Our lovely, thoughtful daughter has decided she’s a libertarian. What should we do?

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Kia ora Hera,

I hope you can help. Our lovely, thoughtful, 17-year-old daughter has decided she’s a libertarian. I think she’s been radicalised by the band Against Me!, and their song ‘Baby, I’m an Anarchist’. She loves the line: “You believe in authority, I believe in myself.”

Now, exploring strange and exotic political ideologies is pretty normal for teenagers, and so is rebelling against your parents (a union rep plus a Billy Bragg T-shirt-wearing public servant) and should be generally encouraged. However, after watching a debate between Chlöe Swarbrick and David Seymour, she declared that Chlöe just talked over the “yellow guy” the whole time and that she was joining Young Act.

WTF.

I love her independence and passion, but supporting Act is against our family values.

Concerned Parent

Dear Concerned Parent,

It’s not easy to make the choice to put one’s child up for adoption. Especially when that child is almost 18. No doubt she’ll be confused and hurt. But sometimes sitting your child down and gently explaining you don’t love them anymore is the kindest thing to do. 

OK, it’s a little soon to be considering legal estrangement. But I fully understand your horror and concern. The good news is she’s young. Her frontal lobe is still cooking. And when you grow up with left-wing parents with great taste in music, you’re not left with a lot of scope for rebellion.

One of the easiest ways to accidentally radicalise someone is by humiliating them. If you browbeat someone into an ideological corner, you run the risk of them doubling down, and extolling the virtues of the corner, saying the corner is actually the coolest and most normal place to be, and the overpowering smell of dog piss is just part of the natural ambiance. 

Sometimes politics is pure ideology, like believing you deserve more houses than everyone else. But it’s also a shorthand – a story we tell ourselves about the kind of people we think we are. Labour and the Greens like to tell a story about solidarity and kindness. National tells a story about being able to count. And Act likes to cosplay as cultural provocateurs, with an edgy sense of humour. But Labour and the Greens can be mean and selfish. National regularly proves it needs an office calculator. And Act is about as edgy as Ralph Wiggum, eating expired paste in the corner of the room. 

There are two things that strike me about your daughter’s response. One is her intense reaction to someone being talked over or “condescended” to. And the other is her new enthusiasm for the emancipatory power of the individual. 

I’m no psychotherapist, but if I were you, I’d wonder whether part of your daughter’s overdramatic response to someone being interrupted on TV, is because she feels like she’s not being listened to, or her ideas are treated with condescension. I also wonder whether her new enthusiasm for the radical power of the individual is an antidote to feelings of fear, or powerlessness. 

One of the struggles in progressive politics is how to win people over when the message is so grim. I imagine that most teenagers are worried about their futures – whether they’ll be able to go to university or afford housing, let alone have breathable air. Sometimes, in articulating the scope of the challenges we face, we risk depressing and alienating people. Nobody wants to join the “world is ending” party, even if the world is ending. It’s a lot more appealing to join the “steak dinners forever” party, even if those dinners mean someone else has to go hungry. 

In a way, conservative politics is a form of comfort-seeking. That we’re all rational individuals, in complete control of our own destinies. That if we build enough prisons, our streets will be safer. That if we stockpile enough yachts, we won’t starve in our bunkers when the world burns. 

If I were you, I would try and shift the focus of your discussions away from specific political parties and instead focus on the issues. What does she actually care about? Is she interested in the climate? Workers rights? Racism? Economic inequality? Gender? Housing? If you drill down into the policies she actually cares about, you might be able to have more productive discussions. 

You could also try and redirect that energy into practical efforts. Are there any volunteer or community initiatives she or your family might be interested in? Helping new refugee families find toasters or cleaning Gatorade bottles out of swamps or any kind of community-based activism she could get behind. You could even introduce her to some real anarchists, and send her off to blow up oil pipelines. 

We need passionate young people in politics. I’d hate for her enthusiasm to be quashed. Giving people the space to grow and change should be one of the goals of progressive politics. And condemning them outright, or being overly judgemental can prevent that growth from happening. 

I’m not saying you have to start responding with “how interesting” if she comes home and starts talking about the sublime majesty of skyscrapers. But if you can find a way to make her feel heard and respected, she might be less likely to seek attention from the professional attention seekers. 

Show her you take her seriously, and that you’re willing to listen, even if you don’t agree. Don’t be afraid to concede ground, admit your own ignorances or even crack a few jokes. There’s plenty to criticise on the left, and if you show her there’s no shame in changing your perspective on small things, and that you’re willing to laugh at your own hypocrisies, you’re creating an environment where it won’t be so hard for her to admit she was wrong later.

I don’t know if you can change her mind. But sometimes it’s better to play the long game. At least, when it comes to your beloved underage child. Trust her. Empower her. Treat her arguments with good faith, even if they’re fucking stupid. If she’s every bit as lovely and thoughtful and passionate as you say, I doubt it will take her long to see the ideological paucity of those “yellow guys”.

And if that doesn’t work, you can always cut her out of your will, and throw her to the mercy of the free market. 

Good luck!

Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz. Read the previous Help Me Heras here.