Young children on starships are told that if they misbehave, Worf will come into their room at night and neglect them.
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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Don’t tempt me with a good ti-…oh wait
Some people are into that
Let me put it this way.
When I was a kid I got a book at the Scholastic Book Fair. It was about a 11 year old boy who travels by himself from New York to Washington DC by train. At no point does any adult question him or threaten to call the police.
Heck, by today's standards "Stand By Me" would be rated X because it shows child abandonment.
The original Sesame Street episodes are considered unsuitable for children https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/636022/sesame-street-early-controversies
They showed a mom [Buffy St. Marie] breastfeeding her child back in 1977.
That would be considered R rating today
Whenever a child misbehaves, a transporter clone is made and the original is vaporized while the clone watches. The lessons are learned fast.
This is why it always bothered me that whether or not an unauthorized person can used the computer is dependent on episode.
In canon every console has biometric security, but there are several episodes where people, like Cardasians, just walk in and start pressing buttons.
Even in the future, people are leaving their workstations unlocked and unattended
In all fairness, you'd probably want to have overrides in case of emergency.
"Sorry captain, I can't stop the warp core from exploding, nor can I eject it because we're all turning into space lizards on account from the virus the away team picked up" is not a situation they want to find themselves in.
The cardasians being enemies with the Federation means they'd probably have spies working on finding those overrides.
Granted they didn't explain any of that, and it is 99.99% just lazy writing. But there could still be realistic in universe explanations.
The computer is probably capable of monitoring the kids. The kids know they are monitored. If you were a kid and could replicate toys to your imagination, you would be contently playing on the floor too.
Computer! Raise this child. blip boop
I not only trust my 5yo to stay unsupervised, I also trust her to keep her 2.5yo sister from drawing on the walls. Young children can be responsible if you give them the chance.
I was 4 when my sister was born. Saturday mornings I had to change her diaper and feed her a bottle before I was allowed to watch cartoons.
There was a version of 'Auntie Mame' where they showed the 10 [?] year old mixing her a Bloody Mary when she had a hangover.
Y'all just out here explaining exactly why Gen X is the Trumpiest generation
Kids in Star Trek don’t need supervision, because kids in the future are extraordinarily well-behaved.
Well… Except for that one episode…
Now, now, now, now, now, now, now, n- – Stop it; you hurt me! I want my father! I want my father!
That one? Or the one with a young Q? Or the one where Wesley gets himself the death penalty? Or when Wesley is into werewolves? Or when not-Tom Paris causes somebody to die by flying fancy? Are there episodes with children where they're not a problem? Besides that one with the drug discs, I suppose.
Oh, no, teenagers on Star Trek can be total jerks. I was just referring to little kids.
Kid Keiko making Miles super uncomfortable?
Miles was uncomfortable because of his prejudice (an understandable one), not because kid Keiko was in, any way, naughty. For the vast majority of viewers, this was our first confrontation with the idea of ageism. Especially confusing because it was presented in the reverse. Nonetheless, it maintained all of the controversial qualities of that prejudice and explored it from a common perspective.
And, although uncomfortable, Miles understood the nuance to complexity of the situation, and comforted his wife, despite his discomfort with her child form.
I thought it was actually a pretty good piece of acting from the both of them.
As a sidenote: Miles has, several times in Star Trek, in the metaphorical platform for working through prejudices in, depending on the situation, often an elegant manner. He’s often presented as the every man in a complicated situation, and we often get to see him work through such complicated social issues while both acknowledging painful past while at the same time evolving to the better man for understanding and acceptance.
Miles O’Brien, the most tortured character in Star Trek, suffers for the benefit of today’s society. For the benefit of all of us. What nobler cause could there be?
He also is keeper of the transporter buffer.
And we all breathe air
This is kinda low
and the other one where one had "imaginary friend" who turned out to be malovent and misunderstood human-offspring interaction, parenting and started attacking the enterprise out of defense for the child. the parents dint believe her, and dint moniter the child if she was just going through a phase, she was interacting with an alien that became aggressive.
But that little girl was incredibly well behaved. It’s not her fault that some alien came along and pretended to be her imaginary friend until she misbehaved to the point she got noticed.
Even then, everyone was totally shocked at the idea of a misbehaving child
The TNG Enterprise has an automatic fire suppression system. Also they mention multiple times the ship can clean itself to some degree.
So the saucer will just explode instead
Sounds much more manageable
My mom left me home by myself because I would just read. It was my idea didn't like daycare,
I was 5-6.
She'd check on me on her lunch break. I just read a bunch of comics.
If 8-year-olds can understand calculus, I think 5-year-olds can understand basic self-preservation.
I dunno. I've seen five year olds and their self preservation skills rely mostly on the ability to bounce
There is an episode I think where Troy takes them on field trip/tour of the ship, but still that would be the most boring thing ever.
Oh joy. I get let out of my pen, where I wait like Aela from Skyrim for the dragonborn to return.
Wow. More boring fucking corridors. I. Am. Thrilled.
Alternatively, imagine the holodeck just ceaselessly playing Blippi reruns.
God if phones with games on them are kid crack now wait until there's children's holodeck programs
Children already sorta live in a holodeck. While drunk.
There’s those few Voyager episodes that deal with children’s holodeck programs, where they note that even Janeway and B’Elanna grew up with the characters and stories. I find that an interesting little addition (and shows that, thank heavens, Blippi is maybe one of those things that didn’t survive WWIII and the postnuclear horror).
Also, I just started revisiting Skyrim with my older kids and that Aela joke hit me hard. A+
Actually kids are surprisingly good at taking care of themselves. In recent decades some countries have gotten paranoid, and it's sad.