Care & Feeding: Our Daughter Gave Us a 10 Page Proposal for Emigration

[minoanmiss]

What’s just happened has changed everything for her. I’m a mom to a headstrong teenage girl, and the past few weeks have been challenging to say the least. She is a self-described social justice warrior and a leader in student government and in our small community.

When Roe v. Wade was overturned, everything changed for her. We live in Michigan, and she will not stop talking about moving to Canada or another country. She even typed a ten-page proposal on why we need to leave, which was quite impressive. Our family has the money to move, and my husband said he will strongly consider it depending on the outcome of the midterm elections. Personally, it doesn’t sit well with me to leave when things get rough, but things are really rough in America at the moment, so I almost don’t blame her for feeling this way. Any suggestions on how I should talk to her?

—Miffed in Michigan
Your daughter’s pain is understandable and expected for anyone who holds any empathy for people of marginalized groups in this country. Between the rise of overt racism, women’s rights being under attack, police brutality, and a ridiculous amount of gun violence, just to name a few things—I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that America is a complete dumpster fire right now.

As incredibly flawed as America is, I still love this place—and as is the case with anything or anyone we love, we have to keep it real and call it as it is. That said, I feel similarly to you in terms of not running away when the going gets tough.

I don’t think it’s any secret that being a Black person in America is challenging to say the least, and there are times when I feel like crawling into my bed and not moving for hours on end. However, then I think about my ancestors who lived on this land and were beaten, raped, tortured, and killed by their savage captors for centuries. It would be a disgrace to them to sit back and do nothing. That’s why I work as an anti-racism facilitator and speaker for corporations and schools because I know I have the superpower to change the hearts and minds of people. Granted, I’m only one person, but I believe that if enough people stick around and do something meaningful, then we can move mountains.

What could that look like for your daughter? You mentioned she’s in student government, but maybe you can suggest she branch out and volunteer for the political campaigns of candidates who share her ideals. She can mobilize people using social media, rally her community, or speak to her school’s administration to raise awareness about the issues she’s passionate about. The possibilities are endless, but I don’t think throwing in the towel and moving to another country is the best move.

Your daughter’s proposal is likely coming from a place of fear, which is a normal response to the current state of things (for adults and kids alike). It might be helpful to talk to her about times when this country has managed to enact positive changes because people stuck around and fought for them.

The people proposing laws that your daughter is against are hoping people like her pack up her stuff and move away without a fight. I would advise her not to give them what they want.

—Doyin

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Mirabile visu, I think this is pretty good advice from Doyin and even empathetic. Or am I being too easy to please? (I admit that he got me through the heart with "However, then I think about my ancestors who lived on this land and were beaten, raped, tortured, and killed by their savage captors for centuries. " I do this too when I'm struggling -- my ancestors went through so much worse, I have to honor them by trying my best. Which is part of why I'm not looking to pack up and leave, though I do not blame LW's daughter one bit.)

(n.b. Although whenever people go on about the wonders of Canada I think of stories I've been told about incidents inflicted on people of Caribbean descent and I feel thousands of Indigenous children's ghosts at my back.)

[topaz_eyes]

Sadly, Canada is... not the utopia LW's daughter thinks it is. There are people and politicians in Canada emboldened by the Trump era, who are actively working to take the country in the same direction as the US.

[movingfinger]

Emigrating is not as easy as Americans think. Canada is not the 51st state.

The letter doesn't say how old the daughter is, but sending her to college in Canada is certainly possible even if the family doesn't move! I'd ask her to research colleges that would accept her, that the family can afford to send her to, and that offer subjects and quality degrees that will help her establish her own life.

Degrees are not all portable, and she should be aware of this if her goal is to be flexible about where she lives in the future. Credentials like library science degrees tend to be local, while credentials like mechanical engineering are universal.

[petrea_mitchell]

Trying out a new country with college is an excellent idea!

And yeah, I hate to pour cold water on the daughter's enthusiasm, but I was going to suggest that her next paper should be on how the Canadian immigration system works.

(ETA: Whoops, this was supposed to be a reply to movingfinger's comment.)

[cimorene]

LW's daughter may or may not have accurate ideas about Canada - she's a teenager, but a well-informed and politically active one. There are no places on earth that don't have racism or ethnocentrism and other forms of bigotry, and people are always people for good and ill, which means there are always assholes and authoritarians and there are always good people trying to help. BUT that doesn't mean that moving to Canada would make no difference.

Canada has racism, right-wing movements, endemic misogyny etc, but it also has different laws and institutions and crucially, legal rights. Right now, LW's daughter may be feeling a not-unrealistic fear as a young uterus-haver facing mounting forces who are evidently planning to criminalize miscarriage as well as abortion and restrict access to birth control in a state that's hostile to abortion. She could consider relocating, or perhaps going to college in, a state that has put legal protections on abortion, if that's one of her largest sources of anxiety.

Given the amount of research she did, she can probably name other ways in which the laws and institutions in Canada are less threatening/bad, beyond the improvements in these you can get by moving domestically. It's important to support people on the ground in so-called red states (not that Michigan is one) because, as Sarah Kendzior points out, they're all actually purple, and they all contain large numbers of liberal voters who are being systematically disenfranchised by their state governments. It's legitimate and valuable to want to stay in these places and fight as Doyin says, but that doesn't mean it's not legitimate to move out of them.

LW isn't obliged to move because her child wants to, but taking the proposal seriously isn't too much to ask. If LW has a tightly-interwoven community and a strong sense of belonging in her physical environment, by all means, she should stay and fight for it. But it's not inherently cowardice or moral failure to migrate to a less hostile environment.

[castiron]

If one or both my kids decides they want to try to emigrate, the one thing I would advise them is to think about what they'd do if the new place develops intolerable problems down the road. It's a lot easier to start from scratch in a new country when you're 20, still in the process of building your adult life and learning to be an adult in your surrounding culture than it is when you're 40, 50, or 60 and have set down roots. (Of course, in some ways it's a lot easier to stay and fight when you're young and idealistic than when you've had 30 years of the long defeat.)

[jadelennox]

Being a teenage girl (I am assuming AFAB because otherwise I assume they'd have said) in america, the fall of Roe has more substantial potential affect on her life than it does on Doyin or even her mom. She likely is or wants to be sexually active. If she wants kids, she'll be reckoning with the increased risk to the parent's health of a wanted pregnancy.

I wouldn't send her straight into activism, I'd send her straight into research, personally. What rights are at risk? How can AFAB people protect themselves: in wanted or unwanted pregnancy, in birth control, when receiving medication that might be an abortifacient while technically fertile, online? What rights are by-state? What's at risk in Michigan? Who's fighting for the Michigan rights?

I'd bet that would send her straight into activism, but it might not. In which case, I'd send her to research: one countries have the legal systems that best suit her ideologies? What are the immigration paths to those countries? What skills and languages would she need to learn? What universities are in those countries, and what does she have to study to have a shot to be an international student there? Are there immigration pipelines for Americans of her economic class to migrate there?

Doyin has no standing to tell a teenaged girl to stay and fight if she's (justifiably!) afraid. But her parents have a right to redirect her passion into encouraging her to educate herself about whatever path she takes, and take ownership of the decision.

(Also they should help her manage the fear, but that's separate.)

[sathari]

So the "do a degree abroad" approach is definitely a good one.

Also, I'm... not entirely okay with the idea that emigrating is antithetical to "standing and fighting". Sometimes you have to fight from a distance--- they're not talking about giving up citizenship, and if the over-18s in the family can still vote, and all of them can write/make other forms of political commentary and disseminate them, and fundraise, andandand from somewhere that the body and person of, in particular, the female teenager is at less threat, that's... not necessarily cowardice as opposed to a tactical retreat to a better position. Especially when you take in the extent to which the Supreme Congress is coming for a lot of other rights if they can.

In another direction, since the "move elsewhere" plan was the teen's idea and she's clearly up on how to research and present ideas, maybe ask if she's up for moving from "why" to "how" in her research--- get her looking into which countries she might want the family to move to and what's involved in emigrating there. (And on the flip side, also "what to do if we stay?" as well, again maybe.) Depending on the relationship of the parents to the kid, they may want to be involved to varying degrees with that process.

"Get your teenager to do all the research legwork for a whole-family move" is not advice I would give in a lot of situations, but since the teenager (look, I've heard the arguments, but I really want to call someone who does a 10-page prospectus on the reasons for her family to emigrate a young woman even if she's not a legal adult because damn it she's earned that level of respect from me) came up with the idea and has shown some research and persuasive writing skills, that's advice I feel comfortable giving for this one.

[shirou]

I'm second-generation American. Emigration doesn't seem out of the question to me because I know a lot of people who have done it, including immediate family members.

But it is a huge undertaking. My childhood was shaped by being in an immigrant family. I was culturally out of step with other American children, I spoke a different language at home, and instead of going to Disney World on summer break, we flew back to our first "home."

LW's daughter is justified to consider emigrating in response to Supreme Court decision, but she's not entitled to demand her parents do the same. If her parents want to remain in the US, the daughter can emigrate when she is an adult.

[gingicat]

A conversation I've been having with my own kiddo revolves around "we can do things to make changes. however, you have to recognize when you've changed people's minds and not let it screw up your grades." (c.f. her Reagan Republican teacher at least accepting genderqueer kids and singular they after much arguing.)