Drawing Lines

A cartoon of me, a chubby brunette-and-grey
woman wearing blue, with an angry
expression and her right hand up near her
forehead. There is a thermometer shaded
green to red, with the top broken and the 
caption "I've had it up to here."

I had a very interesting conversation with my middle-school baby-Social Justice Warrior daughter Lizzy yesterday. 

It started a few days earlier with her wanting an "Eat the Rich" hoodie and me not having the ready cash to buy it for her, because I'm, well... not rich. I explained the difference between a tax return and a tax refund that day, acknowledged that I knew the hoodie was a limited-availability item, and that when I got my tax refund, I would attempt to track one down on eBay for her, as I did one of her sister's Christmas gifts when that merch store closed down. (all together now - Unas Annas Unus Annus...)

Between that discussion, still more recent allegations that some Really Great Creators are Really Awful People, my complete horror at the attitude of 90% of Republicans in Congress during the impeachment hearings and a dishearteningly vocal number of parents in my school district, and one of Lizzy's current favorite political songs (WARNING: lots and lots of profane and obscene language), I started formulating a question... but I had to find the right time to pose it, and to be careful how I pose it; she's in that edgy-defensiveness stage of adolescence right now.

Lizzy is on the autism spectrum as well as ADHD (so am I, most likely, but my diagnosis of "hyperactive with learning difficulties" is from 1983 and the criteria and understanding have changed considerably), and a teenager to boot, and she tends to be very rigid in (most of) her thinking. There's little nuance much of the time, and often complete intolerance for anyone who doesn't grok that. She can also be very defensive on the behalf of anyone she feels is misunderstood/disenfranchised in any way, although she doesn't see this defensiveness as empathy for those people.

So on our usual Wednesday outing, I asked her: "So, I think it's fairly evident that some billionaires (I named a couple of the more obvious tech type billionaires) are neurodivergent in some way. Where do we draw the line between cutting them slack because of socially acceptable behavior deficits and the good some of them have done?"

"If they hurt people on purpose, or if they hurt people on accident and they're not sorry and trying to fix it, or even apologizing, that's the line."

She said, as though it's obvious. Or that simple.

"Okay, but what about ones who have done some really good stuff at first glance, and then turn out to be awful? Even if they aren't billionaires, but just regular rich folks (I mentioned another couple of public figures that she might know)."

"Same thing, mom." Impatiently.

"And what about liking their tech or art or writing, even when we know the creator is problematic?"

"Eh. I mean, I still liked the Encyclopedia Brown books, even though they used horrible stuff in them that we don't use now."

So simple, boiled down like that. Her take is that as long as you're aware, why fret?

She's always been so much fun to talk with, and now she can hold up her end of conversations about the real world. 

It's kind of awesome.