On the things I learned parenting an adolescent boy, and what it feels like to live in a democracy turning authoritarian

I’ve been sharing teen advice with a friend... and also living with a sense that the America I moved to almost 2 years ago feels quite different to the one growing around me

I’ve been crying this week, but there’s nothing wrong with that. As my daughter Dolly says, it’s just a way of expressing your emotions. I’ve been crying because I went to the Vietnam War Memorial at the weekend, and felt overwhelmed by the massive wall engraved with an undending list of young men who died. I stood in front of the names and felt the tears rolling down my cheeks, as I imagined each of these young men as young boys, who later went to a war very far from home, where they were killed. And I’ve been crying because of the way the world looks now, and specifically how America, or, at least, Washington DC, feels at this moment in time.

The stunning cherry blossom trees don’t know or care who’s in power - they just bloom. There’s reassurance in that, and I didn’t want to cry walking beneath them

In many ways my life in DC feels much like it did a year ago: I like writing in the cafe at Politics and Prose, the book shop near my house, and I like chatting with Jess, who works there and knows Evangeline too now, since she often joins me there after school. I like watching Lester and Dash being taught karate by their amazing teacher, Mr Ricky, at Friendship Heights, and I like the sound of birds in the trees around our house, so much louder than the birds at home in Oxfordshire. I like Saturday afternoons in Virginia, and Sundays seeing friend in Maryland. I like Rock Creek Park and Great Falls, and although it’s getting much hotter now - I want to put the AC on as I write this as my hands are sweating - but sweltering, wet, swampy summer, with mosquitoes everywhere, is still a few more weeks away, months if we are lucky. Spring in DC is beautiful: the sidewalks are covered with a confetti of petals, and cherry blossom is frothing everywhere against the almost constantly blue skies. It will be very hot here soon, often too hot to go outdoors, especially in a sweaty southern city like DC, but for now the city is perfect.

After I drop the boys at school, I look up at the blue skies to open WhatsApp, as a friend messages me “What does it feel like living in a democracy turning authoritarian? Can you feel push back against Trump? What are you doing to resist?” There is something chastising in her tone. What does it feel like? What does it feel like to live in a country where freedom of the press is being compromised, where thousands of federal workers are losing their jobs, where having messages of dissent on your phone can potentially have you expelled from the country?

I want to write about what it feels like to live in a country that is becoming authoritarian, because while my localised environment is lovely - the coffees, the blossom, the birds in the parks - I’m also living with a sense that the America I moved to almost two years ago feels quite different to the one that’s growing around me. For goodness sake, last week Evangeline came home talking about the war plans Pete Hegseth exchanged with Marco Rubio and JD Vance on Signal, and a big part of me thinks she’s 12 years old, this isn’t something she should be worrying about.

I’ll tell you in a minute what this change in America feels like, but first I want to write something for you on the things I now understand about being the parent of an adolescent boy, and in particular what to do - or at least, what I did - when things start getting rough, as they are so inclined to do between children and parents when the kids hit their teens. Jimmy is 24, 25 later this year, and I was one of the first amongst my peer group to have a baby, so some of my closest friends are currently navigating this jungle, with adolescent children from 13 to 17. Quite often, when I’m walking Pablo around the streets of DC after I’ve dropped my younger kids at school, a friend will call and tell me their son has been expelled for selling weed in school or has been lying and stealing money from her purse, or hasn’t been in school for a month, or has been caught with a bag of ketamine and my friend had no idea they had ever taken any drugs at all, and what should she do? I walk and walk and we talk about it and I tell her the things I know now about getting through that time.

I still remember Jimmy’s teenage days of expulsions and worry - but now have the benefit of hindsight and can reflect on this time in a new light. And he’s my golden boy.

And I was reminded of this time recently because I found a lot of emails a few days ago, between myself and Jimmy’s art teacher, when he was about 16, and was crashing into adolescence. Reading these messages I was suddenly dropped back into a now alien space, but one which was almost tangible for a few years, when a lot of trouble rushed into our lives. That trouble took the form of police suddenly arriving at the house, talks with a headmistress about safeguarding, drugs (of course), a social worker, worried teachers, more drugs, and lots of deception and shouting and confusion. I’m not a psychologist, or a parenting expert or a therapist. Jimmy, though, is now grown up, and absolutely smashing it, in all the best ways, but these are the things I learned during his teenage years about being a parent to an adolescent who has developed a completely new rage and power which undermines everything you thought you knew about parenting.

After that I’ll get onto what it’s like to live in a democracy turning authoritarian.