I am becoming fully convinced that if the world gave any autonomy to kids, huge swathes of the regime that's being enforced right now would collapse over fucking night.
"But kids are not wise!"
Then fucking help them to be. Give them the chance to be wise rather than removing their agency. They can be stupid and cruel and absolutely make poor decisions, but if you give them agency and autonomy, maybe we would stop fucking around quite so much, since they are the ones who, more often than not, are going to find out. Build wisdom in kids and get some wise fucking adults in turn.
If I had more a head on my shoulders from not spending every day this last seven days crying over some thing or another, I would be more able to say clearly that a lot of my identity is built around reclaiming autonomy pulled away by my parents, a cult and a world complacent with me being raised as property.