I’ll Love You Forever

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be.”

When my children were young, I would read to them Robert Munsch’s book “Love You Forever”. The first page of the book shows a picture of a young mom rocking her baby and singing a song to him as he falls asleep. As the child grows up, the mom continues rocking her child as she sings the song of her lifelong love and devotion to him.

As a young Mom, I looked forward to my children growing older and being able to continue having a loving and affectionate relationship with each other. But the middle pages of this story have been ripped apart from us and the song has been silenced. My son is estranged from our family—because he wants us to stop seeing him as our son and instead as our daughter. We know this is but a delusion from a very confused young man. My husband and I, his parents, love him too much to join him in delusional beliefs and actions that are destroying his mind and body. As a result, we now have joined an increasing number of parents who have the unwanted label of being parents of estranged children.

During the last 2 years of navigating this sad world of estrangement, I have found that there is a prejudice against parents of estranged children. The underlying narrative is that, if a child estranges herself or himself from the parents, it is for good reason. The parents must have been abusive or dysfunctional in some manner. I understand that there are some parents who have abused their children because of mental illness, addiction or following a pattern of generational abuse. However, a big blanket is thrown over ALL parents of estranged children and an accusatory finger is pointed at them. I have read and heard that children in loving, nurturing, and stable families never leave home. This is not true and it is particularly egregious to accuse parents of being abusive when their gender confused children cut them off.

In today’s culture, there is an epidemic of estrangement and a trend toward labeling others who disagree with you in any way, as "toxic”. Children and young adults are told to drop relationships with anyone who disagrees with them, therefore justifying a choice to alienate those "toxic" people. At the top of the list of “toxic” people are parents. Society and progressive culture telling young people to cut their parents off, is just a lazy, easy-way-out, cop-out that only leads to more dysfunction and missing out on the joy of authentic relationships built on honesty and unconditional love—even in the midst of imperfection.

Today, mental health experts, institutions, and society at large are failing to address the reasons for estrangement between gender confused kids and their parents. There are powerful cultural, political and economic forces working to separate children from their parents. From schools, to the main stream media, to social media platforms, to mental health and medical providers to government agencies, there’s a strategic plan to break down the family. Breaking down the family is easy. All these agents have to do is indoctrinate the kids in gender ideology, lead and affirm them down a transition path, keep secrets from parents, and tell kids that, if parents disagree with their lifestyle choices, they are toxic and unsafe. Dysfunction and abuse then are defined as “my parent doesn’t affirm me as my preferred gender/name/pronouns therefore I’m being abused”…. or “My parent doesn’t let me get puberty blockers, testosterone or estrogen, therefore I am unsafe at home”. These parents are being called abusive simply for standing up for biological and scientific truth, or standing on their religious convictions. This is happening in thousands of homes today.

Another problem is that the term and concept of abuse has been redefined. When abuse is redefined to cover parents who don’t agree with everything their kids do and say, it adulterates the true meaning of abuse. This fragile generation of brainwashed kids are being told exactly that. When people say that “misgendering” or not using the right pronouns and name is abuse, it makes a mockery of the true meaning of abuse and it harms those who are truly suffering at the hands of abusers.

The flip side of redefining abuse is the redefinition of love and acceptance. Gender confused kids see their parents as loving and accepting them only if the parents affirm them in their delusions that they are or that they can become the opposite sex. If parents don’t go along with the gender narrative, they are told that parents don’t love them and that they are not accepted. The need for parental and familial love and acceptance is so great, that these kids will seek those who will affirm them in their wrong thinking and cling to them for love and support. There are evil people who want to use and abuse these brainwashed kids, who jump in to offer “support”. Sadly, well intentioned people—sometimes even family members and friends—gladly step in to fill in the shoes of those “toxic parents” and become so called glitter families. The glitter family further contributes to the estrangement between parents and child, leaving the young person unanchored to his or her roots, stability, and long-term support. The support from these glitter families is shallow and not permanent. When things fall apart for the young person, the glitter “family” disappears and parents are left to deal with the aftermath of brokenness and destruction to which the glitter “family” contributed.

I have profoundly grieved my son’s absence but, as his mother, my heart breaks most for him, not for me. What makes me saddest of all is what my son is missing out during this crucial time of emerging adulthood, including the daily love and support of his family, and the family bonding, and the shared togetherness of holidays and special occasions. I know there is a hole in his heart that no amount of “glitter” friends and family can fill for him. As he was raised to know who God is and who he is as a child perfectly and wonderfully created by God, he is missing out on his mind, soul and body being aligned together in truth and material reality. What pain he must live in as he is estranged from his own self!

Even though the middle pages of our story have been ripped off, there is an ending and those pages are still there, providentially written, though I can’t see them yet. I continue texting my son regularly even though it’s only one way communication. There hasn’t been a response from him in over a year. But I know the child we raised and what makes his heart happy, sad and the deep longings within it. I will wait for him to come back. The wait is worth it because:

“I’ll love him forever,

I’ll like him for always,

As long as I’m living

My baby he’ll be.”