Thread by @sometimesalight

One more quick word about implications of @USAGSessions #zerotolerance policy & how high level policy can affect parenting & childrearing, this one unrelated immigration:

A couple of weeks ago, my 8th grade daughter came home from school & told me about assembly they had about sexting. She's public school kid & school does this kind of thing from time to time.

But she's upset this time, really shaken by it. I was taken off guard too b/c school usually warns parents ahead of time. So she & sit down to talk.

The upshot is that regional US Attorney came to warn kids that if they get caught sexting, b/c of #zerotolerance she no longer has freedom to prosecute it as anything other than child porn.

My daughter isn't upset by topic per se. She knows sexting is wrong. She *knows* it's a problem. But she's just been in a room of 12, 13, 14yos who've been threatened w/ incarceration & being listed as a sex offender.

(Aside: All while @USAGSessions' boss is a man who made $ off pornography & strip clubs. Parenting is weird & tough in the Trump era.)

Of course, we need to deal w/ sexting, but policies that cannot take individual circumstances into account (including age) are policies that will destroy the weakest & most vulnerable.

My daughter's take away: "Kids who are already doing stuff never listen to these kind of threats. The only ones who listen are the kids who are trying to do what's right & it just scares them & makes them nervous."

I tell that story to make point that policy decisions filter down. You may feel removed from them... until suddenly you're not.

As a Xian parent, I take it in stride to a degree. We're always walking through some cultural challenge w/ our kids. What's surprised me is that the current cultural challenges strike at the heart of Xian concepts of mercy & grace.

Trying to pass on Xian worldview to my kids has meant actively resisting "law & order" language as well as ethnonationalism. The challenges come from both right & left.