Judgment, Passion, and Youth
My daughter and I argue. A lot.
My daughter hung up on me last night. Shortly after calling me a white supremacist.
I’m pretty sure I’m not one of those, but I don’t begrudge her the thought. She is a young woman outraged by the inequities and the cruelties of our society, which I agree are far too common. She believes fervently in a better path. Call it idealistic, call it naive, call it whatever you want, but she is sincere. And you’d be correct in guessing that her emotions run strong.
I love it. And I love her for it.
But, as with parents everywhere, I want to protect my children. Soften their disappointments. Shield them from pain, especially pain inflicted from sources outside their own choices. So when she says “Well, actually. . .” and proceeds to spout ideas that need the best of human nature to work, well, I feel compelled to dampen her hopes lest she find herself bitter in later years. (I know, I know, I’m ignoring all available evidence on human behavior and parent-child dynamics in the faint and certainly vain hope that she’ll find wisdom in my words and moderate her expectations.)
Last night’s conversation was about a recent poll that showed only about a third of young voters were planning to vote in our Presidential election. Frankly that just flummoxes me. I believe we almost always use the power we have, and this finding flies in the face of that bedrock assumption. Especially since young people have to live with the consequences of elections far longer than people my age. So I conclude that either these voters see no material difference between Biden and Trump or they just don’t care. Or they feel like they need to make a statement to show how unhappy they are with the admittedly uninspiring choice this Presidential election offers us.
I’m no Biden rooter: I voted for Klobuchar in the primary in 2020, although it was a toss-up with Buttigieg (tiebreaker was electability — I thought the US would elect a woman as President before we’d choose a gay man). But anyone who thinks Trump is a better choice for our country than Biden is delusional. Or highly invested in their privilege and selfish enough to sacrifice millions of other people to retain it.
And if they don’t care, well, then they’re just passengers on our communal ship, which is a bigger problem than this election.
Where my daughter and I parted polite company last night was when I said protesting by withholding a vote is childish. On reflection I stand by that statement. There are only two people who can win the Presidency in 2024, and if you don’t vote for one of them you’re opting out. Like the people who don’t care. But if you’re in this third group you do care, and you’re throwing a temper tantrum. It’s like being given a choice for dinner between green beans, which you really don’t like, and cauliflower, which will make you vomit, and instead choosing ice cream. You have zero chance of getting ice cream, but by choosing it you’re increasing the chances of getting cauliflower.
And lest you think, like my daughter, that I’m condescending in my assessment, know that I voted for third-party candidates for President in three of my first five elections. I sure showed the powers that be, didn’t I?
My daughter is well read. So am I. She’s thought a lot about societal structures and economic systems. So have I. And I have 38 more years of observations and experiences to call on. I say that as fact, not as a mic drop to prove that my thoughts are superior because of my relative longevity. But it’s also true that I’m not uneducated on the topics we discuss. I think sometimes she feels that because I haven’t read the specific thinkers she cites that I’m ignorant or can’t see truth because of my biases. If true, that would be a significant blind spot for her.
I’m not at my best in live conversations, because I am not as articulate in the moment as I want to be. My thoughts are almost always filled with nuance too, and I struggle to communicate them precisely when I don’t have time for reflection. Throw in some emotion, some youthful impatience, and a sense that she knows better than me, and the conversations with my daughter don’t always end civilly.
The main reason that her angry disparagements roll off my back is that she is very much like me when I was her age. I am now more than a little chagrined about it, but when the 1980 Census data is released it will show me to be African-American. I am not currently Black, nor was I at twenty. But I had more than a few misguided ideas about race at the time, and when I heard a panel on a BET talk show assert that black people would be undercounted in the Census, well, I felt a statement needed to be made. It wasn’t the only reason for filling in that bubble, but it was the catalyst for it.
I also stormed out of a discussion with good friends about Korean Airlines flight 007, which had been shot down on my 23rd birthday by Russian jets after entering Russian airspace. 269 people died. I wouldn’t accept any justifications for it. I know now that I would almost certainly do the same thing should any airplane big enough to carry megatons of explosives entered US airspace, particularly after 9/11, but at the time it seemed senseless. And any suggestion to the contrary blinded me with rage.
So I get where she’s coming from.
Plus I love her, and we always forgive the people we love.
I sure hope she feels the same way.
