I didn’t get a call from my son on Father’s Day this year. Our political disagreements have made things hard.
I’m a 59-year-old progressive and a special education teacher, and I’m voting for Kamala Harris in November. Nick* is 21, and he would say that he holds traditional, conservative values – but he’s conflating those values with radical Maga ideas, which correlate the right with patriotism, manhood, intelligence, independence and honesty. I understand where my son’s vulnerabilities came from, and why this rightwing posturing was able to seep into him. I understand it, but I still regret it.
Nick’s mom and I wanted to teach our son that democracy is an active sport. You don’t just sit back and watch. We lived in Houston, in the belly of the petrochemical beast, and I remember going to a demonstration against Halliburton, the Iraq war, and Dick Cheney’s role in the company. Groups brought puppets – it was almost like street theater – and we rolled Nick along in his stroller. That was the community we were plugged into: artists, musicians, teachers, writers. That’s how Nick came up.
