Here’s professional failure and desperate rent-a-gob Laurence Fox, aghast that you might need consent to touch someone.
However, this blog post is not, in fact, about Laurence Fox, a man whose main reason for existing is to make Billie Piper’s marriage to Chris Evans (no, not that one) at 18 look like one of her better life decisions.
No, this post is about consent, which I think I’ve talked about before. Because people genuinely ask, and get confused about, whether they should get consent to touch their child.
Yes, you can bet your ass you should.
This usually gets mixed in with the idea that you should ask consent to change a nappy. That’s “diaper” for the Americans. Both words are… terrible.
Anyway, I think that gets brought up with consent because 1) a toddler can say “no”, and therefore roll around in their own poop all day, and 2) this principle usually includes literal babies. Both of these are easy clout-chasing objections, that can easily decry the whole issue of obtaining consent from children as “woke nonsense”. You can see it discussed in the responses to that tweet about Fox above.
I don’t want to call these “valid” objections, but I don’t want to entirely dismiss them as they have a use in illustrating some principles about consent and communication. So, if this whole idea of asking a month-old child whether you can dress them sends you into a trothing, incoherent rage about how it’s some sort of violation of sacred “common sense“, read on. It’s a little more complicated, but let’s start at the basics: yes, you should always ask consent of your children.
Why?
If it isn’t obvious, then I may struggle to convince you that it’s simply morally correct to treat your child as a human being and not your personal possession. Many people have pointed it out before, but it’s very difficult to move someone’s opinion when their base assumption is that other people don’t deserve basic respect. I don’t know the form of words required to talk someone down from assuming their child is their property to use, because I don’t think they would recognise their behaviour as that.
However, you can at least consider it from a practical perspective:
In the future, your child may be in a position where they could be touched inappropriately by an adult.
Do you want them to:
- Be in a position where they know that this is wrong, and stand up for themselves, or
- Be utterly subservient and unquestioning towards an adult, and go along with the harm because they’ve been taught this obedience.
This is particularly important because, despite what you might think from Stranger Danger morality tales of yore, statistically the biggest threat to children is close family members. Getting them to stand up for themselves is, for all practical purposes, a defence mechanism they need to learn. Even to their closest relatives. Especially to their closest relatives, in fact. I’m pretty sure anyone who has spent more than 8 minutes in therapy in the last decade can agree with that one.
Still, it’s hard to explain this in a way that will get through to anyone who outright objects to the concept. Children are people, and need to be respected as such – and they do need to learn that they can be respected, and listened to.
But, I already know the objections. I have a Facebook account, I see content from “normal” people all the time. It goes something like this:
But my child has to do the thing! They need to get dressed, get changed. What if they refuse?!
And, you know what? You’re right. Sometimes they do need to, and they simply don’t want to. A child is, on occasion, not going to do something they absolutely need to do in order to function, survive, or be healthy. You are, at some point, going to have to wipe their arse when they very much do not want it.
This is easy to work around: because consent is not just “will you do this?” and then getting a yes/no answer. There is a little more to it than that. Just a little, of course. First, you need to inform someone of what you will do to/with them – hence “informed consent” in medical practice and other areas. Someone cannot issue consent if they are not suitably informed.
With children, this needs to be taken quite seriously. You explain what they need to do, the consequences of not doing it, and inform them thoroughly. This is preparation. Never surprise a toddler out of the blue. Explain everything with as much notice as you possibly can, in highly redundant detail. With children, it’s not necessarily a case of asking a closed yes/no question. It is about informing them of what the consequences of each choice will be. “You should do [X], because it’s important. If choose not to, I will have to do it for you, this, that and the other will occur, so on and so forth…”.
It’s not a case of “will you get dressed?” hearing “no”, then immediately grabbing them, and forcing clothing onto them. It’s not about asking your nascently lingual toddler if they want that nappy changed, then letting them roll around in their own mess all because they said “no”. Think about the message that would send. It’s about explaining the consequences, holding boundaries where necessary (and not arbitrary), and also communicating with them relevant, easily-understood details.
In fact, if you want to distil it to a soundbite frequently used in parenting circles: do not ask your child a yes/no question unless you are happy with both answers. And, importantly, respecting that answer. So it is perfectly find to tell your stroppy 18-month child that you will be changing their nappy, because it’s essential. They’re very young children, with no control in their lives. They simply want to have some, and find it where they can get it: so you can give them other choices to feel in control, when something simply has to happen to or with them.
This is why you need to read beyond a headline, or dumb soundbite, or some “wine mom” influencer making InstaToks about how her children have ruined her life. You need to understand the process, and understand the founding principles of consent. The last thing you want to teach a child about consent, is that their “no” will not be respected. If you ask, and they say no, you should not do that. If you need to do it, and “no” is not an acceptable answer, then it is about informing them of what will happen, and offering them some other form of control over their life, even if only as a distraction.
This brings us back to babies. Do you ask them to consent to change a nappy?
Yes.
But why? They can’t speak or understand!
Ah, but here’s the thing… well, two things actually.
- They are learning to speak and communicate, and
- They do understand what is happening to them
So, while you might think it’s absurd to ask your weeks-old infant a question, what you’re actually teaching them is the act of conversation. A call; a response; a suitable action or reaction (the moves of a Wittgenstein language game, if you want to be high-brow about it). That practice will eventually morph into real conversation, and the child will know what to do, and so will you – it’s practice for the parent as much as the child. There’s no better time to practice speaking to a child than when they literally can’t understand and repeat the words. I mean, it’s one of the few times you can get away with profanity consequence-free.
Anyway, what is the alternative? To wait until a baby has learned to talk before actually talking to them? Wait until they can understand questions and answers until they can understand questions? I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out what an actual affront to sacred common sense that is.
Spherical Bullshit 