The main justification for the subjugation of young people in our culture is presumed mental disability. Like disabled adults, young people are subject to legal disenfranchisement on the basis of cognitive difference. The rationale for this denial of autonomy rests on the assumption that a person who requires support from others in order to thrive cannot also be a person deserving of rights. Personhood and autonomy are concepts reserved for those who can maintain the illusion of complete independence and self-sufficiency. As such, ageism against young people and ableism are deeply interconnected.
The analogous relationship between children and mentally disabled adults in our legal proceedings dates back at least as far as feudal England, when the courts declared that the King was responsible for all “infants, idiots, and lunatics” in his nation. Under American law, that responsibility was passed from the King to the State, but the underlying theoretical framework remained the same, and has since been upheld multiple times. The law allows for the state to act in parens patriae, a Latin term which means “parents of the country,” in order to assume parent-like control of both young people and mentally disabled people. Historically, parens patriae power has been used in the courts to assert dominance over indigenous communities and reinforce the power of the police state.
Conservatorship or guardianship is one of the most glaring examples of disenfranchisement for disabled adults, and the most analogous to the legal status of children. In recent years, Britney Spears’ legal battle against her own conservatorship has brought this issue into the mainstream consciousness. The American Civil Liberties Union stresses that guardianship should only be used when all other available options have been exhausted, and advocates at the NCAPPS argue implementing legal guardianships instead of person-centered strategies like supported decision making can negatively impact the conservatee’s sense of agency, self-worth, and well-being. Despite this, guardianships are frequently granted by the courts with little to no consideration of alternative measures under the assumption that disabled adults lack the capacity to direct their own lives.
Similarly, the Supreme Court has decreed that, when it comes to the rights of people under the age of 18, “The law’s concept of the family rests on a presumption that parents possess what a child lacks in maturity, experience, and capacity for judgment required for making life’s difficult decisions.” This decision has been successfully cited and upheld in the years since it was established. Legal scholars writing for the Yale Law Journal refer to this legal framework as the “authorities framework,” a theory based in common property law that effectively designates children as the property of their parents. They argue that the authorities framework has four glaring shortcomings. It fails to acknowledge the richness of children’s current lives by viewing them solely in terms of their dependence on adults. Within this legal framework, children exist in a state of developmental disability awaiting the enlightenment of adulthood, “always in the act of becoming full persons but not necessarily full persons in their own right.” An emphasis on the sanctity of parental rights necessarily limits the recognition of children’s rights over their own lives.
Because a parent’s right to make decisions regarding their child is seen as an extension of their own autonomy, any proposed legal protections for children can be construed as a threat to parental autonomy. An explosion of legal efforts have been made, including in the Texas Supreme Court and the Wyoming House of Representatives, to expand parents’ alleged right to have complete control over their children’s lives. The authorities framework’s emphasis on family privacy and nonintervention essentially place children outside of the law’s reach. While children are affected by the law in many ways, including the law’s denial of their capacity to make their own decisions, they cannot rely on the law for any protection from parental oppression and overbearing control. Finally, the framework’s overreliance on binary distinction between autonomy and dependency reduces children to their legal status and prevents the recognition of children as nuanced individuals with nuanced needs.
This tension between autonomy and dependency is the same one that marks the struggle for disability justice. Within our current rise of conservatism we see abuse against a disabled adult by her parent defended as a “choice of evils” while research for disabled parents is defunded. Some researchers specializing in the rights of people with intellectual disabilities have come to the conclusion that in order to confront ableism and give disabled people a fully realized place in the world, we need to reconceptualize our understanding of what individual autonomy means, and stop casting it as somehow incompatible with being dependent on others. They contend that if we view a person’s autonomy as hinging on specific intellectual capacities, we fail to recognize intellectually disabled people as autonomous subjects in their own lives, a failure that upholds structural inequality and leaves intellectually disabled people at risk of institutionalization, disempowerment, and lack of equal opportunity. When we view children’s autonomy as dependent on specific intellectual capacities, we do them the same disservice.
The United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons discusses autonomy as a human right specifically in the context of individual autonomy, which doesn’t take into account the ways in which disabled people may achieve autonomy relationally, both in spite of and through their dependence on others. Whether the intellectual difference comes from a developmental disability or being in a specific developmental stage, both disabled adults and children suffer under the assumption that dependency on others is inversely proportional to how much autonomy a person deserves. Some governments have not even reconciled themselves with the UN’s limited outline of disability rights; out of the 193 member nations in the UN, the United States is one of only eight that have failed to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Similarly, to this day, the United States remains the only member nation that has not ratified the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Basic suffrage is another right of citizenship that both disabled adults and young people are systematically denied. In a review of children’s place under the law published by the Harvard Educational Review, children and institutionalized adults are recognized as the only two groups who are made to be entirely dependent on the choices of others, both in their daily lives and in the voting booth. And while federal law bans people under the age of eighteen from exercising their voting rights, a collection of state laws serve to restrict the voting rights of disabled adults as well. It’s relevant to note that voting age restrictions were only lowered from age 21 to age 18 due to the lowering of the draft age during World War II, which eventually led to 18 becoming the official voting age in 1971.
Proponents of this change highlighted the hypocrisy of telling 18, 19, and 20-year-olds that they were old enough to be shipped out and shot at in the name of this country, but not old enough to vote on this country’s issues. This line of reasoning is solid, and it successfully won young adults the vote after decades of deliberation. However, this rationale and its widespread acceptance also underline a belief that has become a cornerstone of our political culture – in order to deserve the right to vote, you have to make yourself useful. Young adults didn’t win the vote because they were American citizens the same as anyone else. They won the vote because they put their lives on the line to benefit the American empire. If World War II had never necessitated a lowering of the draft age, there’s a good chance that the voting age would still be 21 today.
This begs the question – what about people who can’t serve at any age? What about disabled people who aren’t eligible for the draft? When legal rights and personal autonomy hinge on a person’s capacity to be useful or independent, we exclude the most vulnerable members of our society from full personhood. Our legal frameworks and cultural concepts of autonomy and independence need to be reworked in order to protect people with intellectual differences, whether those differences are due to disability or age.
The National Youth Rights Association
If you’re interested in Youth Rights, consider volunteering with us. We are always looking for new members and would love to have you on board. If you have a personal story to share illustrating the intersection between ableism and ageism, or about a general youth rights violation, consider sending us an email at nyra@youthrights.org. We’d love to help get your story out to the world.
The text of The Intersection Between Ableism and Ageism © 2026 by EJ Douglas is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
