We Were Kid Gods
The parentification and autonomy demanded of us was astonishing. We were expected to constantly defend a socialist-Marxist, feminist ideology. It was incredibly frightening to be exposed to these ideas and be expected to apply them when we didn’t have the emotional maturity. The roles we were expected to play were not flexible. You had to be a “kid” not a “daughter”. There were theorists around like Barrington Moore who said, “loving your children is out of date.” To me, these ideas were quite possibly the words of alienated adults reproducing the dialogue of their own inability to bond with their parents. All these things led the book to the theme of “home.” For despite everything the community set out to do, it didn’t foster any sense of being a “home”.
Susanna Crossman talks to Stu Hennigan about her memoir, Home is Where We Start.