Let’s Go

On August 29, 1939 Angela‘s parents told her to pack a bag, that she and her two younger brothers were leaving Campobasso, the Italian town where the family had lived for as many generations as anyone could remember. You can bring whatever you can fit into a suitcase, her parents told her; you have 20 minutes. 

At 15 years of age, Angela had not been following politics or world events. Like adolescents in all times and all places, Angela was more concerned with school, weekend plans with friends, and her responsibilities helping out in the family business.

She did as she was told, picking clothes and books to take with her. No questions, no backtalk.

Which turned out to be a good idea—emigrating. Because three days later, the Nazis invaded Poland and leaving Italy became impossible. Tens of thousands of Italians who did not have a friend in the government to warn them about the upcoming invasion, were murdered. After being starved, beaten, and tortured in “work camps” that became death camps. Angela’s family was lucky to get the requisite information, but they were also smart. Waiting in Camposbosso to sell their home and business would have ensured their deportation and death. After traveling for three weeks by train, steam ship, and bus, they arrived in Uruguay with few possessions and an uncertain future. But the family had each other and their freedom.

***

For 40 years, I have worked with families whose children refuse to follow any instructions big or small. Put away your laundry, give me a hand of the dishes, take the trash buckets out to the street, turn off that violent video game and come eat with the family. Every request is met with rolled eyes, distain bordering on contempt, and ultimately abject refusal. Help set the table? Are you kidding? It’s all I can do to get our 15-year-old to leave his room. He frequently refuses to go to school and when he does go his behavior is so outrageous that he doesn’t learn anything.

There are at least two theories about how kids become so oppositional, defiant, and hard to live with. One school of thought suggests that parents of O.D.D. kids were too lenient early on, and that as a result, Junior does not feel that he has to comply with chores, school, or being a contributing member of the family. The other idea is that parents were too harsh, and that as a result of their being controlling Junior refuses to comply with chores, attend school, or be a contributing member of the family.

A more insightful author than I could discuss what parenting style is more likely to produce kids who refuse to listen and for whom every conversation is an escalating pointless mean-spirited argument. And I can’t pretend to know what confounding factors contribute to the unfortunate outcome.

I’m just writing this week to remind my community that at the end of the day parents must have the ultimate authority about life-threatening issues. Your kids have to understand that seatbelts, bike helmets, and abstaining from nicotine and opioids – – in short, staying safe – – are not negotiable. If you had to say, pack a bag, we are leaving the country in a few hours, your child must say I’ll be ready in 20 minutes rather than leave me alone, you’re always telling me what to do, you’re not the boss of me. In this dire circumstance, compliance equals survival; denial results in death.

My feeling is that children have to know that what you want for them is good for them, not necessarily good for you. Being proud of your kids is one thing. Basking in reflected glory is an SAT score of another color. If you’re telling your friends what grades your daughter got on her math test, you might want to give the question of cui bono—who benefits—some thought. 

Discuss politics at Thanksgiving; save money on Christmas presents. Families are tearing themselves apart recently. Discussions of presidential candidates are so emotionally laden as to defy description. Needless to say as a professional counselor, I focus on helping adolescents and their families choose and apply to college. I so not allow the counseling sessions to wander. There is nothing more inappropriate than an adult forcing ideas on those entrusted to their care. A counselor‘s sacred duty is to listen. If I am doing my job properly, my students do not know my opinions on Ukraine, abortion, immigration, religion, capital punishment, oligarchies, or any other controversial topic.

I work with students from every spot on the political spectrum. Some 17-year-olds have strong opinions; others don’t know who the president is. My job is to help them choose and apply to college with as little anxiety as possible. It’s not my place to tell them what to think or for whom to vote.

But listening has informed me that my LGBTQ and trans young people are expressing that they no longer feel safe in the United States, that their very identities are at risk. These young people are thinking of a Plan B, an exit strategy. Some of my liberal students have also confided that they would prefer not to study in the United States, that their reproductive rights and their bodily autonomy will no longer be respected. And my international students say they are concerned about being able to come back to the United States after they go back home to Europe or Central America for the summer.

Last week my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, revoked the F-1 Visas of six students and seven faculty members. These people will have to leave this country immediately. About a dozen students at Johns Hopkins University, where my older son is an oncology fellow, had their visa records terminated. These instances at institutions where I have a deeply personal connection make this situation especially real for me.

The fictional Prime Minister of Britain in “The Diplomat” has a line of dialogue that resonates. Talking to American politicians about an hypothetical invasion of the United States, he says “In Britain, we don’t have to envision being attacked, we remember it.”

Children in this country have never had to consider the possibility of leaving their homes. But with the recent illegal detention of a young person with no criminal record, everything has changed. Abrego Garcia was a test case. It is now possible for anyone–citizens, students with green cards, permanent residents–to be arrested for no reason. Which should make all loving parents think about the unlikely but non-zero possibility of leaving the U.S. on short notice.

A commentator recently pointed out that Auschwitz was not located in Germany but in Poland, just as the horrific CECOT prison in El Salvador where Garcia currently resides is not in the United Sates. Many citizens feel that Miami, New York, or San Francisco in 2025 have something in common with Campobasso in 1939. Residents of Los Angeles keep a pair of thick shoes, a bottle of water, and a flashlight next to their beds. They aren’t hoping for an earthquake, but they aren’t deriding the value of an uncashed insurance policy either. The possibility that your child could end up beyond your reach incarcerated in a foreign country is no longer beyond the realm of possibility.

My best advice for ensuring that your children are willing to go if the need arises is to let go of everything less important–grades on their math test, perfectly clean rooms for example–and focus primarily on that which might be most important–being ready to leave the country on short notice in the unlikely event that it becomes necessary. We owe it to our beloved children to make sure that they can hear us if we have something critical to say.