I (45F) recently found out that my daughter (16F) has been posting and retweeting some seriously disturbing stuff on her Twitter account. She follows a bunch of far-right extremists, and her posts include everything from racist “jokes” to flat-out hate speech. She’s referred to immigrants as “parasites,” used the n-word to describe Black people, and called Indians “pajeets.” She’s made comments about wanting to deport legal and illegal immigrants and posted things like, “The idea that hate is an evil emotion is the most evil idea in the world. If we cannot hate that which threatens what we love, our ability to do what is necessary to protect it is compromised.” I couldn’t believe my eyes.
When I confronted her, she brushed it off, saying, “Oh, c’mon, Mom, all of that is just me joking around, it’s not serious.” But I was furious. I ended up yelling at her and took away her phone, laptop, and any books she has that aren’t school-related. She’s only allowed to use her electronics for schoolwork now, and I’ll be monitoring her closely when she does.
She’s obviously pissed. She says she can’t wait to leave this place and live with her dad (my ex-husband, who is conservative, but not to the extreme of feeding her these kinds of beliefs). She even said she’s going to cut me off once she’s old enough. I called her bluff and stood my ground, insisting that she won’t be getting her electronics back.
She told my ex-husband about all of this and he is furious at me, he is insisting that my daughter is messing around and wants me to give it all back.
But here’s where it gets weird:
A few days later, I got a call from a strange number. It was a woman who identified herself as a social activist, and she said she had been following my daughter’s posts on social media. She said she was extremely concerned about what my daughter was posting, and she wanted to meet with me to discuss a “solution.”
I was initially very suspicious, but I eventually agreed to meet her at a public cafe. When we met, she explained that she was part of a group of activists who were trying to “de-radicalize” young people who had been drawn into far-right ideologies. She said that my daughter was a particularly severe case, but that she believed there was still hope.
She offered to help me enroll my daughter in an intensive “re-education” program that her group ran. The program would involve individual and group therapy sessions, exposure to people from different backgrounds, and education about the history of civil rights movements and the dangers of hate speech.
I was shocked, but I was also, to be honest, relieved. I had been feeling helpless and had no idea how to deal with the situation, and the idea of having someone help was incredibly appealing. After a lot of hesitation, I agreed to give it a try.
My daughter, of course, was furious when I told her about the program. She cried and screamed, saying that I was trying to brainwash her. But I stood firm. I told her that she had two choices: either she participated in the program, or she continued to live under the restrictions I had put in place.
Eventually, my daughter reluctantly agreed to attend the program. And here’s the most amazing thing: it actually worked. The program wasn’t the brainwashing she had feared. Rather, it opened her mind. She began to question her previous beliefs, make friends with people from different walks of life, and even started to speak out against the hate speech she had once accepted.
I can’t believe the change in my daughter. She’s still a teenager, and she still makes mistakes. But she’s no longer the hateful child I was afraid I was losing. I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m grateful for this chance, and I’m grateful to the woman who called me that day. It was an ending I never could have predicted.