it is painful to learn the "normal" ways that people reasonably around my age were motivated to do things their parents wanted, ie chores or getting good grades in school. this is a pain that has built over time because, seeing it around me as a kid, i could reason that maybe every single one of my friends were just spoiled. but, eerily, every time it seems the topic of motivating children comes up in whatever conversation is bringing it up, it seems like. and it still feels presumptuous to say. but most people as children were rewarded for good behavior. the one i was most envious of as a child was that multiple of my friends got paid money for getting As, and it was actually very shocking to me to find out that that is at least kind of a little more universal than i really really was sure it was not, but that's not the big thing that causes me pause now. generally, it seems, children are rewarded in some way for doing things their parents ask of them. writing and then stepping back and reading such a sentence makes me feel like an alien trying to puzzle out the function of the human pancreas lmfao but i dont know. in the wider conversations where this happens to come up, describing these motivators is never the point, which is maybe part of the difficulty for me. it's really hard to process that not everyone was doing what their parents said to do out of cold pure fear for their life. there's so many things it turns out other kids were getting. stickers and movie tickets and candy and praise and love. i am so sad.
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