The Potatoes of Defiance

I don't know, when your 17 year old says "I don't think Trump is going to be as bad as I thought," what's the right answer? Is it to praise him for a broad-thinking open-mindedness, showing an ability to take in the point of view of those he politically opposes and see them as humans with as much as stake in the survival (if not thriving) of the political, economic and social biome we all find ourselves locked in together?

OR do you remember what it was like to be 17, where your fickleness belies a spongy, uncalcified political skeleton still in the process of forming around a brain awash in a tsunamian influx of testosterone so that your only real peace in life are the raw pleasures of fried red meat and Cinemax After Dark? Where an active intervention of parental guidance can still act with orthopedic force to properly shape, mold and contour into gracile nuance?

OR do you not only acknowledge the big red button in the middle of your own political soul flashing DANGER DANGER MY GOD SO MUCH DANGER, but smash it down over and over again with a reddening, bloodying fist, unleashing the klaxon torrent of warnings, warnings, warnings against the de-crypto-ing of the crypto-fascism coagulating in the mouths and ears of the American politically interested?

The first option is obviously the one with the best long-term prospects, allowing your teenager to develop a sense of political self-reliance as part of the process of the slow severing of the parent-child dependency that started the day he first pinched a Cheerio off a high-chair tray and forced it into his own mouth, without any help or guidance from you.*

The second one is obviously middle road, not entirely dignified but corrective without being dictatorial. Unless your teaching approach involves threats to literally reconfigure your child's head, which I've seen attempted in live action, with varying levels of success.

But see, the last one seems like the worst, but who's to say it's a bad thing for your child to see you stripped of the veil of your parental composure? The reason for keeping it is usually either out of concern for your child (understanding their inherent vulnerability where seeing you unglued would signal to them that they are, immediately and potentially over the long term, suddenly outside a protection you are normally present to offer but have now been rendered incapable or unwilling to provide) or as a part of an elaborate long con where you're desperately trying to keep all your mental and emotional plates spinning on the end of some thin and shaky spindles indeed, just long enough to get them out before they can see this whole "adult" game you've been playing at was as much to fool yourself as it was them. If you're trying to hasten the process of the inversion of roles in your parent child relationship, this is probably the shortest line between those points.

Besides, did you see the press conference? What possible argument is there to not freak out more than just a little bit? The vilification and bullying of the press alone is enough of an unprecedented attack on the institutions that rein in the abuse of power to trigger totally legitimate waves of nausea-laden anxiety. And we haven't even come to the Emoluments Clause yet. Or the salacious to outright intolerable details that flowed freely from that now famous dossier released by BuzzFeed. Go on, let him see you unravel. Throw your beaten self across his (or her, depending on your offspring) shoulders and let them feel obligated to carry you for once. We all know that's where this is going eventually anyway.

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*This was not a recent development. I didn't want you to worry.