White Parent Energy

I think this is a useful paradigm for understanding a powerful societal force that is by turns amusing, upsetting, and dangerous. I’ve been using this little phrase for more than a year and I’m gonna let you all use it now, too. First I’ll briefly outline the three main components of WPE, then provide two relevant examples, and then tie it all together with advice for how to spot it, avoid it, and combat it if you notice it in yourself.

And two brief notes to say, first, that you, unfortunately, don’t have to be white or a parent to have White Parent Energy, and second, that you have to exhibit all three main components to qualify. But if you’re reading this and saying, “oh at least I don’t have that one,” ask yourself if you want to be exempt based on a technicality or if you want to actually do better.

Component 1: Constant Moral Panic

This one is pretty self-explanatory, but most of the moral panics we hear about in the news wouldn’t penetrate public consciousess if it weren’t for the implicit (or explicit) threat to white supremacy, white families, and, at heart, white children.

Component 2: Individualist Competition

Competition isn’t necessarily bad, but we all know what I mean here: the need to compare your child to your peers’ children. The flipside of this is the constant drumbeat of fears about “learning loss,” because the only reason such a thing matters is that (white) children will “fall behind,” which is terrible because it means that their parents will lose the parenting championship, and we can’t have that.

Component 3: Projected Weakness

I’m not sure at what age a child is truly responsible for their own actions, but ascribing to White Parent Energy isn’t really kids’ fault. Ultimately, none of this would matter all that much if, deep down, the parents weren’t scared their kids were, in fact, weaker or less valuable than the Others. I’m not saying this is actually true — I don’t think ranking children or adults on value is a useful activity — but that these parents are that it is true, that their kid will be “exposed” as lacking in ways that are really about the parents’ own flaws, and ultimately, this is all because they themselves are deeply insecure and are projecting that onto their kids, who are probably much more progressive and resilient than their parents give them credit for.

Let’s look at two pertinent examples.

First, trans athletes. Now, this is supported by, and supports, the egregious moral panic about “grooming” and the like, but when you think about it, the essential argument is that it’s a so-called unfair advantage.

Second, let’s consider affirmative action, be it in schools or workplaces. Affirmative action exists because of ideas that influenced the creation of Critical Race Theory, hence this other current moral panic, so to believe in the need for affirmative action is to accept that our society has deep systemic issues.

Both of these things are wide-ranging and complex, but I truly think they can both be boiled down to one simple sentence: it is unfair that my child might “lose” to the Others, and it would be devastating to them if they did.

The hatefulness, the laws, all of it can be boiled down to that. And think about how insulting this actually is to these kids, because not only is the idea that losing to the “Others” is unfair not true, so what if it was?

I can’t speak for all Black parents, but I know I won’t be lying to Ezel to tell him the world is perfectly fair to people who look like him. My parents didn’t tell me that either. Life is deeply unfair, and that’s not good, but it’s also reality. The difference is, instead of expending time, money, and effort on bending reality into a pretzel that makes your child’s relative privilege seem fair and deserved, we prepare our kids for how to thrive on the on the fringes of that pretzel. As I said above, some POC parents buy into this WPE nonsense, and I get it, but it makes me sad.

Ultimately, White Parent Energy is bad for everyone, including the kids of said parents. If more people who were following the Master Narrative of White Parent Energy could pause and take note of the harm in which they were complicit before continuing to grab more and more of the pie for their own kid who would be fine anyway, we would all be much better off.

Here’s hoping this hits home for at least one person who needs to hear it, but if not, the rest of you can use the term to describe everything we’re all suffering under.