Listening to a soul-dead wife of a republican politician selling a book on the radio talking about how her single mother, who worked three jobs and died way too young, inspired her to commit to accepting a life of drudgery and toil and a life overall full of calluses and unaddressed trauma, makes me think about how many times I’ve encountered this meme. Yes, it is heroic that your mother/father/whatever fully committed themselves to taking care of their family, but it doesn’t address the utter depravity of our capitalist culture that required them to make this sacrifice in the first place . And, actually, how good of a parent can you be—what kind of holistic parenting can you provide—if you are forced to grind your body into paste just to keep you and your families alive? There is a stark difference between surviving and being alive, and this mythologizing of the hard-working parent only serves to continue and empower the system that kept your parent from fulfilling their full calling. Yes, maybe they paid the rent and fed your mouth. But they modeled a kind of sheep-like obedience to their societal overlords that greatly infringed upon their ability to feed your soul. So yes, love your parent who did all they could for you, but don’t transfer your love for them to a lionization of the system that prevented your souls from fully connecting, and definitely do not take this parental sacrifice as a blueprint for how a whole human being should live.