ashsjsuhdjdj thinking about nations have the most fucked up parent-child dynamic with their people where they’re simultaneously both the child and the parent.
child:
you’re alfred or amelia or ame or whatever name you go by. whether you choose a human name or stuck with the name of your country’s name, it does not matter.
you are born from your people (both citizens and the cultures, yes, but also the government). they are the reason you exist. you work with your boss or whatever and they take good care of you (ie, bills paid, houses, diplomatic status, political power, etc).
and much like a child, you crave their approval and validation. but often, as is the tragedy, you can’t get the approval of one side without earning the ire of the other.
you side with the government and earn the hatred of the citizens. you side with your citizens and suddenly your government sees you as a threat. neither can hardly co-exist in peace but they both created you so they’re both equally important.
when they go to war, you close your eyes and cover your ears like a small child blocking out the sounds of their parents arguing. you wished they didn’t argue but what had wishing ever done for a broken relationship?
you want them to care about you. and as much as you hate them at times, you cannot let them go. they’re your parents. they’ve made you. they are why you exist. you are born from their cultures, lives, identities and thoughts.
what’s the saying again?
“my father is the worst man alive and i am his favourite daughter.”
parent:
you are born nameless. you are born as the guardian of your people: after all, you’re the immortal one, not them. they are small and fragile—each with such short lives, so soft skin. your children died from simple things such as bullet wounds while you do not.
sometimes you wish you had their morality instead; sometimes you wished that your children lived even at the cost of your own life. you become soldiers and generals and commanders because you know that you can survive death wounds while they cannot. each time you are on the battlefield, one human of yours is not.
you watch as your own children go to war with each other and tear each other apart.
you hate your dictators, the leaders that were chosen to reign tyranny. your government, perhaps. they destroy your citizens, your country, your people.
and yet.
they’re your people too.
they are your children too.
even the most cruel monsters still bear the identity of american. you look into their eyes and you see all their memories and childhoods reflected back at you. like with any other one of your children, you know exactly who they are and what their favourite colour was when they were six or the amount of scrapped knees they had from ages six to seven.
you hate them. you despise them. but you hate them in a way that only one who desperately also loved them can. you despise them in a way only someone know whose regret can.
you hate that you still love them. you wish you didn’t. but they’re you’re child and you still care too, too much. a parent cannot stop loving their children in the end, no matter what type of little monsters those children end up becoming.
your two children are tearing each other apart, one of them being a little cruel psychopath in particular who abuses the other and you feel nothing but hatred and anger and resentment and disgust and—
and grief
and disappointment
and deep profound sadness
(you could say you hate them and feel nothing more but you know you would be lying if you said that.
they’re little psychopathic monsters but they’re still yours. even if you so desperately do not want them to be.
you would gladly cut off your left arm if it meant that you could be a stranger to them, someone who gets the urge to want to have smothered them in their cradle without guilt. but alas.
they are yours.
and what more could be done about that?)
it is a terrible thing indeed, to be a parent
