The concept of autonomy is used in political contexts concerning nations or governments respectively, as well as with regard to a single person. It is the latter I am interested in here.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines autonomy as "the right of self-government" or, "self-directing freedom and especially moral independence." As human beings, we live in communities and/or societies. So, the meaning of "autonomy" has to be connected to our living together with other people. It is not to be confused with other concepts such as egoism or autocracy; we are not living in a social void.
But this is the mistake many people seem to believe in: first comes the individual, second the family, third the community, and so forth. As if the individual would be first standing on her own, and only then, second learn all the rules of behavior of all different social groups. To exist as a separate entity, without connection to and dependence on anybody else, is not autonomy - this would be called solipsism. It is an atomistic view of the self; a state of loneliness and despair.
"Self-directing freedom," in the first place, is a matter of "making one's own decisions" (whatever the subject may be). Decisions can be good or bad; it depends on the availability of information relevant to the subject. Of course, we never know if we know what there is to know, concerning the respective matter - autonomy also means, we are free to make our own mistakes. And, we are free to decide about our priorities.
Personal freedom, autonomy, is not contradictory to society in general; although it may be so with regard to certain kinds of society. The social world we live in is not only the frame to our personal decisions; it is this world we get almost all our ideas from. From childhood on, we depend on others. Becoming adults, does not mean to end any dependence, instead we grow into a net of inter-dependence. Growing up, we become more and more a part of this net. Which part exactly, depends on ourselves - that means autonomy. This may sound easy, but it is not: there are conditions.
As a child, we learn more and more about "how things are done." At school, we learn the "basic techniques" of our culture, such as reading, writing, counting; we don't have much of a choice here (and, usually, children are eager to start school, because this is the normal way of becoming an adult). Then comes a big decision: what will be my part in society, what profession do I take? But, to be able to make this decision, we must have a real choice. Without this, we are not free; we are not an autonomous person.
The crucial point about autonomy is the condition of being "well-informed." There are two sides to this: One is, we need to know everything there is for being able to make such an important decision. The modern societies we live in do not provide for this. In fact, they wouldn't be able to do so if they wanted; the area of professions is much too complicated. School would have to teach about all existing professions, but could never be showing the complete list of possibilities. Besides that, it wouldn't be sufficient to just tell about professions in the abstract - they'd have to be experienced. People had to be watched by doing whatever their job is, so that teenagers could get the real image.
The other side is about, how we are brought up, in the first place by our parents and close relatives or teachers at (nursery) schools. Do we grow up in an open, loving, decent atmosphere? This will teach us a lot about ourselves, about relationships, and the (not only social) world in general. But if we grow up in a social climate where people mostly are not aware of themselves, they won't be able to give us the necessary reflection. As a consequence, we won't be able to learn much about ourselves. If we don't get to know ourselves, we cannot see what kind of profession would be the right for us to take. Worse, without any guiding lines from within ourselves, we must take them from outside. That is the reason why authorities play far too big a role in modern societies, and also why so many people just ask about how much money they can earn, instead of asking themselves what kind of life would make them happy.
Speaking in general: Where a child is not free to get to know herself, the adult will not be able to lead an autonomous life.
Living autonomously, is an innate need. We see this in very young children already - they want to do whatever they get the idea of doing it, following adults' examples. Adults know how to handle things (at least from a child's perspective), so they are watched very closely. Children want to do things on their own as soon as possible: dressing themselves, combing their hair, brushing their teeth. They want to help as soon as they take interest in whatever there is: sweeping, cooking, baking, setting the table, fixing the bicycle, and so on. In trying to do this, they will make many mistakes (and they will often not go through with it, their capacity of focusing on a task is still small) - it takes a lot of exercise to develop all the capacities needed for life. And, it takes a lot of time. Children learn when they are able to follow their impulses; they have their own rhythm of time and progress.
Unfortunately, we live in societies where too many adults already don't have the time and therefore lack the patience that is needed for letting children grow. More often than before, children are left at nursery schools (at a younger age than ever, sometimes before they are even one year old), because parents have to work much longer outside their homes. Of course, to grow up, children don't need their parents every single minute - but when they need them, they should be able to reach them, especially the very young. A school teacher who has to take care of many children at the same time, is no good substitute - in some kinds of situation, none at all. And, a nursery school has its own timetable; it can, of course, not match all the different rhythms of all the different children.
To become self-aware, a child needs reflection from adults. This reflection has to match the given situation; any adult person needs time and patience for that task. I don't see how anybody who works under an agenda set by other people or compelling circumstances, could manage this (and I know that a lot of people try very hard to do so). If you can't get late to work because you work at a machine, or because other people need your being in time for doing their own work, etc., you cannot take time to deal wisely with a child who just this morning decided not to go to nursery school today. There may be something wrong with nursery school; your child may be in a bad mood; or, he or she planned something else for the day. Whatever the case, you'd need time to find out, especially about the feelings and emotions your child may be confronted with. They have to be named, they have to be connected to the situation, to the child's motives, whatever. Maybe, after some time, you find out, your child doesn't feel well with having to wear the blue sweater instead of the red which unfortunately is in the laundry. (You may think, this is ridiculous - I can assure you, for a child it is not.) If you cannot take the time to find out exactly what is going on, you will dismiss the situation and hurt your child, on the one hand - on the other hand, he will not learn anything about his own psychological or emotional events. Instead, he learns that what he needs doesn't matter to you, even though you don't mean this.
There is a second point. However you will handle the situation, the outcome (unless your child is sick) has to be that you get to work in time. You may try as hard as you like not to, but sooner or later you will force your child to do what she doesn't wants to (persuasion may be worse than a command, because the child is also forced into consenting). You have no choice.
The third point is: Having to work on a job, there is not much time left for housework. That means, there will be fewer time to let children help, because this would cost even more time than if you'd do it on your own. The opportunities for a child to experience her own capacity for being able to learn what needs to be learned, are more and more restricted. What is to be learned at school, is not visibly a contribution to society, so from the perspective of a child it seems a needless task (with the exception of very basic faculties that are used at home); it feels like postponing the real life.
We not only impose our adult "life of timetable" on our children, we also keep them from learning things by watching people doing them. Out of our homes, children are usually not confronted with examples about what an adult life looks like; they can almost only watch people teaching about subjects these people don't exercise (but, because they are part of this, I doubt they could at the same time take the position of an observer). And the example of teaching is only one out of hundreds of possibilities for a work life. When it comes to making the decision concerning this, our children don't have the slightest clue about what it means to work in regard to a lot of different jobs (and a lot of wrong ideas about the kinds of work they indeed see people doing, because they only see parts of it). This must be a real threatening situation. I know that in Germany many young people experience it like that (I myself remember having ignored the feeling at the time; I was usually faking I'd know what I want without being aware of this habit). Because every country has its "stock" of jobless people, there is a lot of fear of being left behind. But fear is never a good adviser.
We exclude children from our everyday life instead of letting them take a part in it the way they needed to. We bring them up, instead of letting them grow (with the required help, of course). That is not only how we obstruct their autonomy, we also set in motion a fight about power. Because a child, who has not only the need to acting autonomously (e.g. finding out things on his own impulse, instead of being taught in the abstract), but also the need to acting obediently (because adults know how to handle things), gets into a big conflict when these two needs cannot be matched. He or she will struggle to follow the inner needs. By the very structure of our societies, we cause this kind of clash.
Children are so dependent that adults can do a lot of harm without even recognizing. Most parent's don't like their children to protest, because what they want them to do seems to be so very sensible. So they dismiss the child's protest as an exercise in "testing her will," "wanting the power," or else. Often, a feeling of guilt indicates they are wrong. Unfortunately, ignoring it is a usual pattern of reaction to this feeling - instead, the child is made to understand what parents force her to do by reasoning (so, that it doesn't look like force). Parents often tell themselves, "a child must learn he cannot always have what he wants," and other things like that.
For a child, who is too young to overlook the situation, let alone to being able to include other perspectives into the discussion than his very own, this means another fight for power. And the power, up to a certain age, is always with the parents.
Sooner or later, protest against wrong treatment will be given up, a child cannot afford to lose the parent's love or affection. The hurt may be forgotten, but it will not go away. It tells, subconsciously, the "truth" about the world: The world is cruel, and a matter of who has the power; what I want or need, is not important to others; what I am able to do, and what I can't, likewise. I can only rely on myself - other people may hurt me. I must stay alert. And so on. Under the circumstances, the logical reaction. (Of course, if things like the above mentioned examples happen only "once in a while", they won't have a fatal impact. But for a lot of children, this is the usual experience already; and because of increasing economical problems, and therefore growing emotional distress for everybody, more and more children get more and more hurt just because of the circum-stances.)
Under such conditions, a child will not stick to what is his own; only what the parents approve of, can be held on to. Puberty becomes the next opportunity to correct this; but usually parents will go on fighting their children's needs. Because teenagers already learned that arguments primarily are about power, only secondarily about the thing in question, they will fight about not only stupid, but sometimes dangerous things. The damage done is also a problem for the parents: they are in no position for trusting their teenagers to be able to handle possibly dangerous situations - the adolescent is focused on finally deciding things on her own, no matter what.
The subconscious "truth" will guide the life - a lot of bad decisions may come out of that. And, a lot of unsocial behavior, too: cooperating will be confused with being forced to do what another person wants. Caring for one's own needs will be seen as a matter of power. Being dependent (now and then) on the help of other people, will create a feeling of helplessness. Not few people aren't even able to ask another person for help, because they feel ashamed of themselves. Acting out of consideration for the situation (or needs) of other people, will be confused with submission.
Growing up, children are already influenced by a social world. As long as this world is matching the needs of the developing child, a friendly, cooperating person will be the outcome. We all know this from our own experience - where we are welcome, where someone provides for our needs and is not trying to make us do what we don't want to, we help others not only with pleasure, but out of our own free will. But if we destroy autonomy in our children, we foster a social world where everybody mistrusts everybody else, fights against other people, is only interested in her own (material) well-being. This fight, at the same time, will be mistaken as the fight for independence. The only way of creating a fair and decent society is through encouraging people's, especially children's, autonomy.
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