Politically cheated.
Sometimes I feel cheated. Specifically, I feel politically cheated.
But hear me out as to why.
I never planned on being eyeballs-deep into American policies and relations and amendments and candidates with- jeebus– horrific skeletons in their Terrible Person closets.
Don’t get me wrong- civics class was fun. I wrote a pen pal letter to Chelsea Clinton in 1992. Heck, touring the FBI’s headquarters in D.C. was a highlight of my nerdy, nerdy, in-love-with-Mulder youth. But otherwise? I was happy to let the state senator I campaigned for represent me. Occasionally, I wrote strongly worded letters and was reasonably certain they were at least opened (if not framed as the perfect example of a concerned’s citizen’s eloquent thoughts). I had full faith in our administrations to do the jobs which I was in no way qualified for nor did I want even the slightest of bits. It was great.
And then I was politically cheated.
If I’m totally honest, I imagined that my kiddo-rearing years would be a little…quieter. (Which is a bonkers thing to have to write, but here we are.) I knew I’d worry about my kids; traffic, strangers, peer pressure, having The Talk a whole bunch, body autonomy, and buckets full of angst. You know, the normal stuff parents lose sleep over at 2 a.m.
I didn’t know how much time would be dedicated to petitions. Strongly worded letters about gun control and immigration and trans people and SCIENCE and national parks and sexual assault and human rights and torture and black people not getting killed and lockdown drills and swastikas and- holy crap– children in cages.
Eloquent or not, letters (and rallies and “conversations” and general stress over general awareness) like these pile up on your frontal lobe and crush your ability to remember your own dang name, let alone…do anything else.
Here’s the thing. Is it the worst thing in the world that I’ve been politically cheated and forced to become politically active? No. Not by a long shot.
But are the reasons why these things have taken up residence in my brain (and heart) the worst things in the world? Oh my God, yes.
Right after the midterm elections…
…A well-known Twitter troll tweeted something along the lines of how, for 99 percent of people, our day to day lives won’t really change. (And no, I’m not linking to a hate-mongerer, thankyouverymuch.) And I guess things really won’t be all that different.
As long as you’re white.
And male and straight and Christian and upper middle class and bulletproof.
And as long as none of your loved ones or neighbors are darker-skinned or practice a different religion or happen to love a partner who looks nothing like yours.
It would also be helpful to not need great amounts of oxygen or unpolluted land or, you know, well-defined coasts.
So yes, some people will definitely be fine.
But I was raised better than that. (And for those straining to hear in the back- YOUR JESUS EXPECTS BETTER THAN THAT.)
I acknowledge my own privilege in even writing this all down. Because I am white. Safely middle class. In a globally acknowledged heterosexual relationship wherein we both work from our occasionally affordable home (and have the ability to close out the outside world when things get too gross).
And as for feeling politically cheated?
I think parents have always felt cheated, politics notwithstanding. War-time spouses wondering when it’s not going to feel so terrifyingly hard. People of color praying their children make it home safely. I imagine my own grandmother got to a point of- Either drop the damn bomb or don’t, but knock it off with the under-the-desk drills.
Maybe the world has always been a rough place to raise a child. And maybe we plan playdates and road trips and sushi date nights in front of reality TV to make our existence feel a little smaller. Maybe momentarily safer.
But I do know that I no longer worry about “feeling fulfilled” in my work.
I worry that my work no longer fulfills basic needs in my community. Am I doing enough? Nope. (Is it okay to feel overwhelmed and fall asleep with a blanket on your head and then wake up ready to try again the next day? …Yep.)
Trust me, I miss writing solely about the weirdo things my kids say and do, and getting weepy about birthdays and milestones.
But lately I’ve been way too weepy about how we’re armed to the teeth, yet people’s babies are still being murdered. (It’s a ‘walking and chewing gum’ kind of thing- I can weep over both.)
I think I’ve realized over the past two years that “politics” are no longer things to be done and solved and talked about by “other people.”
Because, yes, parenthood’s hard. But adulthood’s harder.
And our nation needs some more adults.
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