Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam speaks to the media about new national security legislation on June 30, 2020 in Hong Kong, China.Anthony Kwan/Getty Images
China passed new national security legislation Tuesday, further extending its reach into Hong Kong and giving Beijing greater power to crack down on a wide range of expression, including protesters and Democratic activists in the former British colony. The measure was sped through a secretive legislative process, unanimously voted for, and signed off on by Chinese President Xi Jinping, but very little is known about the exact contents of the law that is expected to widely suppress civil liberties, bringing the territory more in line with the Communist Party’s control of daily life on the mainland. Despite the lack of clarity over what exactly the new law will forbid, Hong Kong’s Beijing-friendly leader Carrie Lam said it would go into effect at midnight Tuesday, the same day of its passage. That means the so-called “national security” law will be operational in time for the July 1 anniversary of the British handover of Hong Kong back to China in 1997, a day that is a lightning rod for pro-democracy protests.
The law is notionally framed as an anti-terrorism bill, aimed at preventing and punishing anti-Beijing activities and speech, and branding those groups as collaborators with foreign governments. Since its return to China, Hong Kong has enjoyed a parallel existence to the mainland, engaging in local democratic elections and maintaining wide swath of civil liberties, including freedom of speech. Beijing, however, has been slowly reeling in these protections in the city-state that has responded with sweeping protests over the past two years that, before the spread of the coronavirus, had already brought the territory to a standstill. “According to a summary of draft provisions released this month, the law allows the central government to supervise the policing of subversive activities in Hong Kong, and in some cases, intervene directly,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The standing committee of China’s National People’s Congress would also reserve the right to interpret the law, meaning Beijing has the final say over how it is implemented, rather than the city’s courts.”
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The specter of the legislative change has already had a significant and desired chilling effect in the territory. “Twitter users [-] deleted their accounts en masse. Political parties disbanded, including the one founded by democracy activist Joshua Wong. Restaurants and cafes removed posters showing their support for the movement,” the Washington Post reports. “Though details remained vague, the legislation will allow Chinese secret police to operate in Hong Kong and target those perceived to hold secessionist views.”
Democratic activists see the new law, which will ultimately be interpreted by Beijing, as just the latest step in its dissolution of the terms of the agreement of Hong Kong’s handover. “A new office in Hong Kong would deal with national security cases, but would also have other powers such as overseeing education about national security in Hong Kong schools,” the BBC reports. “In addition, the city will have to establish its own national security commission to enforce the laws, with a Beijing-appointed adviser.”
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Episode Notes
Lauren already knows the plot of her bestselling novel—the problem is she hasn’t written a word. Paralyzed by self-criticism and an earlier rejection, this former English major has spent years journaling instead of attempting the scary, difficult work of creative writing. On this episode of How To!, we turn to writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner, whose debut novel Fleishman Is in Trouble, was one of the hottest books of the year. Can she help Lauren finally put pen to paper? The first thing Lauren needs to do, Taffy says, is stop journaling, and start writing. And then keep writing: “You can’t get to the good sentences if you don’t write the bad ones first.” Next, find a trusted reader, not a cheerleader, to give you honest feedback. And when doubt begins to creep in again, look at the writers you admire and simply ask, “Why them and not me?”
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Danny is online weekly to chat live with readers. Here’s an edited transcript of this week’s chat.
Q. Breastfeeding weirdness: One of my co-workers, “Kristen,” has recently given birth, and she frequently breastfeeds on Zoom calls. She says that it is the best way to keep the baby quiet, but due to camera angles and movement you can sometimes see her breast, or part of it, as the baby feeds. One of our co-workers is really creepy about it behind Kristen’s back. In a separate chat, about a different project Kristen isn’t involved in, he told us he had taken screenshots. Although he backed down and said he was just kidding when I challenged him, he makes jokes about her sexual attractiveness and how lucky the baby is. I told him he was disgusting and I didn’t want to hear anymore, which he has gone along with—although he said I had no sense of humor—but other people say he still says things to them.
How do I deal with this? I can’t imagine telling Kristen, who is very sweet and prim, about it, and I don’t want her to feel awkward or that she can’t feed the baby. Would it be OK to just pass on the screenshots I took of him being gross in the chat, even though it was a semiprivate conversation, to our supervisor? Although I told him to stop in there and he did, so I don’t know if the supervisor would do anything. Other people have said it isn’t my business and I should just let it go, but that doesn’t feel right.
A: I think your co-worker has made it your business. You didn’t ask for this information—he volunteered it cheerfully during a conversation about a work project. Moreover, he’s only stopped talking about it to you, and is still making lewd and unprofessional comments about Kristen’s body to the rest of her colleagues, which makes it clear that he’s uninterested in actually stopping. His claim that he was “just kidding” about taking screenshots doesn’t hold water. (And what would the joke have been? “Wouldn’t it be funny if I took pictures of our co-worker while she breastfeeds her infant?”) It seems fairly clear he only tried to pass it off as a joke once you objected to it.
If your co-worker was making offensive sexual comments about Kristen in a “chat about a different project Kristen isn’t involved in,” then that conversation was not “semiprivate.” It was a work conversation, with his co-workers, about work. Kristen is trying to keep a newborn baby quiet and happy while working from home, which is incredibly difficult, and your co-worker has used that as justification to gossip and objectify her, possibly even to take pictures of her. This is an issue not just for your supervisor to address but for HR to take on as well.
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Q. Moral dilemma: I work in a nonprofit where I have access to clients’ personal financial information. It has come to my attention that a couple of clients are taking advantage of government assistance to which they are not legally entitled. While double-dipping, they are benefiting from deep subsidies that are based on their legally obtained low income. I have proof. I signed a confidentiality agreement for this job, but as a taxpayer I am deeply offended. Morally, am I justified in reporting this information to a snitch line?
A: I’ll be honest: I don’t know what double-dipping means in this context. And I can’t really think of a good reason why a nonprofit should have access to people’s personal finances. Maybe there are some, and I just don’t know any. But I do know that poor people, especially when they rely on government assistance, are often hyperscrutinized and even penalized by losing access to necessary programs if they start to rise above the poverty line. You say a few low-income clients are getting some money from “deep subsidies.” I think if a real person were in immediate harm, that would be one thing, but your offense seems to stem from a general stance about “taxpayers,” and to my mind, it doesn’t rise to the level of “calling a snitch line.” That doesn’t mean you have to like it. But if you’re looking for reasons to get offended as a taxpayer, I suggest you start with the United States’ massive defense budget.
Q. Uncomfortable: I have moved into a new townhouse that backs up to a large circular park with a running track. I am a young woman in my 20s; I go running every morning. One of my new neighbors gets out on his balcony around the same time. I didn’t think anything about it until a middle-aged woman stopped me while I was checking the mail. She introduced herself as my neighbor and instructed me to wear more clothes while I was exercising because it was “shameless” and distracting for her husband. I was so shocked I couldn’t even say a word. Now I don’t know what to do, because one of my neighbors is a pervert and his wife is an enabling witch. My running clothes are not even that revealing unless someone thinks a few bare inches of skin above the belly button is risqué. I am half tempted to yell at my neighbor if he was enjoying the show one of these mornings. I am angry and embarrassed, and I have no clue what to do. Running is my favorite form of exercise and meditation. I purchased this place because it was so close to the park. I don’t want to have a feud with a neighbor before I have even picked out paint for my new bedroom. What do I do?
A: It seems like the theme of today’s chat is “people creating problems where problems need not exist.” I’m so sorry that your neighbor harassed you for running and blamed you for her husband’s emotional state—it was wildly inappropriate and sexist, which, of course you know, but it bears repeating. The most important thing here is to make sure you feel comfortable when you’re running. If that means ignoring your neighbor when she attempts to speak to you again, that’s fine; if it means telling her politely but firmly that you’re not responsible for her husband, nor are you interested in hearing her opinions on your running outfits, that’s fine too. You’re not “starting a feud” by refusing to bow to unreasonable demands.
Q. So[m]ber bride: My parents are alcoholics. My mother is particularly difficult because she can only have one or two drinks before she is sloppy, emotional, and mean. Neither of my parents has an interest in changing or addressing their alcoholism. For years, I have asked them to at least not show up to certain events (like my 9 a.m. college graduation) wasted and begged them to not drink during some occasions. This request usually starts a big argument and they never listen or follow through. They act like it is a funny game. I am now in my mid-30s, and I’m at the end of my rope. I briefly cut off contact with them last year, saying we couldn’t speak until they demonstrated change. We didn’t talk for five months, but I caved during the pandemic. I felt guilty, and they are in their early 70s. My fiancé and I are in the early stages of wedding planning, and we keep trying to create ways to minimize their participation and presence. We both agree that it seems inevitable that my mother will make a scene. If she’s not falling down drunk, she will throw a hissy fit and cry. If we ban her from drinking she will sneak it or bitterly and loudly complain to anyone who will listen. I’m mortified and stressed just thinking about it. My dad says this is just the way my mother is and that I’m overbearing. It doesn’t feel like not inviting them is an option, but I also don’t want our day ruined by her behavior. What do we do?
A: Why doesn’t it feel like not inviting them is an option? Aside from “Well, they’re my parents and you’re supposed to have your parents at your wedding,” or a fear that they’ll try to retaliate if you set a boundary, or a general sense of guilt and a feeling that it’s your responsibility to give your parents whatever they want—do you actually want them there? Do you enjoy their company? Do you want to spend your wedding day monitoring your mother’s highball glass or sending a bridesmaid over to escort her to the bathroom?
I understand that you’ve felt more worried than usual about your parents’ health in the past few months. And I can relate to a feeling of overwhelming guilt when it comes to parents who are unwilling to change. It can feel like a monumentally impossible task to tell a parent “No.” But you’re not talking about a cheerful drunk, or the fear that she might get a little gossipy—your mother gets cruel after a single drink, and she never stops at a single drink. You say, “They never listen or follow through,” that they’ve insisted this is “just how [they] are,” and I think you know pretty conclusively that they’re not going to change anytime soon. What would you need, in terms of practical and emotional support, for not inviting them to become an option? Seek that out, whatever it is, from as many fronts as possible—therapy, Al-Anon, your partner, your friends, wherever you can find it.
Q. Love my niece: At 24, my husband and I took custody of his 10-year-old half-sister, “Stella.” Her mother dated a series of child predators, and by the time she came to us, Stella needed full-time care. I quit my master’s program. We gave my cat away because Stella could be violent. My husband and I lived in a state of school meetings, counseling, and hopelessness. It was worth it, because Stella is now a bright and brilliant young woman at 20. My husband is talking about babies now. I am running on maternal empty. I don’t want children. I don’t want to give up the rest of my life to repeat what I have lived through. There were a lot of dark times with Stella. It turned out all right, but what if it hadn’t? The question keeps me up at night. I want to go back to school; I want to travel; I want to have pets again. I don’t want my life held hostage again. I love Stella. I love the woman she grew into. I love my husband. I don’t want to risk the rest of my life. How do I tell my husband without making it seem like I regret Stella?
A: There is a world of difference between “I’m exhausted after 10 years of full-time parenting and dealing with trauma” and “I wish we’d never raised Stella.” Nor is “I’m tired, and I’m done having children” the equivalent of “I wish your sister didn’t exist.” Please don’t feel like you have to justify your lack of interest in children by making a big show of loving Stella—it’s so clear that you love her, and it’s also clear that you’ve been through the mill, not because Stella was a uniquely difficult child, but because she was dealing with the aftermath of years of abuse.
Please don’t apologize for wanting to go back to school, to travel, to focus on the things that you enjoy. This discrepancy may be difficult for your husband if he does want children, but just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s wrong. You don’t want children, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of that. Some people in your position might still want children; others might not. The point isn’t “Anyone who had been in my position would (or wouldn’t) want to start over again”—it’s that you don’t. And it’s not a referendum on your love for Stella to say you don’t want kids now.
Q. Intimacy anxiety: I am a 32-year-old woman with a decent amount of relationship experience; I have had two long-term relationships, including a marriage that ultimately ended amicably, and a few casual things with friends. I haven’t been with anyone for about a year now, and I started dating a friend I’ve known for a few years. He told me he is a virgin, and he is anxious about intimacy. I respect him and enjoy our time together, and I would never want him to feel pressured to do anything, but it’s been a few months and we still haven’t had sex of any kind. He’ll initiate a pretty passionate make-out session, but as soon as we get to the point where things would typically go further, he tells me to slow down and we end up just cuddling. There have been many nights when I’ve felt extremely frustrated, but again, I never want him to feel pressured, so I bottle up that frustration so as to not exacerbate his anxiety. I am starting to feel like I’m neglecting my own needs. I don’t know how to tell him about my frustration without upsetting him or making it seem like I’m guilt-tripping him into sex. How should I approach this without seeming predatory or coercive?
A: Having the conversation when you haven’t just been making out is the first step, I think. Set aside some time to talk about your sex life when you both know sex isn’t on the table. Talking about your own desires, and acknowledging possible incompatibility, is not predatory, nor is it coercive: “I really want to have sex in the near future. Do you? If so, what do you need from me, or what do you want to talk about, to make that possible?” This is part of why the “What are you into?” conversation can be really helpful, I think; if you two can speak frankly about what appeals to you, what you like, what you don’t like, what you might like, what you’ve fantasized about, and what kinds of sex you might prefer, while knowing you’re not about to start having sex then and there, it can free up a lot of emotional room, so to speak.
Be patient and nonjudgmental if he needs a little time to sort out his thoughts. But be patient and nonjudgmental with yourself too—if he avoids the conversation or remains vague, and that in turn makes you question whether you see a romantic future with him, that’s neither punitive nor an attempt to guilt-trip him into sex. It’s an attempt to see if you two want the same things! And if you don’t want the same things, and can’t find a meaningful compromise that suits you both, then breaking up or going back to being friends is probably the best solution.
Q. Always interrupting: Eight years ago, I was in an abusive marriage that I left. Since then, I have done a lot of work on my self-esteem, creating healthy boundaries, etc. I’m definitely much better at seeing red flags and holding men to higher standards in how they treat me. However, I’ve been single for these eight years and would really like an opportunity for love again and to test all these relationship skills I’ve been developing. I recently started talking to a man on a dating app, whom I haven’t met yet because of COVID, and I’ve developed a level of something, through chatting on the phone and video, that I haven’t had in a long time. We also have a lot in common, want similar things on the same timeline, and are very much attracted to each other, from what can be determined by video. I have one big problem though: He interrupts me a lot. He also often changes the subject back to himself when I’m talking. It’s not so bad that he doesn’t seem interested in getting to know me, but it’s annoying and disrespectful, and it makes me feel like I’m possibly entering into something where my passive nature will be overtaken again. Should this automatically be a deal-breaker? He seems like the type who would be sympathetic if I brought it up, but is it something that I can reasonably expect him to change, assuming he wants to? I know no one is perfect. Considering how good everything else is, am I setting unreasonable standards out of fear of being dominated again? On a scale from abusive to perfect, what is reasonable?
A: It can be a deal-breaker if you want it to be. I also think there’s room to have a conversation with him first. Aside from universal red flags that indicate incoming abuse, lots of people have unique screening patterns for fledgling relationships, and it’s not necessarily a question of what’s “reasonable” but what the individual is willing to deal with. If you were to say to yourself, “I’ve been through enough in my life that I’m going to have pretty high expectations about interruptions and politeness from anyone I date—I’m just not interested in reminding an adult man that it’s rude to interrupt and change the topic back to yourself five times in a single conversation,” that would strike me as eminently reasonable. If you were to say, “I’m willing to bring this up politely but directly with him and see how he responds—if he’s dismissive or defensive, I’ll know we’re not compatible, but if he corrects himself, I’ll give it another go,” that would make sense to me too. The question is really how much time and energy you want to expend on this. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but you’ve been interrupting me a lot lately. Can you please stop?” should be met with some version of “I’m sorry/I got carried away/I do care about what you’re saying/I’ll work on that.” If that’s not his response, it’s time to move on, I think.
It’s great that you’re attracted to him and you have a lot in common. I don’t think he’s the only man in the world you’ll be attracted to or have a lot in common with, so don’t approach this from the mindset of “I might never find someone like this again—better tread carefully.” Honestly, this is what the early dating process is for: namely, screening for and weeding out people who may very well be perfectly nice but just aren’t for you. It doesn’t have to be a red flag for you to not want to set up another video date. Frequent interruptions and changing the subject are not great indicators! If it’s “annoying and disrespectful,” I think you should take it pretty seriously.
Q. Re: Moral dilemma: The U.S. military budget, while bloated, is not illegal. Double-dipping into programs one is not entitled to is illegal. The letter writer may have a legal obligation to report such things. They can’t ignore this because you are at war against the rich. Letter writer, I suggest you see if your profession has an ethics board you can query for advice. I’d hate to see you in legal trouble over this later.
A: I think the fact that the U.S. military budget is “legal” is not an argument for approving of the budget, nor do I believe there is a war against the rich going on—or, if there is, the rich are winning and certainly not in need of assistance.
Danny M. Lavery: Thanks for bearing with me today! I’ll see you all next week.
Q. My parents make me feel guilty for not being a stay-at-home mother: My husband and I both work full time and have two children under 5. My parents strongly disagree with me (a mom) working full time outside of the house. They are both passive-aggressive and full-on aggressive about their disapproval. When they visit and insist on watching the kiddos, they point to normal toddler behavior and dissect it as ways in which my kids are suffering because I—but not my husband, ahem—am not staying home with them. I don’t question my decision—I love my work and my kids are fine—but my parents stress me out and I don’t know how to make it better. Read what Carvell Wallace had to say.
My husband and I have a 1-year-old daughter. Our parents all live in a state where gun ownership is common. I’ve talked to my parents about the shotgun I know they own: It’s locked in a safe, without ammunition, and only my mother knows the code. They are respectful and transparent about gun safety concerns, and I’ve never felt unsafe. My in-laws, however, are another story. My stepfather-in-law is, well, kind of a shithead. He’s not … evil, but he’s never been my favorite person. Lots of racist and sexist jokes over the years, dominates the conversation wherever he goes, carries himself like a wannabe cowboy. He’s not someone I would choose to have in my daughter’s life, but he’s married to my husband’s mother, whom I love and is generally sweet. He seems to be a good husband to her, so whatever.
We know they own a handgun, and my husband asked his mom about gun safety before we went to visit for Christmas this year. Our daughter was still a baby, but we have a 6-year-old nephew who is at the house a lot. My MIL was obviously weirded out by the questions but told him they keep it locked up, out of reach, and the bullets are somewhere separate. On the last day of our trip, my husband saw the gun out on the dresser in their bedroom. No case. Nothing. We both think it was some kind of flexing from his stepdad, who was probably annoyed we asked in the first place.
I was so angry, but since we were leaving that day, we didn’t say anything. Since the pandemic happened, we probably won’t be visiting them anytime soon (especially since none of them socially distance or wear masks). But how do we handle it when we go back in a year or so? We’re totally in the right to ask them to show us where the gun is and ensure that they’ll keep it locked away, right? I’m also tempted to tell them that if it’s taken out for any reason while we are staying with you, we will leave and not come back.
My husband and I have already talked about our daughter not being left alone with them. Even though he’s never done anything to hurt a child, I just don’t feel comfortable with her around him unsupervised. He raised a son who he obviously loves, but I just don’t trust them. Am I being overly sensitive? How do you let grandparents be involved when a culture gap leads to safety concerns? Also, she doesn’t have to call him Grandpa, right? They’re pushing that too, and my husband and I both hate it.
—From His Cold Dead Hands
Dear FHCDH,
You’re not being overly sensitive. Irresponsible gun ownership is a cause of accident, death, and needless pain, and I cannot imagine any gun advocate would argue that leaving one lying about as though it were a hair dryer or stapler is responsible.
Maybe it was an assertion of authority from your stepfather-in-law; maybe it was a stupid mistake. I’m not sure it matters. You’ve a greater responsibility to your child’s (and your nephew’s!) safety than to this man’s feelings. This is not what you term a culture gap, because being an irresponsible gun owner is not a cultural choice! It’s just idiocy.
You can be respectful but entirely clear with your mother- and stepfather-in-law: “The last time we visited, we saw Bill’s gun lying out. We aren’t comfortable visiting your home unless you’re going to be careful with the gun. If it’s out now, can you please lock it up and promise us it’ll stay there until we leave?”
If they try to brush this off, you can point out that you’ve discussed this before, and that they did not honor their assurances that they’d put the gun away. That’s a violation of trust. If you feel so strongly about this matter that you’d let it prevent future visits, you should state so. They might think this is you making some silly demand; they might feel this is that culture gap to which you allude. But it’s not a silly demand, not to me, anyway.
I also think you should communicate about this with your nephew’s parents. These are legitimate and serious concerns. Your stepfather-in-law might want to be called “Grandpa” (your call, I think!), but first he should start acting like one and exercising every possible caution to keep the kids in his life safe.
• If you missed Monday’s Care and Feeding column, read it here.
I read a letter from May 5 from a stepmom wanting to be called ““mom,”” and it made me think of my own situation: I have a 7-year-old stepdaughter. I’ve been in her life since she was 3, and I’ve always been very involved. She’s with us half the time, and our relationship with her mom is pretty good, thankfully. Since she was 4, every few months, she’ll ask if she can call me “Mommy.” It’s my belief that kids should call their parental figures whatever they choose (within reason), so I reply, “Sure, if you want!” and she calls me “Mommy” for about an hour and then it wears off. The rest of the time, she uses my first name.
In the past year, though, she’s been calling me “Mommy” more and more without asking first. I’d say it’s about 25 to 50 percent of the time, which is OK. Sometimes it’s at particularly touching moments, like when I’ve soothed her after a nightmare. But sometimes, it crops up when she especially wants my attention. If I’m focused on work, or if I’m giving her dad a welcome-home hug, or if I’ve got my head under the sink trying to figure out what’s leaking, and she feels left out or I don’t answer right away: “Mommy!”
I think she’s figured out that, deep down (or, horrifyingly, more clearly on the surface), it tugs on my heartstrings to be called mommy (I certainly love her as a daughter), and she’s figured out that “Mommy” is the key to getting me to answer her bids for attention. I try not to answer to one more than the other, but I am horrified of the thought of her growing up and thinking, “Wow, my stepmom only paid attention to me when I called her ‘Mommy.’ ” How do I snap out of it? Am I totally overthinking this?
—Maybe Mommy
Dear MM,
I hate the language of “stepparent.” It connotes something so specific—distant and cool—when the truth is that many stepparents are, like you, as involved and loving as the other parents in the equation.
I think you’re right: If your kid wants to call you “Mommy,” then there’s no real harm done. She probably thinks of you thus, because that’s what you are to her.
Also, I think the situation you describe is unlikely to end up with your daughter in therapy, wondering why she could only get your attention when she called you mommy. I think it’s most often just an honest expression of the emotional tenor of the moment—she’s scared, or feeling cozy, or fond of you. And then there’s the fact that she’s almost certainly sometimes doing it on purpose because she knows it might help her get what she wants, even if the objective is only your attention. You don’t need to snap out of anything. Your daughter’s lucky to have someone as thoughtful as you in her life. But I don’t think you need to worry about this!
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Dear Care and Feeding,
I am a first-time mom. I have had boundary issues in the past with my parents, mainly my mom, and I’m finding I need to deal with them now in a new way now that I have children. The day before Mother’s Day, my parents gave me some flowers and a card, but instead of signing the card themselves, they signed it from my daughter. I let it slide, miffed that they had, in my mind, stolen what was to me my husband’s job of giving me my first card from my daughter. But it happened again for Father’s Day. Two days before Father’s Day, they left my husband a card in our mailbox, that was signed by them as if it was from our daughter. He and I both think that this is overstepping their role as grandparents. We believe it is our job as parents to send cards from our daughter. I messaged my parents saying as much, telling them that I was hurt that they had stolen firsts from us, and that it would have been entirely different if the cards had just been addressed from them. Are we being too harsh on them? I know our daughter is their first grandchild, but before that she is our daughter. My mom’s argument (in part) was that she would love to get cards from our daughter (from us) and thus she sees no issue.
I’m finding generally that I haven’t told my parents about some choices my husband and I have made regarding how we plan to raise our daughter, because I know they will cause a stir. (This has been an issue since I was pregnant, when we told them we didn’t want anything overly girly for our daughter, to which my mom replied that she would just keep the girly things at her house. It made me wonder what other rules we make that they would break.) My parents raised me Southern Baptist, but my husband and I plan to raise our daughter without taking her to church unless she asks, teaching her the basic beliefs of several major religions. I know that is going to be a major issue with my parents.
I guess what my question boils down to is: Are we overreacting about the cards? On a larger level, any thoughts on how to broach what we know will be difficult choices regarding how we are raising her?
—She’s My Daughter
Dear SMD,
It is not always easy to balance your respect for your parents with your desire to make a family all your own.
Ideally, your folks will give you a little leeway as you settle on what makes the most sense for your family; ideally, you and your husband will understand the grandparents’ excitement and desire to stay involved.
What you describe seems to me like a minor thing—they signed a card to you on behalf of their infant grandchild. The intention wasn’t, I don’t think, to meddle, but instead to make a sweet gesture that communicated their excitement for your first Mother’s Day. You didn’t tell them this made you unhappy, so they likely thought it had been well received, and repeated the gesture for your husband. I don’t know if it was worth getting upset over, but you communicated to them how you felt about this, and hopefully they heard that. Your mom doesn’t need to understand your feelings, but hopefully she will heed them.
The best way to avoid conflict over other choices you intend to make is to communicate them clearly. If you don’t want your little girl to have tons of pink things, say as much before your parents rush out and buy her a bunch of pink things. The same pertains to church; if you intend to raise your family in a more secular tradition, you should find an opportune time to explain that so your parents aren’t expecting you beside them every Sunday.
Personally, I do think you’re overreacting to the cards—it’s in the past now, and you’ve made your position clear. And if you have strong feelings about an issue, I think the best way forward is to communicate clearly, so you can avoid misunderstanding.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My daughter turns 3 next month and is slowly giving up her afternoon nap. She used to sleep from 3–5:30 p.m. regularly, and we’ve still been putting her down for a nap at this time. More often than not, she stays awake the whole time, telling her dolls and stuffed animals’ stories. She’s an imaginative kid who seems to keep herself entertained. If she cries out for me, I go get her. This happens rarely.
My son is 10 months old and also naps at the same time. I love this peaceful break from my kids. It keeps me sane. But I also feel guilty for leaving my toddler by herself in her dark bedroom for 2½ hours every afternoon. Is this bad developmentally for her? Would it be better or worse if I plopped her in front of the TV? (She gets about an hour of TV per week right now). How long can I keep this “naptime” routine going?
—Needing Naptime
Dear NN,
I know well the challenges of dealing with slightly out-of-sync nap schedules. It sounds like your toddler is naturally aging out of the kind of nap cycle a toddler requires.
For the sanity of your household, I can understand why you want to have a routine and some downtime. I don’t think television is the only answer, though! You can institute big girl quiet time: When her brother is napping, she gets to go in her room and read books or play what she likes, as long as she doesn’t disturb the baby.
Two and a half hours might be a big ask, though, even if she’s adept at entertaining herself. Perhaps you could set a timer and give her an hour of this quiet time, which is also giving yourself the gift of an hour. I’m absolutely not opposed to screen time, but for me it’s more last resort. If she doesn’t understand or enjoy this quiet time alone in her room, you could devise some other big girl activity that doesn’t involve her brother (a big selling point, I think, for a toddler) and won’t require your active participation: She could lie on the sofa with a pile of books, or sit at the table with a ton of art supplies, or you could play music or an audiobook and maintain your distance so she knows she’s on her own for this period. Make the rules clear—she’s to stay in whatever area or room, with whatever activity or diversion you’ve come up with.
Experiment with this—give her an hour, or 90 minutes, and figure out what feels right. After you’ve had your break and she’s had hers, you may find you enjoy having a bit of one-on-one time with her while the baby is still asleep.
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I love our babysitter but not the nickname she’s given my daughter. My child is 2 and doesn’t speak in clear sentences yet. My babysitter passingly joked that she calls my daughter “the Chinaman” because of how she speaks. I’m multiracial Asian. I can pass as white, but I’ve referenced visiting family in our country of origin. For obvious reasons I am really upset by this nickname. What should I do?
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Black Lives Matter is reverberating around the world, triggering a fresh reckoning with the racist global history of colonialism and slavery. While Confederate statues began to tumble across the American South, in Bristol, England, a diverse group felled a statue of a slave trader that has long provoked offense. Statues of colonial conquerors of Africa and South Asia have followed, along with a robust discussion of the ways in which such actions make history rather than erase it. These movements abroad are not merely echoes of BLM; BLM itself is global.
The shared impetus is a common opposition to racism, of which anti-Black racism has been the most lethal and traumatic. But the history of policing also bridges them. No historical figure makes this clearer than George Orwell, whose name has been increasingly bandied about in recent weeks—by those fretting about the erasure of history as well as those calling out the euphemistic language around policing, such as the use of “nonlethal” bullets against protesters.
The right and left have long fought over Orwell, who identified as a socialist but authored what many consider the iconic literary critique of socialism, 1984. This is a man who showed us the moral evil of the totalitarian quest for mind control and a culture of denunciation but also compiled a list of untrustworthy leftists for the British Foreign Office; a critic of empire and believer in human equality who persisted in writing and thinking in blatantly racist ways. But his central beef was always with policing, whose tyrannical power he discovered through his own experiences as a colonial police officer.
Born Eric Blair, Orwell described himself with characteristic precision and irony as a member of the “lower-upper-middle class.” He went to Eton but on a scholarship. His family had status but not money. Through Univeristy College London’s Legacies of British Slave-ownership project , we know that the Blairs traced whatever status they still had in Orwell’s lifetime to earlier ownership of slaves. Orwell’s great-great-grandfather was a slave owner in Jamaica in a time in which slavery was part of a colonial system connecting Europe, West Africa, South Asia, and the Americas. The Blairs were among the 3,000 slave-owning families who received a total 20 million pounds in compensation (now worth more than $2 billion) when slavery was abolished in the British empire.
The Blair family held on to its status thanks to opportunities that continued to be afforded by British colonialism. Orwell was born in India, where his father was an official in the Indian Civil Service. His mother was the daughter of a teak merchant in Burma (today, Myanmar; then part of British India). The humiliation he felt at boarding school for his relatively poorer means prepared him for a life of “ruin,” which he understood variously as: “the colonies or an office stool, perhaps prison or an early death.”
Fatefully, he wound up a police officer in British India. But he quit after five years out of a deep sense of shame, evident in his first published piece of writing (still under the name Eric Blair), a short piece titled “A Hanging” (1931), in which the narrator, a police officer in Burma, is quietly complicit in the execution of a colonial subject whose crime we are not told—it is irrelevant to the point Orwell wanted to make about the inhumanity of the system that policed and killed him. A dog is the only being that acknowledges the prisoner’s humanity, jumping up to lick his face, to the crowd’s horror. It was in Burma that Orwell first discovered thought-policing: “You are not free to think for yourself,” he explained in his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). “Your opinion on every subject … is dictated for you by the pukka sahibs code,” in which you too are complicit so that “your whole life is a life of lies.”
What if all police officers heeded the pangs of conscience as Orwelldid?
Colonial policing also sharpened Orwell’s awareness of the anesthetizing effects of sanitized language, whose apotheosis, he showed us, was the soulless Newspeak of 1984. In this period, in the Middle East, on the Indian frontier, and in East Africa, work previously performed “by policemen and sticks” was undertaken by the Royal Air Force, with aircraft and bombs. Orwell summarized aerial policing’s abuse of humanity and language: “Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.” These British innovations would deeply influence the development of American military and policing power.
Orwell came to see British rule in India as an “unjustifiable tyranny” in which the police were the “actual machinery of despotism,” as he confessed in The Road to Wigan Pier (1937). He came to loathe “the whole machinery of so-called justice,” never entering a jail without feeling that his place was on the other side of the bars. The claim that colonialism spread the rule of law was a cover story for theft. He suspected police officers in England were likewise “haunted by a secret horror of what they do.” Indeed, in England too, modern policing had evolved from an effort to enforce the theft of the commons and suppress the collective values on which they depended in favor of private property and individualistic values. In a 1933 work, Orwell called out the police as the true source of the “immoral conduct” that they routinely pinned on the poor to justify their brutality.
In Burmese Days, the moral path of the colonizer leads to suicide, anticipating the bleak destiny of the Inner Party member in 1984. Orwell himself, however, escaped and sought redemption from “bad conscience” by living several years as a tramp in Paris and London. He wanted to expiate “an immense weight of guilt” and determined to “submerge myself, to get right down among the oppressed, to be one of them and on their side against their tyrants.” The English working class, then struggling with deep poverty and high unemployment during the Depression, struck him as analogous to the Burmese:
They were the symbolic victims of injustice, playing the same part in England as the Burmese played in Burma. In Burma the issue had been quite simple. The whites were up and the blacks were down, and therefore … one’s sympathy was with the blacks. I now realized that there was no need to go as far as Burma to find tyranny and exploitation. Here in England … were the submerged working class, suffering miseries.
And among them were preserved the collective values the modern world still needed.
For Orwell, at home and abroad, policing and incarceration were the essence of oppression; they thus defined his vision of dystopia in 1984. Cold War Americans liked to read the work as a narrow attack on Stalinism, but its target was far more universal. Policing works by corrupting the soul of both police officers and the policed, destroying human bonds—destroying community, as racism does too. A police officer’s “normal” feelings are abject bitterness and moral confusion, Orwell told us in “Shooting an Elephant” (1936), an essay routinely assigned in high school English classes: “With one part of my mind, I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny …; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts.” His experiences in Burma and among the poor turned Eric Blair into a political writer; in taking the pen name George Orwell in 1933, he was partly forging a new self from the moral ruin of his policing life. To the extent that Orwell’s ideas now saturate our common understanding of liberty and threats to it, that understanding is based on a realization of the fundamental immorality of policing. We have always known policing is the problem.
Orwell wrote 1984 in 1947–49 (it appeared six months before his death), just as the British Empire was beginning to fall apart and spawn an afterlife at home. Policing methods designed to pacify and invigilate subversives abroad were used to discipline the unemployed, women, and crowds at home, precisely (and not coincidentally) when nonwhite immigration to Britain from its former colonies was increasing. Those immigrants also endured the insult of living among statues of slave traders and brutal conquerors—at last being toppled by their descendants today. For many, including perhaps Orwell himself, the totalitarian world of Big Brother and doublethink was not merely the exotic trajectory of Stalinist Russia but the fate of imperial policing everywhere, including Britain. What could be more Orwellian than the proud display of statues of conquerors and slavers in a society continually protesting imperial innocence and devotion to liberty and equality? “Ignorance is Strength,” the Ministry of Truth would say.
And, “War is Peace”: Racist militarized American policing remains part of wider racist policing abroad, often from the skies and in the very regions in which the British first devised such policing tactics. Aerial policing is now being applied to the BLM protestsagainst policing. However much we may try to reform modern policing, its fundamental purpose is social control, which, in unhealed parts of the world that are continually retraumatized by a racist past, cannot but depend on a dynamic of criminalizing particular racial and social groups.
Orwell may have felt he ought to be on the other side of the prison bars, but he did not seek penance by surrendering himself to the police or prison for his sins; those institutions had no moral legitimacy. Rather, he felt he would find expiation in understanding and giving voice to an oppressed community. What if all police officers heeded the pangs of conscience as Orwell did? It is time for us too to recover the cooperative values that policing seeks to suppress and find community-based forms of moving forward, of redeeming the past and keeping societies safe and just.
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After a long stretch of travel back in March, Matthew Long-Middle fell suddenly ill. He started to suspect he’d contracted COVID-19. Now, in June, Matthew is still feeling symptoms and has yet to get any clear answers from a physician.
Guest: Matthew Long Middleton, Media Training Manager for KCUR
Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, and Danielle Hewitt.
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For decades—literally since Woodstock—female musicians had battled music-industry perceptions that amassing too many of them, on the radio or on the road, was bad for business. And yet, by the ’90s, women were vital to the rise of alt-rock and hip-hop on the charts: from Suzanne Vega to Queen Latifah, Tracy Chapman to Sheryl Crow, Natalie Merchant to Missy Elliott.
Sarah McLachlan harnessed this energy into an all-woman tour she dubbed Lilith Fair. Its string of sellouts from 1997 to ’99 affirmed women’s clout in the decade of grunge-and-gangsta. But the festival was also criticized for its narrow focus and for branding “women’s music” as a genre. More than two decades later, Hit Parade assesses the legacy of Lilith on the charts and on the road—how its performers, attendees and musical descendants are helping to ensure the future is female.
Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch.
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