Above all, I love my daughter

Above all - I love my daughter. And, to me, there is no cause worth her life.

Jordan Petersen speaks about young people creating wars when none exist. Some kids join the circus, the merchant navy, or Médecins Sans Frontières, or a touring rock band.  They might marry young and badly, join a priesthood, become a Scientologist, join a commune.  Or, as in my daughter’s case, embrace gender ideology. Gender is our children’s generation’s war, it seems. In this sense, our pain and sadness is perhaps similar to mothers of previous generations, whose children have gone off to fight in a distant war. 

Some kids, away at the war of their own creation, get hooked on drugs, booze. Some of them don't come back home.  Some return, damaged, wiser, enriched or all of these things.

My daughter has gone off to fight in her war. There are times my brain switches off and I forget that’s she’s gone, that she’s left our family.  

Her war is a foolish, pointless war, in my view. But aren’t they all, from a parent’s perspective? Individuals, institutions, and governments speak of transgenderism as a human rights concern, thus worthy of fighting for, while I steam about the damage I see it causing to humanity on so many levels, physical and psychological. They think my daughter’s war is worthy of her sacrifice. I do not.

When children go to war, life doesn’t stop for the rest of us. It never does. There was a period of a couple of years when I didn't know what to do with myself except to cry. My marriage suffered, my other child suffered, I had self-destructive thoughts. None of this brought my daughter back.

In times of war, when our children leave, communities often band together for support. That’s my focus now. Parents are all stronger together and I am grateful to everyone, including Genspect, who has held hands together with me. We are on the home front, waiting and hoping for our children to come back to us.

I know that all generations need a war, a cause, to set themselves apart. I hope I’ll be one of the lucky ones whose child comes home from the far away fields of battle, scarred, but stronger for the fight.