when a kid is being abused by a peer and an adult says to “just ignore it” or “he just has a crush on you”, when an adult is abusing a child and another adult says “you need to respect your elders” or “you are making this up for attention”, when a child experiences injustice adults will say “life was never meant to be easy” or “you’ll understand when you’re older”, when a child experiences something dangerous or traumatizing an authority figure says “kids say the darndest things”, when children are merely curious about the world they get told “i’ll tell you when you’re older” or “stop asking weird questions”. no wonder children resonate with stories that tell them adults are useless - they are useless a lot of the time!