Willfully Drowning in The Fountain of Youth
| 2549 words
Infantilize
verb usually disapproving (also infantilise)
uk/ɪnˈfæn.tɪ.laɪz/ us/ɪnˈfæn.tə.laɪz/
To treat someone as if that person were a child, with the result that they start behaving like one
(Via Cambridge Dictionary)
To begin this blog post, I'd like to quote from Toni Morrison and her commencement speech to Wellesley College Class of 2004, in which she says: "While children are being eroticized into adults, adults are being exoticized into eternal juvenilia."
We don't live in a fair world, we don't live in a world where good morals actually matter and people are exploited in a number of ways for the sake of driving up profits and draining people of the very beings they once were. We, instead, live in a world where governments and corporations can exercise control over their people, where real people groups are used as scapegoats to capitalize on existing economic anxieties and shift blame away from government or market forces, and where the ideas of great power through aggressive nationalism are glorified to justify violence and war, particularly in the Global South by Western powers.
Of course, if you're keen into political terminology, you'll know that what I'm describing is fascism.
Fascist and capitalist ideology and governance has been on the rise for the past few decades, and it's been able to do this through the wide range of dehumanizing techniques these authoritarian political movements and governments have in their arsenal. It may come in the form of suppressing the opposition into hiding using fear tactics, overworking the working class to the point of exhaustion and defeat that they don't even have the energy to fight back, or even viewing civilians through the lenses of being incapable and powerless against those who are higher up the social hierarchy. Corporations and governments are very good at making people feel as though they're lesser- less intelligent, less hardworking, less capable- and one of the methods they use frequently is infantilization.
Being a form of discrimination, infantilization results in the people being infantilized feeling disrespected, and even a sense of being dehumanized. Indeed, we can see it in things such as infantilization being one of the five dimensions of sexual harassment of women, forcing the elderly to give up their autonomy and privacy when we send them to retirement homes, the way in which racialized people groups are treated as lesser and like their feelings must be sensitively danced around, the paternalistic behaviours that unwillingly envelope disabled people into a life of denial of their basic autonomy, corporations being able to generate hoards of money by exploiting the poor and disenfranchised by seeing them as incapable... Infantilization is a powerful tool used in oppressing entire people groups, forcefully inflicted on thousands of people to keep them complicit in the exercise of power by the oppressor.
But what's become glaringly more obvious in tandem with the rise of fascist ideology and the progression of late-stage capitalism, is the fact that many people are responding to the state of the world - and it's general lack of opportunities for meaningful self-actualization of millennial and generation Z adults - by acting immature and infantilizing themselves to a concerning degree.
I don't mean things like owning lots of stuffed animals or being interested in cartoons - though I will touch on this aspect later - because I think there's nothing wrong with doing these things on the surface. I mean things like avoiding your responsibilities, seeking for others to coddle or pamper you, relying on the praise of others for all of your validation, and being reactionary because you're unable to manage and express your emotions in a mature manner. It's a matter of having defeatist thinking, believing in the messages that are expressed loud and clear by your oppressors, and surrendering your rights to privacy and autonomy because you think to yourself "What kind of power do I have in this world?"
It's no wonder that things like therapy speak and mental health culture have become hot-box issues in relation to people's lack of willingness to take accountability and responsibility, because we've become conditioned to desire convenience in the form of assuming that the people on the other side of your actions appreciate you using whatever cards you can draw up to excuse your immaturity instead of owning up to your actions. Those who are probably online too much can likely relate to the idea that mental health and self-care have become somewhat of a "fad" in social media spheres, where people grasp at concepts like boundary-crossing and gaslighting and emotional labour to deflect criticisms, like a shield made of glass. When the glass breaks, however, you're left with feeling like (or even, being told that) you're a toxic person because not everyone in the world can make them feel safe all the time.
The world is also seeing a stark rise in the anti-aging industry, and things like social media have only served to pedal these ideas out into the public and, thus, corrupt CEO's who can and will use the rising trend in self-infantilization to bait people in with ways into keeping themselves looking as young as they could ever dreamed of- but I wouldn't say they'd feel any younger with the techniques that are given out there. TikTok creators are happily recommending things like "anti-wrinkle straws," applying serum to your face to get "glass skin," even recommending that people control the way in which they emote their fucking expressions to prevent the formation of wrinkles. People have become convinced that, maybe if we try hard enough, we can prevent the inevitable process of aging- almost eerily similar to how many believe that, if a person were to work hard to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps," can achieve anything, as if there aren't circumstances which occur at birth that determines the many factors that get in the way of this theory. Although, I think we know that this is easier said than done when our opportunities to assume personal responsibility are being taken from us, it's especially ghoulish knowing the systems that are saying this to us.
The truth of the matter is, there are very few opportunities left for any of us to actually make an adult life possible due to the socioeconomic, cultural and technological factors that came as a result of the current state of the world. Of course, there's no saying that every single adult has to marry someone, settle down somewhere and have children - and it's always welcomed to push back against this White Eurocentric line of thinking - but it's less about the fact that all of us have no interest in having a life like this, but the fact that it's physically impossible to have this life anymore. Cost of living is at an all-time high, with inflation and worker mistreatment rising, which in turn is causing some of the worst epidemics of mental and physical health problems, drug addiction, and crime to occur in history. Rent and housing is impossible to cover for if we also want to afford food, healthcare and clothing, of course we haven't settled down and had children yet!
If I am to put my own anecdotes in here, I'd like to mention that I don't think it's inherently wrong or bad for an adult to have childish traits. Besides, am I really one to speak when, as of typing this, I'm sitting in my bedroom filled wall-to-wall with so many pieces of my toy collection, to the point where they're beginning to overflow, and I loudly enjoy media that would seemingly only appeal to preschoolers? What authority do I have to speak on the topic of self-infantilization when I gladly indulge in these interests, you ask yourself? But if I'm being honest, I think this is exactly what gives me the unique perspective I have on this subject, because of the fact that I have experience in creating a healthy balance between growing into adulthood and keeping in touch with my childish traits, and how favouring one or the other can have detrimental effects.
As a multiply disabled person - namely, physically and developmentally - I also have the experience of my peers and the world I live in as a whole forcing me into a state of being an eternal child. Too often do people see me, a developmentally and physically disabled person who doesn't try to hide the fact that he is developmentally and physically disabled person, and assume that means that I consent to being treated like a baby animal before I'm treated like a human being. They expect me to act like a child, even when I'm reaching my mid 20's, all because of my status as a disabled person. Sure, my interest in toys and children's cartoons doesn't do me many favours, but these people would still treat me like a child even if all of my interests were mature, even if I have perfect emotional maturity. I don't necessarily care if the people who do this have "good intentions," because I still experience the brunt of their belief that they're better adults than any disabled person could hope to be.
I've been treated as lesser by my peers for traits of mine that I had no idea were even frowned upon, for things that were beyond my control, for things that abled people would get away with doing for the sole reason that they're abled, and I've become very tired of it. Truly, what gives anyone the right to treat me as though I'm not capable of making my own decisions, coming to my own conclusions, or exercising responsibility over my own advocacy? What gives anyone the right to decide suddenly that I need my dependency on others reinforced, to keep compliant with whatever other people decide for me, and to make myself even more vulnerable to abuse and maltreatment?
Fighting back against the mistreatment I have pelted towards me on a daily basis is not only a matter of taking back my right to grow up like abled people can, but also a matter of survival. If I never have the chance to experience life for what it is - including taking risks and facing failure when they don't turn out the way I want them to - then I'm a much higher risk of experiencing violence because I haven't had the opportunities to learn how to protect myself and my community members. Just like any other pattern of abusive behaviour, infantilization can be deadly- not only because it eats away at the self-esteem and confidence of those who face it, but also because of how powerless it's victims feel in the face of danger. For example, do you know just how many disabled people never get any form of sex education or teachings about consent, despite the fact that we're at a much higher risk of experiencing sexual abuse? How so many of us go on with our lives having no idea how to report instances of abuse, because we were never taught about the signs we should be looking for?
Infantilization hurts people gravely, especially those who are part of marginalized people groups, and it only hurts ourselves further when we decide that our autonomy isn't worth fighting to get back and it's best that we just succumb to the powerlessness that our oppressors want us to feel.
No, there's absolutely nothing wrong with having (or even playing with) stuffed animals, liking cartoons, wearing colourful clothing with cartoon characters on them, or preferring food generally associated to be for children. Having interests in these things doesn't automatically make you a fascist or whatever inflammatory thing someone has to say about you and your hobbies. After all, many things that are seen as "childish," like the desire for play - something that is seen in all other living species well into their adulthood - are perfectly natural things that are being labeled as such to keep us primed in our positions as cogs of the machine, to keep us from exercising our imaginations to not think outside the box and imagine what a better world would look like. I think that keeping a sense of childlike wonder and curiosity is generally healthy for us, because it motivates us to learn more about the world around us and continue to create and love with our entire beings. Besides, I think there's a sense of maturity that comes with being so unapologetic about the person you are, and sometimes that involves being unapologetic about having these childish traits and interests that make you, you.
But it goes without saying that, alongside being able to embrace the fact that you have these interests, it shows a great amount of maturity to remain willing to take action and accept responsibility, and this is something that should be seen as a gift in a world that wants to take away our autonomy as grown-up human beings who can (and should) think and act for themselves. Especially in the wake of fascist uprisings and imperialism lashing out in the corner it's been backed into, it's become even more important for us to fight for our rights to be adults and to reject the attempts at making us feel helpless, worthless and out-of-control.
If you happen to be someone who believes that you reached your peak during your childhood or adolescent years, then I hope that, one day, you can realize just how fulfilling and liberating true adulthood is compared to being trapped in a cage of perpetual lack of autonomy. You deserve to have the chance to really own your adulthood and grow up to realize the potential you have. You deserve to realize just how much power you can hold and how the way you use it makes an impact in this world.
Please, if there's anything to take away from this essay, I implore you to start recognizing when you're being forced into submission by the systems that intend to keep us complicit, and remind yourself kindly that you deserve to have the same autonomy as every other person on this planet, no matter where your interests lie.