Election Day in the U.S. is almost here.
If you haven’t already, get out there and VOTE!
This is my first time voting for a presidential election in decades. I was away for most of the Bush era, missed the Obama administration completely, and wasn’t around much for the past 4 years of the Trump presidency (thank God).
I was living in Asia, in a land where the most democratic process the people got to experience was voting for their favorite singer on “Super Girl.” Unfortunately, the televised singing competition was abruptly canceled in 2011, considered by some higher-ups as too “subversive.”
Having spent much of my adult life living in a nation where I had no political power, I know what a privilege and responsibility it is to have a say in who we choose to lead us and how we choose to live together as a people.
A few weeks ago, I posted an article by Peter Gray about a 2015 survey showing that those who believed in authoritarian parenting were also the ones most supportive of Trump in the primaries. Why does Trump appeal to authoritarian parents?
Gray writes, “Trump’s projection of supreme confidence, his consistent claims to be smarter and better in all ways than anyone else, his bullying of opponents, his refusal to admit error or apologize even when proven wrong, and his simplistic proposed solutions to complex national and world problems would seem almost ideally designed to appeal to the authoritarian mindset.”
Authoritarian parenting leads to authoritarian government. This Youtube video is another insightful history lesson connecting the dots between the way we raise our kids, the kind of leaders we follow, and what we become as a culture and nation. Parenting is inherently political.
Yet I find it baffling that there are many within peaceful parenting and unschooling circles who sing the praises of Trump. Those who don’t consider themselves authoritarian at all somehow still justify their vote for him. One commenter wrote, “[Many] unschooling, health freedom groups have proved just how much [Trump] supports simple freedoms that we’ve taken for granted yet risk loosing [sic].” She listed school choice and medical freedom as a few of the reasons why she’s supportive of Trump.
This type of mindset really angers me.
Because it only makes sense if you’re rich, white, and cishet. If you’re voting to protect your own power, privilege, and rights. If you’re just about creating an idyllic little haven for you and your family and are willing to throw everyone else under the bus.
I am not that person.
I come into this parenting and unschooling work as a person of color. As someone who has been afraid to leave the house because of the rise in racist attacks against Asians. As someone who has immigrant parents on assisted medical care. As someone who sees Asian American history echoed in the inhumane treatment happening at the border right now. As someone who is considered low income. As someone who almost had to evacuate because of the raging fires in California. As someone who lives just blocks away from where a black man was shot dead by police. As someone who has friends who are LGBTQIA+.
And it is abundantly clear that Trump is not interested in protecting someone like me.
To ignore the intersectional identities and experiences of marginalized groups is to co-opt unschooling, peaceful parenting, and the principles of personal freedom to simply benefit yourself, perpetuate oppression, and defend the myth of white supremacy.
I’m not here for that.
I live and I vote as someone who is trying to decolonize and dismantle unjust systems of power, not uphold them. I live and vote not simply to protect my own rights, but to care for the most vulnerable among us.
I hope you’re here for that too.
9 Responses
Probably one of your best blog posts yet. Thank you!
Thanks for reading, Angie!
You always have just the right words, Iris. Thank you!
Not everyone thought they were the right words, but whoever has ears, let them hear. 🙂
Do you homeschool your kids? Unschool? Do you enjoy that freedom? If so, Trump is the only way to go. There have already been meetings among elite liberal universities talking about reasons homeschooling is bad. If you like having the choice to keep your kids home (among other reasons), the answer is clear. If we are voting on character flaws, there are many bad things about both men. Vote for freedom. Biden is not going to protect unschooling.
There is no way you would know if Biden is or isn’t going to “protect” unschooling. Trump promised around 100 things are the time of his election, and then dismissed half of them during his term in office. And importantly, re: children, Trump’s record shows he doesn’t protect children who are separated from their parents at the border.
Did you even read this post? My whole point is that I’m not just an unschooler. I have intersectional identities that affect me and those I love. Being Chinese American, low-income, and an ally to BIPOC and LGBTQIA+, just to name a few. I am not even talking about character flaws, I am talking about very real policies and actions by Trump that further marginalize and endanger the most vulnerable in our society.
Trump is not your everyday person. He is a rich white man who has never held accountability. It is extremely disheartening that people support him and his agenda. Trump is not working class; he is not part of America’s heartland. To those who support him for one agenda, look at his track record of anti-immigration and breaking up families, as well as his long list of anti-civil rights stances.
The existence of the state is, by nature, authoritarian as you are literally voting for someone to rule over you and make laws that dictate every aspect of your life and those around you. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you voted for Trump, Biden, or little Timmy from the third grade class at the local elementary school. They don’t care about you, just your money and your vote to keep them in power. Yes, parenting, especially unschooling/home education, are political, they are acts telling the state that it has no business dictating the development of our children’s minds, our children will not another robot who just obeys and regurgitates ‘information, information’! because it’s what they were told was right, or relevant, or necessary. Instead of keeping up this mindset of left v. right and further dividing the country, we should all come together as those who value freedom v. those that want to be controlled and want others to be controlled as well.