The Cult of the Stolen Childhoods
The Promise of Progress.
In a relatively recent past, education was considered by many a privilege. Knowing how to read and write wasn’t as common as today, and higher education was reserved for the rich. Regular people lived from the land, cared for their animals, or worked in manual trades.
But development democratized education as a compulsory right — something that, at the time, must have sounded great. Education is indeed a key to personal development, but what no one expected was that such a noble campaign could come with such an evil consequence.
The Hidden Sacrifice.
Probably that evil wasn’t purposely planned — but that’s how evil works. It grows from a little dark spot into infecting the whole crop.
And what evil is this? The answer is: a society that normalized taking childhoods away from children. Like a cult that sacrifices innocent blood to a pagan god of “knowledge,” or who knows what.
Families started lining up blindly to get those kids educated, lured by the promise of a better future. And so it began — a generation of children removed from their families and their natural development, re-shaped into indoctrinated, devoted defenders of modern education.
These kids weren’t just destined to become the next parents who would place another generation into the same system. They were being primed to work endlessly, to be absent from their kids’ lives, and to compensate for that absence with gifts and distractions.
Ironically, this education method quickly proved remarkably effective — at repressing children’s creativity, their self-trust, and their genuine desire to learn. It planted the belief that personal interests were inferior to “education” — the new requisite for success.
So instead of learning from curiosity, we started learning just to finish an unpleasant but necessary task. To grow into “independent” adults. Adults with a hole in them, missing their childhoods — and perpetuating the cycle.
That’s why today it’s not rare to see adults clinging to childhood — buying expensive toys, dressing like teenagers, and avoiding responsibility. It’s also why objectification is everywhere, reducing people to appearances and roles. When adulthood brings freedom, but childhood was never fully lived, what do we get? A generation unsure of itself — narcissistic, hedonistic, emotionally stunted.
People don’t want to have children anymore — not because they don’t want to put them in school, but because they’re deeply depressed, afraid of responsibility, and obsessed with their own pleasure to the point of rejecting the very idea.
And I don’t blame them. The Cult gave them that in exchange for their innocent childhoods. And it’s not going to change — because it keeps making money. Now, the burden is on every single traumatized victim to heal himself — or surrender to quiet destruction.
The System That Breeds Dependence.
But why, and how, did education fail us? Because yes, it brought development. Many escaped poverty. And many people will say school wasn’t traumatizing for them. That’s why it’s so easy to have mixed feelings when questioning something so foundational.
One major issue is how easily we accepted the enormous amount of time required for schooling. And that time keeps increasing — to the point where kids are placed in daycare as early as possible and spend most of their day in educational institutions.
Yet it’s estimated that teaching a child to read takes only about thirty hours. That’s right — one hour a week, or 10–15 minutes a day, for just over six months. After that — if the Cult hasn’t cauterized the child’s natural interest — they’ll continue learning on their own, driven by curiosity and necessity.
Another tragic failure: The system doesn’t train people to become independent of it. Quite the opposite — it makes us more dependent every year. So much so that many can’t see their own worth without a certificate to prove it.
If children were free to explore their passions from a young age, they would likely become experts in something they love — developing all the basic skills they need along the way, fueled by meaning.
Yet the Cult sends future engineers to spend years memorizing facts and dates — only to forget them once they’re no longer required.
It all leads to this: the system rigs us to become employees. The better your grades, the better the employee — because you’re great at following rules.
There’s nothing wrong with being an employee. But what’s wrong with more independence? What’s wrong with people working for themselves, doing what they love? What’s wrong with not working 9 to 5? What’s wrong with creativity?
Maybe it’s because people outside the 9-to-5 system spend more time with their families — and we need kids separated from their parents. Maybe it’s because happy, fulfilled people aren’t great consumers — they need less. Or maybe it’s because happy and fulfilled people tend to be healthier.
A Way Forward.
Modern life has changed rapidly — and keeps accelerating. Today, information and education are widely available. Working from home and homeschooling are becoming more viable for more people. And these are the ideal conditions to start a change.
Not everyone will be able to act on this, but we can at least be aware of the problem. We should question what’s imposed. Because if we are supposed to be free, then nothing should be compulsory. Because compulsory is what separates free people from slaves.
It’s good to learn. But it’s better to learn because we want to. Let the kids play. Let them follow their authentic interests, instead of having the Cult’s interests forced into their minds. And let them play with their own imagination — before a screen dries it out completely.
