Raising daughters in the ICE age
and other overlapping catastrophic eras
A few of the anti-ICE signs my eight year old made while I took a chemo fatigue nap next to her on the couch. When I woke up, she presented them to me very seriously. She wants to hang them around the neighborhood.
The signs say “Stop ICE,” “Stop Trump!” and “Why are we paying ICE to be f____ing idiots?! They are killing lives!”
That last one with the “f___ing” made me laugh a little. We don’t really believe in “bad words” in this house, but we have helped our kids avoid routine cursing as a nod to societal norms. A few months ago, my eight year old was having big angry feelings that just needed big angry words. We told her she can curse about two things that give her the biggest feelings without ever getting in trouble - my fucking cancer and fucking Donald Trump’s regime. She usually makes great use of this dispensation. So I was surprised she censored “fucking” in her sign. She told me she bleeped it because “little kids go on walks in this neighborhood and they might not be old enough to know bad words.”
I nodded in agreement. Of course, she is very little too. And the achingest part of myself wails that 8 is not old enough to know that ICE kidnaps people and kills witnesses. But some of those kidnapped people are children younger than my daughter. Those witnesses were doing some of the same work her own mother does. ICE is in our city. The people who should protect us from living in a country plagued by secret police- our representatives and senators - have allowed Trump’s regime to inflict ICE on our communities. They’ve decided my daughter is not too young to be exposed to ICE. And so when she asked what happened to Renee Good, I told her. And when she wanted to know why a little boy in a blue hat was all over the news, I told her that too.
We’ve had a lot of difficult conversations since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I try to frame the conversations with her age in mind. But there’s really nothing age appropriate about being a child who is afraid her mother will die and her neighbors will be kidnapped. She is simply too little. All of my daughters feel too little. The achingest part of myself wails that I am too little too.
But here we are.
And so even as I explain the broken world to them, I try to help us remember what Mariame Kaba taught me - that “hope is a discipline.” Hope is a work performed in community. I try to help them see the people doing that work. I try to help us understand how we can join in on it too. When we practice hope, we expand the potentialities of our collective present and future. Children have a better understanding of this than most adults. My 8 year old was demonstrating her understanding when she made anti-ICE flyers while sitting next to her sick, sleeping mama.
We’ll post the evidence of her hope around the neighborhood as soon as I feel well enough for a little walk.
Recently on Instagram
Me, listening to a story about a guy who insists the scope of fatherhood does not include care work. My 17 year old took the photo. I can’t stop laughing about it. But also that look sums up my feelings about (waves hands around the United States of America) so many men right now.
🎀My fancy pajamas were a sorry about the chemo! gift from my kids! 🐕 And my dog says hi!
A couple selections from The Archive
Visit The Archive to read five years of Pocket Observatory!
Meg Conley
Meg Conley
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I'm writing about my experience as a cancer patient in America.
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