My dad literally refers to me and my brother as investments, and he does not hide that he doesn’t like me because I’ve failed to provide satisfactory material return on that investment. He’s said more than once that the only reason to have kids is so that you can make someone else do the household chores and so that you have guaranteed elder care, and he’s very upset that neither of us were compliant and willing to jump immediately to every demand when we were little and that because he treats us as investments and assets he’s angry at for low returns rather than human beings, neither of us actually like him enough to give a shit what happens to him in old age. Though I guess it doesn’t matter, he probably knows all that and is expecting to still be cared for well just to make our mum happy. Why should he treat the kids like people he loves rather than poorly performing investment assets, when he’ll still get all the benefits of being a good parent as long as he’s a romantic item with the parent who actually treats us as people?

I wonder if that early and constant window into how capitalism sees human beings as just another source of wealth, and destroys us just as it destroys nature, is what ultimately made me a communist… and why I had obvious left tendencies from a very early age. (Got called a pinko the first time when I was about five. Got the idiot Cold Warrior who said it to describe what a communist is. He described a sensible individual who understands sharing and community. I told him as much. Was then called a communist in even harsher words. Agreed that I was one, to make the argument stop. Got in a lot of trouble.)