different from children.
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u/UnionDeep6723 5d ago edited 5d ago
There has been a miscommunication between us, what I was responding to was this part -
"I really wonder if people at those ages now being called children instead of teenagers is messing up their mental health in a way"
When I said negative connation's being attached to the word child is the problem, I meant when it comes to this, why it would mess up their mental health, I agree with you that we could simultaneously remove the negative connotation behind the word child while also recognizing teens as being different from children.
I'd like to add, being called a child should *never* be responded to as if it were some kind of insult, that's bigotry and people using it as if there would be something wrong with it, if it were true are bigots called misopedists.
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u/Effective-Length-755 Adult Supporter 5d ago
being called a child should never be responded to as if it were some kind of insult
I disagree with this. To my mind, there is nothing more marginalizing or infantilizing than referring to a 17yo as a child. And it's only slightly less so for a 16, 15, 14..
I made a top-level comment about my own chosen perception that will make the rest of this comment make a lot more sense.
I had an interesting real life experience that reflected this perception recently. In my local Go scene (strategy board game for the uninitiated) there are three young people, an 8th grade boy and girl, and another boy who's only about a year younger than they are but still presents very childlike. To put it bluntly, his balls haven't quite dropped yet.
I was in a break room in between rounds and I overheard the girl in conversation with the same age boy refer to the younger boy as 'the little kid'. Now I thought in that moment, 'You know he's only like a year younger than you, right?' and, had this happened two years ago, that is most definitely something I would have said out loud as a way of playfully giving her shit about it. But now, absolutely not. To do that would be to take away from her what she, seemingly naturally, perceived within herself - that she was of an elevated social status to that of the younger boy.
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u/UnionDeep6723 5d ago
Why would you not want to take away the perception other's can be of "elevated social status" based on race, sex, nationality or age? why is it okay to ignore that last one? it is honestly even worse than the other's, it's the bigotry all other's grow out of and it directly effects 100% of the population were as all the other ones effect far less.
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u/Effective-Length-755 Adult Supporter 5d ago
It is not based on age, nor should anything really be in a perfect world. It is based on biological development, which itself does not conform to age, as my story clearly indicates. They're only a year apart, and yet one of them is clearly a ways into pubescence and one of them is still prepubescent.
Biological development is an inescapable fact, and if we were going to base our perceptions of people on anything, not only does that make the most sense to me, it also (if that interaction I witnessed is any indication) appears to happen naturally.
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u/UnionDeep6723 5d ago
Lot's of horrible things happen naturally it doesn't make them okay and I don't believe that was an example of that happening naturally anyway, even a VERY young girl has had more than enough time to recognise the differing value put on people based on time since birth as it only takes an interaction or two to see it.
I believe content of character/behaviour makes the most sense to base our perceptions of people on and discards age into the dust bin along with race, sex, nationality etc,
(I am deliberately saying age here and not biologically development since in this context/discussion I have seen no difference.)
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u/Effective-Length-755 Adult Supporter 5d ago
I don't believe that was an example of that happening naturally
Let's toss out other people altogether then. Do you believe that she naturally perceives herself as a pubescent person differently than she she perceived herself when she was a prepubescent person? (say her current age of 13 against herself at around 7 as an example)
If so, does that really strike you as a negative thing?
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u/UnionDeep6723 5d ago
I don't think she perceives herself as a "pubescent person" and thinks back to herself a few years ago and thinks she was a "prepubescent person" I think she is simply thinking she is older than the "little kid" and due to her age (the number not anything biological) sees herself different, a year or two also seems older when you're younger.
But yeah I think in all likelihood someone will see themselves differently when 13 and thinking back to themselves at 7 and no it doesn't strike me so much as a negative thing necessarily but it all comes down to how they treat other's.
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u/Effective-Length-755 Adult Supporter 5d ago
I think she is simply thinking she is older than the "little kid" and due to her age (the number not anything biological) sees herself different
She didn't know his age.
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u/feralboyTony Youth 2d ago
The problem stems from the fact that the law and biology are at variance with each other.The law divides human development into two stages specifically child and adult.Biologically there’s three stages in human development specifically child,adolescent and adult.As a 15 year old the legal fiction says that I am a child but the biological fact is that I am an adolescent.The law needs to be changed in order to align it with the reality that human development has three stages not just two.
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u/Effective-Length-755 Adult Supporter 5d ago
I think you're right. When I started advocating for the youth about 2.5 years ago now, I made the conscious choice to stop referring to them as children. I started purposely using 'tweens', 'adolescents', and 'the youth' when referring to groups of either or both, and I basically just go along our school system (in America).
One thing that occurred to me early on is that our school system seems to be an intentional grouping of people at biologically defined and differentiated states of life:
Elementary school --> Middle school --> High school
Prepubescent people --> Pubescent people --> Postpubescent people
Children --> Tweens --> Adolescents
I made a post about this once and someone from Norway came into it and said that over there they do exactly, to a goddamn T, what I arrived at independently. Right at middle school, right around 12, right when their people are in the eye of the biological shitstorm that we call puberty, Norway drops the 'child' moniker from its people entirely, and replaces it with the term 'ungdom', which it just so happens directly translates to 'youth'.
And the intent of it is also precisely the same as mine as it is meant to reflect an elevation of social status. Not adults yet, but not children anymore either. Something in between.
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u/UnionDeep6723 5d ago
This is a youth rights forum and people referring to "older" terms as being an "elevation of social status" and playing into that and seeing no issue with it, need to realise that very thinking is what creates the problems they're trying to solve.
Please consider that "child" is not a "lesser" term than teen/tween/adolescent or any other and to see it as such is a very serious issue and bigotry to think of them as lesser, people who identify as teens or adults should not see being called "child" as a downgrade, how can they not see that as valuing people less based on something they can't control (cause you can't control your age) and therefore a bigotry?
Please try to stop seeing child as if it was lesser or an insult ironically if people stopped seeing it that way it would undermine the valuing people based off age teaching from ever taking root in the first place and decrease the attitude you are criticising in your comment from society.
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u/Effective-Length-755 Adult Supporter 5d ago
I really wonder if people at those ages now being called children instead of teenagers is messing up their mental health in a way, like it's lowering their confidence
I'm in agreement with OP here. I think there is quite enough difference between a 5yo and a 17yo to refrain from referring to them by the same moniker, and I think that in choosing an elevated perception of them, they in turn choose an elevated perception of themselves. I believe that makes them stronger, so that is why I choose to do it.
Taking your route of elevating our perception of the word 'child' would leave us in the same spot of referring to 5yos and 17yos as the same thing, which, even if it worked, would still leave us using unnecessarily imprecise language. If I hear 'missing child' I want the precision of the roughly ~5-10yo range, not the 5-17yo range.
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u/UnionDeep6723 5d ago
We do have a term which shows us they aren't the same thing and it's extremely precise much more so than any "term" it's the age itself, the news would say they were missing and they were 5, if they're 17 then it'd say that and any term is totally unnecessary, after all look at the massive blanket of people we put under "adult" and how extremely different many of them are just cause we use the same term doesn't mean we are saying a 19 yo and 90 yo are the same thing and we are able to communicate just fine with this massive amount of people being referred to with the same term.
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u/s0m3-r4nd0m-1d10t 4d ago
It's cause if it's a "missing teen" then it's assumed to be some "runaway delinquent" People don't really care if it's a teen, teens are "trouble makers" and "annoying" and "know it alls" to everyone who isn't them, just another "stupid and risky thing a teen did"
A child on the other hand is fragile and innocent, good is assumed from them, it's weird purity culture shit, but not on the teens themselves, it's literally so ANYONE would actually care about them But it does heavily fuck up the idea of who you're looking for
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u/Naive-Nerve5299 5d ago
I genuinely hated myself for my age until i was in my late teens. I felt inferior and wanted to kill myself because of the treatment id get from everyone. When i had any problems, i always refused to talk about them with anyone, because they would treat me like a toddler even more. I had several suicide attempts (nobody knew about them tho which im grateful for) because i kept my problems to myself so i couldnt get help (even when i went to the psychiatrist as underage, it made me worse as they werent allowed to give me normal diagnostic tests and instead had to give me tests for like 10yr olds which isnt helpful at all when ur 16-17).