Red hats on a train: How Dads can speak louder than logos
MAGA, Bernie, Minecraft, Messi, and what dads can do when merch becomes meaning.
In middle school, rebellious fashion choices were calculated to get a reaction: the Bart Simpson "Eat My Shorts" t-shirts that drove teachers crazy, the strategically worn "Coed Naked Lacrosse" hoodies, and the D.A.R.E. to Keep Kids Off Drugs shirts worn with peak irony. These were the armor of teen identity in the 90s, little flags of defiance that signaled to everyone exactly who we thought we were.
Back then, the bootleg merch vendors lining the National Mall would hawk FBI or CIA hats to the tweens visiting my hometown of Washington, D.C. Wearing federal agency gear was the perfect adolescent blend of authority-adjacent cool and mild rebellion.
I thought about all this on a recent Amtrak journey from D.C. to New York with my wife and toddler son. As we boarded, I noticed a group of middle school students wearing red hats. For a fleeting moment, I hoped these kids chose to commemorate their D.C. visit by becoming fans of my beloved Washington Nationals, but as we moved past them, I saw they were sporting MAGA hats.
Everyone appeared to be normal, decently behaved kids on a school trip, fidgeting in their tween awkwardness. I spotted a teacher in a school-branded polo shirt — it’s not worth sharing the name of the school, especially after the whole Covington Catholic mess from 2019, but it was a faith-based institution — and I considered striking up a conversation.
“Looks like they picked up some noteworthy souvenirs,” I imagined myself suggesting. Then I imagined the teacher’s responses, ranging from:
“Yeah, I wish they hadn’t. It’s going to be a pain to explain to their parents.”
To: “It’s a political symbol, sure, but it’s also just... a hat?”
To: “We don’t tell kids what to think. Some of them really admire the president!”
To: “We’re not interested in raising kids who apologize for being American.”
To: Getting punched in the nose.
Somewhere in the middle might have been something like, “Boys will be boys. Are you telling me you never wore something provocative on purpose at their age?”
And that’s logic I can understand. But it misses something important. Bart Simpson shirts might have annoyed a teacher, but they didn't carry the weight of today’s political symbols. Kids have always used merchandise to signal identity, but today's choices seem to carry more baggage, more division, and sometimes more harm.
And it’s not just MAGA. Political movements have long had merch: Obama had it, Bernie had it, BLM has it. Adults wear it proudly because it makes them feel part of something bigger, but that something undoubtedly carries more polarization. It doesn’t just signal political preference; it signals worldview. Sometimes kids choose to wear it. Sometimes we dress them in it.
Wherever young people are gathered, you'll see logo soup: Nike, Under Armour, Supreme. The toddlers are rocking Bluey, Spidey, and Paw Patrol. Children celebrate sports icons, too: Lionel Messi in Inter Miami pink, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Steph Curry, Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, and, in D.C. especially, Jayden Daniels. And now Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Barbra Banda, Sophia Smith.
The instinct is familiar. Choosing a brand is an attempt to belong, or to rebel. Kids are trying to say something about who they are, and who they’re with. Or just to say something about the rules and whether or not they apply. In the case of political brands, perhaps tweens are drawn to them because they’re likely to garner the strongest reactions from parents, people on the street, and peers.
Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff explains that in the absence of shared cultural stories, kids adopt brands as identity. If the community's silent, the merch will speak. "[Branding] gives kids a sense of meaning, belonging, and power — no matter how artificial," he writes.
Kids find belonging in all kinds of ways — through a team, a youth group, a local hero, a Minecraft hoodie. Political belonging is just one of the louder ones. But it’s not the only one. And if we want to help our kids sort through all that noise, it starts with being willing to talk about their choices, without fear or performance.
The real question isn't which logos our kids should wear. It's how we help them build identities that run deeper than merchandise. It’s about building culture through the stories we tell at dinner. The questions we ask on the ride home. The way we talk about fairness, power, decency, and what it means to be part of something bigger than yourself.
Because when kids see adults who model responsibility without ego, who show up without needing to be seen, who treat others with care and clarity, then any symbol that represents division or exclusion doesn't just feel wrong. It feels small, shallow, and out of sync with the values we try to model.
I thought about my own son, if he were 13 or so, coming back from a field trip with a red hat, and how I'd react. I don’t want to be my son’s merch police. I’d rather be the kind of dad that helps him ask, “What does this hat say about me? Who does it include — and who does it push away?” Because that’s the real power of symbols: they don’t just reflect identity, they shape it. And if we don’t talk to our kids about that, someone else will. And I’d want to have the same conversation if he came home in a Bernie t-shirt or with an ACAB sticker.
But more than that, I hope we never reach that red hat moment. Not because I shut it down, but because we've already built something stronger, something he carries with him on the inside, always, not something emblazoned on any hat.
Unless it's a curly "W" on a red Washington Nationals hat, of course.
How would you react to your child coming home with swag that’s counter to your own values?
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I hope I would have a conversation as you suggest. When my son was a teenager I might have just reacted negatively. Maybe I’m a little wiser now. I hope so.