Early last month, my eldest daughter declared that she wanted to go on the Women’s March in Washington DC on January 21. I was stunned. At the age of 13, my daughter’s life — and Instagram feed — has hitherto been filled with homework, hobbies, YouTube stars, clothes and the never-ending friendship dramas that erupt in middle school. No surprise there: when I was that age, growing up in London, my mind was filled with similar preoccupations. But it would never have occurred to me to go marching — in the era of Margaret Thatcher, suburban middle-class kids did not do that sort of thing.
上個月初，我的大女兒宣佈，她想參加1月21日的華盛頓婦女遊行(WMW)。我驚呆了。迄今爲止，我13歲的女兒的生活——和Instagram動態——一直充斥著家庭作業、各種愛好、YouTube明星、衣服和連連爆發的中學生友誼風波。這沒什麼好驚訝的：在她這個年齡的時候，在倫敦長大的我關注的也是類似的事情。但我從未有過遊行的念頭——在瑪格麗特•撒切爾(Margaret Thatcher)的時代，倫敦郊區中產階級家庭的孩子不會做這種事情。