Yearns for adversity

A Legacy of Struggle – But Not This

In my family, we’ve always fought. Not each other—but systems. Injustice. Real wrongs. We've taken on courts, institutions, and the state itself when needed. We didn’t just endure adversity—we confronted it. We used it to carve new legal ground, to create space for others, to repair what was broken. Ok, we also fought each other too!

That generational trauma runs deep—Jewish trauma especially. We know the taste of exile, the sting of discrimination, the weight of always being ready to fight for our place in the world.

And now, I watch my eldest—raised with love, protection, the kind of safety I never had—choose adversity. Not born of necessity, but almost as if needing something hard to define themselves against. She didn’t follow our path, but flipped it entirely. Chose the opposite stance. And yet—it’s still struggle. Still conflict. Still alienation. Just… facing the wrong way.

That’s the twist in the knife.

I see rebellion. Normal teenage angst, sure. But also a trap. One laid perfectly for vulnerable kids looking for meaning, identity, belonging. And she walked straight into it.

I’m grieving. Not just the choices, but the direction. The disconnect. I wanted to pass down our strength. Our clarity. Our fight for justice.

Instead, she inherited the ache—and none of the compass.