When studies show that underage drinking is harmful, it’s banned easily. But when studies show that spanking is harmful, it remains legal and parents still insist on doing it.
Age restrictions on purchasing cigarettes pass easily. But laws prohibiting smoking where children are forced to breathe in secondhand smoke are much harder to pass.
Children under a certain age are prohibited from using most social media websites. But adults are allowed to post videos of their children’s meltdowns.
Teenagers need their parents’ permission to get body modifications. But parents can get their babies’ ears pierced.
Anyone who genuinely wants to protect children would not panic about the children’s own choices while ignoring what adults force on them. Anyone who genuinely wants to protect children would not insist that studies on the dangers of children’s own choices be fully trusted and obeyed while ignoring and arguing with studies on the dangers of how adults treat children.
But many adults just want to control children, not protect them.
