Vol. 116 - A Little Bit of Hope

On trying to find the sunlight during the dark, dark days

Before we get into this week’s jawn, I want to give a thanks to Zak Rosen and Slate’s parenting podcast Care & Feeding for shouting out this here newsletter in a recent episode.

I also want to give a thanks to Hard as F*cker (that’s what I call you subscribers, btw) and old pal Matt Valerio, who was the one who sent the newsletter to Zak in the first place.

My work can be extremely isolating. In fact, I’d say that, for more than 90% of my professional life, I’m sitting alone, at my desk, in a dark office in the back of my home. I write stories and newsletters and I fire them out into the world. And sometimes, it can feel like I’m shouting into the void. So to hear that these stories are connecting out in the world, that people are reading, and that it’s all having some kind of impact means the world to me. So thanks for reading, thanks for sharing, thanks for commenting.

Now, onto the jawn.

The podcast episode in which Zak shouted Being a Dad is Hard as F*ck out was all about parenting under Trump 2.0, what that means, and how we can best approach raising kind and empathetic kids in a world where hatred and fear are the message, rather than love and acceptance.

Zak referenced a very recent newsletter, one that I wrote in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s victory, one that I wrote in a time when I had little hope (to be clear, I still have little hope, perhaps even less now).

But let me tell you about a time when I did have hope.

Like many Americans, I never wanted Joe Biden to be President. In fact, the 2020 election was the first time in my adult life I voted against something rather than for something. It’s a big and important distinction. But, after spending most of my adulthood living and voting in New York and New Jersey, where my typical third-party votes didn’t have much of an impact on the election’s outcomes, living in a swing state meant that my vote could very well help decide the election (which was and remains a thrill and yet another of the hundred reasons we need to abolish the electoral college… but that’s a rant for a different newsletter). Given the stakes, I swallowed my fiercely independent pride and cast a vote against Donald Trump.

Still, like so many of us, I was thrilled when, a few weeks after election day, Biden’s victory was confirmed. America voted against hatred, fear, and cronyism and that was reason enough to party.

Emily and I grabbed our son and rushed to the streets of our little downtown to celebrate. An impromptu parade took to the streets, people honking horns, waving American flags, waving LGBTQ+ flags, hugging, dancing. Later that evening, after our son went to sleep, Emily and I had our own celebration. It’s not so much that politics make either of us horny (gross) so much as we were full of booze and joy and hope and what better time to fuck the person you love than that?

A few weeks later, we found out that Emily was pregnant. We did some rough math and realized that it was more than likely the election-night tumble that resulted in the pregnancy. And maybe that’s why our little girl is such a cannonball of sunshine; because she was conceived in the throes of love, joy, happiness, and hope.

But even though that day was full of promise, it’s now tainted by fear.

Because, as I’ve written in this newsletter before, safe access to an abortion is the only reason my daughter is here today. If that sounds complicated, please read the story. In fact, as Emily had just endured a miscarriage, we weren’t at all prepared to try for a second kid at that point.

Still, in that moment, Emily and I were full of hope for the future. And that hope resulted in one of the greatest gifts we’ve ever enjoyed.

I’m not sure what to think about a lot of things. The one thing that’s crystal clear to me, as it almost always is, is a concern for my kids.

For my daughter, I worry that she won’t enjoy the same bodily autonomy so many women before her have. For my son, I worry that he’ll internalize the messages from a place in which women are considered second-class citizens, despite what he’s taught at home.

For both of my kids, I worry that they’ll become some part of a marginalized community (as the kids of a Jewish woman, they kind of already are). If our kids grow up to be gay or queer or trans or anything other than heterosexual, cisgendered kids, Emily and I will welcome and love them exactly as we always have. But it scares the hell out of me that the country where they were born may not.

Until all of this sorts itself out, if it ever does, I’ll try and remember that day as well as any other; the day that we carried so much hope in our hearts, the day that gave us our little girl.