Column
The Next Generation Is Being Shaped by Crisis
From coronavirus to climate change, our children have witnessed a string of disasters with seemingly no end in sight
A few months ago, I was talking to my husband about the 2020 election. I was worried, I told him, about what Donald Trump’s reelection would mean for my now-nine-year-old daughter. If he’s elected for a second term, Layla will be 14 years old before he leaves the White House.
That means the entirety of her childhood will be defined by the national anxiety that comes along with having a narcissistic bigot as president: children at the border being forcibly separated from their parents, white nationalists marching in the street, the increase in hate crimes and unapologetic misogyny.
It isn’t just Trump and all that’s come with him, though, that has me worried about my daughter’s future. Watching the extreme weather ramp up across the globe reminds me that she may never know a time when the climate was normal and predictable. The school shootings that are so specific to America mean that she has been practicing active-shooter drills since preschool. (Literally: They started right after the Sandy Hook shooting when she was two years old; her teachers taught her how to stay quiet and hide…
