What Will Happen ?(asks the 12 year-old)

Notes for possible convos with tweens about anxiety, bullies, fascism, friends, mutual aid, and love.

Wednesday morning after the election. I’ve been up half the night. I knock and peek into his room. He looks up from Animal Crossing and says: “So do we know the result?”

We’d told him the night before there might not be clarity for days or even weeks. Trump wouldn’t concede. There might be legal battles. So I tell him, quietly: She lost. He stares at me, stunned. Really?

Yeah: she lost by a wide margin. 

Later, in the kitchen, he says: “What will happen?”

I didn’t know what to say. I offer a hug. 

Of course I thought about that question all week, as I watched things shudder and burn. One of the most baffling moments of being a parent is clocking the earnestness with which these questions are asked. As if there obviously has to be an answer, and since you are the source of so many things, you’ve gotta have it in your pocket.

I don’t regret that I had nothing to say. It’s always better not to make things up. But since Wednesday I've been taking some notes. And now I’ve got some answers here to test drive. They run the gamut from ideas about self-regulation, to recognizing fascism as a common human fever, to considering who you are friends with and how to fight back, and what kind of material and metaphysical support you might need on the way.

I’m definitely not going to lecture the kid with this whole list. This is for keeping in my pocket, and maybe letting one or two points come up at a time, naturally, as they need to.

My partner and I don’t put our kids in public, so this list is prompted by a question from a particular kid in a particular home, but it’s also generic. I’m not using a name or saying anything more about him other than he’s sensitive and precocious enough that these answers are age appropriate for him, but may not suit every 12 year old, but then again they may have broader appeal. Who knows. 

Here’s the question again: What will happen? 

It’s coming a 12 year-old who knows there are senseless wars going on, a genocide out in the open for everyone to see, amidst a heating climate. What will happen? 

ONE

People will have a lot of ideas about what will happen. No one fully knows. About those who speak with real certainty: they’re making things up to feel better about not knowing. Sometimes they really want you to sign on to their ideas not because they’re true but because they’ll feel better if they get validation. You don’t have to buy it.

If you don’t buy it, you can slow down on that answer, and listen for the more informed, but also cautious views. They’ll come from people who have some history on board, or who have done close work on what Trump and his flunkies have been saying and doing over the past years. 

Because we’re talking about the future, I think the best answers will take that question out of the passive voice. What will happen makes it sound like we’re tracking a hurricane, and plotting out the pathway of its damage. But we’re talking about people, so we’re really asking What will people do?

And despite everything we know about the MAGA wave, we also know that people will continue to love and care for each other and perform amazing acts of service, and perhaps they’ll do it more fiercely, with more commitment.

TWO

The other side of What will happen is “How did it happen?” And there too there will be so many ideas. Especially with this situation, because so much of it is upside down, so much doesn’t make sense. Again, with patience, the more informed views will become clearer, and no single view will hold it all: each is a piece in the puzzle. 

Looking back on this—how did she lose, why did she lose—has to be handled with care, because the focus can so easily shift into regret or blame. It’s understandable, I don’t think people can avoid these responses: they’re part of learning. But there’s a difference between an angry and instant blame that further shatters relationships, and a longer-term consideration of responsibilities. If you have a good idea of a mistake someone made in a situation like this, you might be right, but you’re not going to correct that mistake while you’re both at sea and struggling to get back to shore.

THREE

Some people will be very scared, and others will carry on more or less as before. That’s not just or mainly about personality or psychology or how tuned in people are, or different perceptions of the problem. Levels of fear are unequal because we live in an unequal society, where hardships impact people differently. The same event is happening to everyone, but the impacts are unevenly distributed. Some trans people are going into hiding this week.

One of the best things to do is to figure out why you don’t feel as scared as they do (if you don’t), and then see what you can do with all of those reasons and benefits. The grown-ups say “check your privilege” and it sounds like scolding, but what it really means is be aware that some people live in flood plains, and they have very different experiences of rain, and you can think about how to help them.

FOUR

If you are overwhelmed with anxiety, it can be (but not always) possible to narrow your focus down to the stable things around you. Sometimes I just rest my hand on a wooden desk and I think of the tree it came from, the hands of the carpenter that shaped it, the hands that shaped the carpenter’s tools, the years of growth in the tree added to the years of experience in carpenter’s body, and how all this time and growth and care came together to support my hand, which is now warming up the surface. I could go on. But the point is your question is about violent change, and I just want you to remember that there are usually firm and stable objects within your grasp that can reassure you. 

(I’ll break the fourth wall here to note that those are four points that kind of come from a neutral, dad-on-the-mountaintop wisdom-vibe perspective. But I’m not just a dad, I’m also a person and I have a bias and a politics that’s integral to my body and soul. I can’t pretend that I’m wise or above it all. I also want a kid to know me as someone who stands somewhere, even if it’s with an incomplete or flawed understanding, because that is what they’ll have to do as well. So the next points go a little harder.)