Kiddo graduated elementary school today. One final bike ride across town to take her home, and it's the last commute we're going to have to do for the foreseeable future. That means 5+ extra free hours per week for everyone in the family. It feels liberating.

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Little Beaver had a lot of fun playing with her cousins this last weekend, it was very precious. I'm glad that all her cousins have good parents, so that we don't have to worry too much about the kids not playing well together - they're very gentle with Little Beaver, who is at least four years younger than everyone else. We also took her out to house hunt, and it's fun to see her explore a possible new house.

She cut her gums pretty deeply yesterday after falling down, we're debating whether to take her to an emergency dentist or not. It's so frustrating how difficult it is to get any sort of urgent care for kids, as the only in-network stuff is almost an hour drive away.

(In this post: “Someday I’ll find a way to write more concisely” and other such lies I tell people on the internet.)

Really eventful week for me. I went on a big trip with my brothers to the Rockies. First time really being away from my kids since they were born, barring isolating because of illness or sleeping at a friend’s house for a night.

It was a rewarding and revealing trip. My brothers and I bounded as adults like we have never before. We unpacked emotions and pushed our aging bodies more than we should have. We uplifted each other and learned about one another. We disagreed, but as adults disagree, putting the pettiness of our childhood squabbles to bed. Well, for the most part. We might never leave our assigned sibling roles. My older brother is the brash and outgoing first child. Successful in his life through force of will, if not by smarts then by his disarming charm and unscrupulous nature. He is the most interesting person in the room and will collect your friendship like a trophy, both to display and to cherish. My younger brother is the quiet and contemplative type. He's simultaneously the fulfillment and foil of our father’s wishes. As intelligent as he is handsome, as athletic as he is aimless. He inhabits a constant state of not knowing who he is, what he wants, or what he believes. I shouldn’t escape scrutiny either. I exemplify the jaded middle child. Distant, irreverent, sometimes disappointing, sometimes humbling, always the heart. The one who has visited Hell.

I love my brothers, but I’m going to enjoy being away from them for a while again. Any mention of anything remotely political (which to me everything, but I mean the more colloquial use of the term) resulted in my older brother going on liberal diatribes. He’s always had a holier-than-thou air. While he’s well-read, he reads like water passes through a sieve. He independently came up with the idea of ‘disaster gentrification’ as a response to a recent disaster that happened to their city. Doesn’t matter that he has probably read about it before. He genuinely doesn’t see a downside to gentrification. “The city should cut those people who lost their home a check and move them somewhere else. Then the land could be leveled and put up for sale by the city.” He’s constantly disappointed with his city, not out of some compassion for the unhoused or the working poor, but rather because there isn’t enough ‘culture’ to attract investment. “The city is dead. No one knows how to solve it.”

My little brother has little to say. He told us he’s intimidated by his older brothers knowledge, always has been. My older brother and I have spared verbally since before words held any meaning. I’m always in rare form for my older brother, bringing my best counters and considerations. As I’ve gotten older I don’t fight him anymore. I’ve learned from comrades that debate doesn’t shift people as much as I used to think. On our trip I mentioned how reading theory was difficult for me, so I seek theory out in fictional works. My little brother asked what I meant by ‘reading theory’. I don’t hear him sound as interested very often. I explained (well, my older brother explained, and then re-explained) what I meant, and how there are discrete political and economic theories outside of what he knows. He knows a lot. He’s the smart one. Though he is wholly unfamiliar with thought outside of liberalism. I’m hopeful he looks into the reading list I sent him.

I cannot help thinking this liberal understanding of the material reality of people negatively affects my niblings, my older brother’s kids. He has two kids just like me, and similar ages too. But our kids are vastly different in temperament. My kids are not perfect, but I’m glad they aren’t his. My partner and I pour so much energy into helping our children exercise empathy and compassion, for themselves and others, and build up their inner strengths. I get to toot my own horn about them. Everyone is amazed by my kids; they fucking rock. My brother’s oldest is, by his own admission, a brat. That’s putting it gently. They’re bossy and vindictive and cannot deal with others receiving more adulation. These are their worst qualities and absolutely do not define them as a person. But they stand tall in my brother’s mind. During our trip my brother expressed how nice it was to be away from his oldest. “They’re an asshole. Too much of me and my wife in them. And our dad. And grandma. They’re honestly like living with grandma. Your kids are the sweetest kids on the planet. You really lucked out.”

My little brother wants kids. He is recently jobless and his partner works for a major company in a leadership position. He says they want to be financially stable before having children. However, further campfire discussions brought out more truths. They have an overwhelming fear of bringing about a child in this world. I talked to him about antinatalism using dialectics, addressing the forces that have influenced the antinatalist position as well as its strengths and weaknesses. More importantly how principled antinatalism isn’t a reaction to fear of the world but how it is, in part, a ethical framework for analysis. I don’t think it all made sense to him. I was multiple beers under and dehydrated, so I probably wasn’t a great explainer either. But both of my brothers couldn’t quite get over what to them seemed like a contradiction. That I have these wonderful children but do not begrudge anyone who is a principled antinatalist.

Artists often get compliments that are meant to express amazement or awe at their work. “You’re so talented,” sounds nice. But the artist understands it different. Talent is not doled out by god fully formed. It is stock iron that must be forged into something useful that can then be employed to create a painting or a sculpture. My children are not ontologically sweet anymore than my older brother’s kid is a natural brat. My kids are people who are still small and malleable, as fickle as untempered clay. I have told my brother and my family this more times than I can count, “We try really hard to help them do good.” Not do ‘well’ like in a job, but do ‘good’ as in what Superman does.

Ah fuck, I did it again. I wrote on and on about some bullshit that hardly anyone’s gonna read. I’ll put a pithy little thing at the beginning about my long-windedness.

Also we hiked a huge sand dune at night and it was rad as hell.

Wooooo we just survived a 13 hour car ride as part of our vacation. Gotta give props to grandpa and unc for doing the driving. These kids managed it very well. K2 slept early in the trip then was wide awake for the rest of the trip except for the very final 2 mile stretch where he started to dose off! Saw a lot of windmills. A lot of corn. Plenty of cows. Lots of rest stop creatures.