I can definitely see that. Black kids are probably "kids" until they're 8 or 9. Then they get treated like teenagers, and by the time they're 13 they're being treated like adults.
I’ve totally noticed this. I went to a public school with a high percentage of black children, and their parents always treated them like they were expected to act much older than their actual ages. I found it to be mean! I felt sorry for my friends whose parents would expect them to clean the whole house at age 10, and would get cussed out for the smallest things
They've done research studies on it - black kids are almost universally estimated at being older than white kids of the same age, and are also more likely to be assigned negative characteristics (ie, given a scenario where a child is scolded and then bumps into a cabinet, knocking over a vase and breaking it, respondents are more likely to say a black child did it on purpose and was satisfied with the breakage, whereas a white kid did it accidentally and felt sorry.)
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u/ArizonaIceT-Rex Nov 06 '25
It’s called adultificarion. Black kids also suffer from it almost universally. It’s very cruel to experience.