Love to Los Angeles
On parenting, police-states, and reactivity
I’ve been thinking, no surprises here, about state repression and parenting.
Specifically, how the right has made an entire politics out of what I essentially think of as my worst, most reactive moments as a parent.
When I am not getting my kiddo to brush his teeth, and I grab at the brush.
When he runs off, after my fourth time telling him it’s time to go, and I grab at his wrist.
Sometimes – he’s crushing his infant brother! he’s running around with a sharp implement! – decisive physical intervention is very much needed.
But sometimes I’m just losing my own temper because I’m (also) frustrated, feeling urgency, or missing an easier and more effective way of handling things.1 I trample into the room and make things worse.
V & I have a system for these moments, which is to try to tap in or out in these moments we sense ourselves becoming reactive – to let the parent who is feeling less reactive have a go, in that moment.
Mayor Wu put it this way today, in a brilliant (and utterly serious) bit of shade:
"My advice to Tom Homan and ICE is to take a time out. Reassess what you are doing and how you are doing it. A little friendly advice from the safest major city in the country."
When you are feeling reactive, it is so fucking annoying to be tapped out, or have anyone tell you to stop, or calm down, along your rampage.
The right self-soothes through coercion and control of others.
Reactionary politics are forged from, and in turn forge, reactive bodies.
All of these in-depth profiles on “right-wing men of the moment” – from Curtis Yarvin to Elon Musk to J.D. Vance– it’s dad stuff all the way down. Stern, authoritarian, disappointed dads; absent dads; mad dads and bad dads. Sad!
It is sad. And it’s a catastrophe for others.
The Right is right that there is a crisis in the American family: it’s dads who don’t know how to regulate themselves, and who instead self-soothe through coercion and control – whether within the home, or outsourced as a politics.
I love Rebecca Solnit’s writing here2, brilliant as always:
"In mainstream discourse, it's become standard to blame the excesses of the right on liberals, the left, feminists, Black Lives Matter, affirmative action, environmental protection, and BIPOC and LGBTQ people. It's a way that the right is granted masculine prerogatives and the left feminine responsibilities for the right's behavior. It's also routine to blame the Democratic Party for what the Republican Party does. The two parties are unconsciously regarded as akin to a husband and wife in a traditional marriage in which it's the job of the wife to placate and soothe the husband and help him realize his goals or be held responsible for his outbursts and outrages."
This kind of framing will be important as the Trump regime attempts to blame others for the violent crisis it is itself manufacturing, all in order to justify further repression. Let’s not fall for it.
Care to you all in this moment as always,
Adam
p.s. Some great satire from Zach Woods, if you need a (dark) laugh right now.
If you’re interested in hearing an honest discussion from more dads about how we deal with emotions like anger, frustration, and rage while parenting, check out my dear friend Matt Rose on the Milkless podcast here. (I admit the conversation was utterly foreign to me on first listen, when my sweet child was not yet 3 – oh my how quickly it all changes 😂😢.)