I wish we could be honest with our kids that sometimes you need to be mean in order to not be destroyed by mean people.

Similarly, to have a tolerant society, intolerance can't be tolerated.

For the downvoters: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

If I were to guess the cause of the downvotes it might have been a reflexive action from seeing the numerous times the paradox of tolerance is brought up but then misapplied in a way that suits whatever poster's rhetorical purpose yet deviates significantly from Popper's definition. To be clear, I'm not saying you did that, just offering a possible explanation.

I consider people who aren’t honest with children about this to be bad people:

They’re helping the abuse by lying to those children in their role as a trusted adult.

I hear what you’re saying, but I think it’s important to take a more nuanced viewpoint rather than reducing such parents to “bad people”.

I think it’s fair to criticize such people, or point out why it’s a problematic approach, but many parents are just trying to do what they believe is the right thing, misguided though it may be.

Education and correcting misconceptions is important, and applying a binary mindset to anyone who shields their kids in this way is not going to move the needle, nor is it likely a fair representation of these individuals.

If a parent were to ask a known pedophile to babysit you wouldn't blink at calling them bad people.

It's the same thing, this is clearly harmful. If you're uncomfortable with calling them bad people, then call them bad parents.

> It's the same thing, this is clearly harmful.

This is a deeply fallacious argument, and these are not equivalent things.

You seem to be concluding that the only thing that matters is outcome, not intent.

Comparing a parent who makes a well intentioned mistake with a parent who intentionally puts their child in the care of a predator is ridiculous.

One of these parents may even be criminally liable for their actions.

> If you're uncomfortable with calling them bad people, then call them bad parents.

It’s not a matter of comfort, but of effective communication and acknowledgment of nuance. Words have meaning, and boiling complex things down to hardline binary positions is rarely helpful.

Yes, calling someone like this a bad parent is somewhat better than calling them a bad person, because the implications of the two accusations are drastically different.

One implies a moral failing, while the other implies a lack of knowledge/understanding, which are two entirely different categories.

I say somewhat, because these “bad parents” may still be doing almost everything right, and may not have been exposed to situations that would give them the wisdom to impart proper guidance to their kids on this particular topic.

I know some truly lovely and sincere people who just aren’t very good at parenting yet. Every parent starts there. They know it, and they’re doing their best to learn and improve as they go. They grew up in sheltered environments and didn’t exactly have model parents to emulate.

These are not bad people.

A hacker who intentionally breaks a critical system in a hospital is a bad person.

A freshly graduated sysadmin who causes an outage to the same system due to incompetence is not automatically a bad person.

Both events may have similar outcomes, but to claim that the people involved belong in the same category is nonsensical.

I'm not reading all of that, sorry.

If a parent isn't preparing children for life as an adult they're bad parents.

I'm a bad basketball player and my intent has fuckall to do with that judgement.

For what it's worth, it's a ~50 second read.

> I'm a bad basketball player and my intent has fuckall to do with that judgement.

Being a bad basketball player doesn't automatically mean you're bad at all sports. And it certainly doesn't mean you're a bad person.

> If a parent isn't preparing children for life as an adult they're bad parents.

I mostly agree with this statement, but this isn't where we started.

And just like failing at basketball doesn't mean you're failing at all athletic or sporting endeavors, failing at one aspect of parenting doesn't mean you're failing all aspects of parenting (an enormously complicated and diverse set of responsibilities).

If a parent is failing the most critical aspects, or most aspects, yeah, they're bad parents.

Bad parents still aren't automatically bad people.

At this point, I think the horse has been beaten sufficiently.

I think we mostly agree, which is why I said:

> If you're uncomfortable with calling them bad people, then call them bad parents.

Everyone is trying to do what they think is right — you can read the pro-social statements of many dictators.

I think teaching your kids not to defend themselves is obviously bad parenting — and the people who do that, to the result of their own children getting hurt, are bad people.

Is there a scenario where you would be willing to interpret such a parent’s pacifism as naivety?

There are many extremely complex issues that do not have obviously right or wrong answers.

Being bad at something is not the same as being a bad person.

How would you describe the difference between a parent who actively abuses their kids and a parent who loves and provides for their kids, but fails in some area along the way?

You’ve gone right back to a binary stance here.

When the parent is externalizing the cost of their pacifism onto their child, they are engaging in moral failure.

To be fair some people are just trying to not have to deal with bullies because they're lazy. The "just ignore them" crowd for instance.

This is a difficult lesson to learn and also can be a difficult lesson to act upon (unfortunately).

Unfortunately what I mostly learned is that money allows you to shield yourself to some extent. The true appeal of a "nice" neighbourhood isn't the fancy houses, it's that the police might care about you. The appeal of a private school (aside from hobnobbing with kids of rich parents) is that bullies can get kicked out of a private school much more easily than a public one.

This illustrates the core problem: victim blaming.

I think you're replying to the wrong comment.

Where is any blame being assigned to anyone?