Read on Twitter
The parenting takes have already been written with more eloquence than I can muster--suffice to say, the man knows nothing about teaching, children or respect--but I have some Fiction Thoughts too, about your responsibility for the ideas you lean on https://twitter.com/johnroderick/status/1345508384011816960
So somewhere in this thread he calls himself an "apocalypse father", which I presume is, essentially, a prepper. Believes the world will end and he'll be an Individualistic Hero of Masculine Legend etc.
And in that context, his ridiculous efforts make a little more sense
And in that context, his ridiculous efforts make a little more sense
He wasn't trying to teach his daughter to use a can opener, bc my god, 6 hours to impart that skill is a real failure. No, in his head he was trying to teach her how to figure out a tool entirely on her own with no resources or support
He believes the apocalypse is coming and his daughter will be left entirely alone fending for herself against a cruel and selfish world out to get her at every opportunity
But... we just lived through a sort-of-apocalyptic event. Our usual way of life *did* end, at least for a few months. And what happened?
Everyone pulled together. (Mostly.)
Everyone pulled together. (Mostly.)
People volunteered to make scrubs for hospital staff, and learnt from others how to do it. People checked in on their elderly neighbours and did the shopping for them. People shared knowledge on how to make sourdough starters.
If the apocalypse comes I'm pretty damn certain people will work together to survive, because people have *always* worked together to survive. It's literally what makes us human! It's our key evolutionary trait!
Even now, in this cultural war so many are keen to wage, everyone wants to help other people: the only difference is how some define "people" as a set
So where did Bad Bean Dad get this stupid idea his daughter had to be solely self sufficient in working out tools? Quite probably 40+ years of apocalyptic fiction like Mad Max, Walking Dead, Fallout etc.
He's just lived through a real life event that proves those fictions wrong, yet he still believes them over his own experience bc they're so ingrained
What we write literally shapes the world, because it shapes the people in it. You have to take that responsibility seriously.
When you write apocalyptic fiction with rugged individual survivors, you get this. When you write queer tragedies, you get teen suicides. When you write magical negros, you get the idea that white folks are the heroes and leaders and everyone else is subservient.
I just this morning wrote in another tweet about how Discworld is essentially my Bible, my moral manual.
What you write matters. Write carefully.
What you write matters. Write carefully.
