podcast friday
Feb. 7th, 2025 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabby There's been a lot of good content this week (the It Could Happen Here one on Myanmar is really great) but nothing got in my brain like I Don't Speak German's "Estranged Parents, with George Daniel Lea."
I'll be a bit more forthcoming than I normally am in public posts. Maybe about 15 or 20 years ago, I fell into the kind of rabbit hole that George describes here. Video was less of a thing—I lurked on estranged parent forums and devoured every single post. I think I had read an article about them on one of those websites (remember websites?) and I went looking for the trainwreck and my God did I ever find it.
And yes, dear readers, I was looking for my biological father. Did you even need to ask?
Did I find him? Who the fuck knows? He was alive back then; he isn't now. He wasn't very internet-savvy and also he frequently forgot that I existed so he was probably not one of the people posting. But any one of these estranged parents could have been him. They had the same scripts. They wrote exactly like he did (spelling and grammatical errors and all). They claimed to be just as baffled as to why their children no longer wanted anything to do with them, and blamed the same factors, usually the other, non-estranged parent, or a partner. Therapy and therapy-speak was not so widely accepted that they blamed a therapist or the internet, as today's estranged parents do, but the pattern was the same. They'd had a happy relationship with an adult child, nothing was wrong, until suddenly, some horrific outsider turned their child against them, and they had no idea why.
The online fascist movement was not as organized then as it is now, so these grievances were less politicized, except where the family is inherently a political construct, with children, even adult children, framed as property. It was ripe for the next development, which George and Jack discuss in this episode. Of course these people are MAGA now, of course the primary trigger for estrangement ties into the culture wars. Some nefarious outsider has transed their child, etc., and only Trump can get them back, repairing the pater familias arrangement, not just for their family but the country. The world.
The other weird change is that most of these people are female now? I swear it was more evenly split in my lurking days—or, at least I assumed that the people who spoke exactly as my biological father had were also fathers, not mothers. But the real batshittery here is coming from women, who make actual videos with their actual names, rather than hiding in anonymous text posts. Estrangement has gone mainstream.
George appears to be a family abolitionist, which is admittedly not a thing I know a ton about or necessarily support, so I don't agree with every take. But I find family abolition an interesting concept and this is a useful framing to add to the issue.
It's a very lengthy, rambling conversation, but I found a lot of value in it, so maybe you will too.
I'll be a bit more forthcoming than I normally am in public posts. Maybe about 15 or 20 years ago, I fell into the kind of rabbit hole that George describes here. Video was less of a thing—I lurked on estranged parent forums and devoured every single post. I think I had read an article about them on one of those websites (remember websites?) and I went looking for the trainwreck and my God did I ever find it.
And yes, dear readers, I was looking for my biological father. Did you even need to ask?
Did I find him? Who the fuck knows? He was alive back then; he isn't now. He wasn't very internet-savvy and also he frequently forgot that I existed so he was probably not one of the people posting. But any one of these estranged parents could have been him. They had the same scripts. They wrote exactly like he did (spelling and grammatical errors and all). They claimed to be just as baffled as to why their children no longer wanted anything to do with them, and blamed the same factors, usually the other, non-estranged parent, or a partner. Therapy and therapy-speak was not so widely accepted that they blamed a therapist or the internet, as today's estranged parents do, but the pattern was the same. They'd had a happy relationship with an adult child, nothing was wrong, until suddenly, some horrific outsider turned their child against them, and they had no idea why.
The online fascist movement was not as organized then as it is now, so these grievances were less politicized, except where the family is inherently a political construct, with children, even adult children, framed as property. It was ripe for the next development, which George and Jack discuss in this episode. Of course these people are MAGA now, of course the primary trigger for estrangement ties into the culture wars. Some nefarious outsider has transed their child, etc., and only Trump can get them back, repairing the pater familias arrangement, not just for their family but the country. The world.
The other weird change is that most of these people are female now? I swear it was more evenly split in my lurking days—or, at least I assumed that the people who spoke exactly as my biological father had were also fathers, not mothers. But the real batshittery here is coming from women, who make actual videos with their actual names, rather than hiding in anonymous text posts. Estrangement has gone mainstream.
George appears to be a family abolitionist, which is admittedly not a thing I know a ton about or necessarily support, so I don't agree with every take. But I find family abolition an interesting concept and this is a useful framing to add to the issue.
It's a very lengthy, rambling conversation, but I found a lot of value in it, so maybe you will too.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-07 01:38 pm (UTC)I also recall the journalist mentioning that yes, some people’s adult kids do suddenly break with them because they join a cult, have a controlling spouse, etc—but those parents, if they do join an estranged-parents’ forum, usually figure out pretty quickly that it’s not for them and go find a different forum that matches their situation.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-07 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-07 07:00 pm (UTC)I can only imagine what kind of FACEPALM one can impose on themselves finding a video of their own mother, mentioning their own name, crying crocodile tears and bitching about the unthankful generation, etc., etc.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-07 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-08 06:40 am (UTC)reads with interest I guess I'm glad my parents have their church instead of this bullshit?
no subject
Date: 2025-02-08 01:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-11 02:43 am (UTC)I don't think I've heard of family abolitionism before, yet I immediately have Thoughts and Questions.
The story with your father sounds hard and weird.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-11 12:53 pm (UTC)And yeah, part of my objection to family abolition is that, for the most part, I actually did grow up with a good family, despite the early abuse. Which, when I talk about it, actually continued on and off into my pre-teens and sounds far more dramatic than I think it was. But there's a difference between weekend visits with an abuser and having said abuser living in the household, if that makes sense?