(I sent this letter to my daughter who recently turned 18, the legal age of adulthood)
Hey Kiddo,
You might eye roll when you read this, but I have not stopped pondering (referencing your text message).
When I read your text there was a part of me that wanted to laugh (child asking parent to ponder their actions/behaviours). But I didn’t. I am just sad. Sad that we are where we are.
I tried to reach out to you a few weeks ago because you had become so withdrawn. I obviously didn’t do that very well because you became very angry and upset. When you called me emotionally abusive (as well as spiritually abusive in the past), I felt that you were comparing me to your father, and that you feel that both your parents are abusive. I was shocked and upset. I did the only thing I could – retreat. How do I speak/act/think when my own child thinks I am abusive?
I ponder often and will always ponder about you. You are my child and I love you (I can feel you rolling your eyes here). My definition of love might not be the same as yours. Unconditional love doesn’t mean accepting everything and anything. That kind of love (with no boundaries) can do a lot of harm. I love you even when you choose a path of harm (this is unconditional love). I believe this path you are taking will only lead to harm. As a parent, I can’t say yes to something that I believe will harm my child. I love you. I wish I could protect you from all of this, from the world. But I can’t.
I ponder those times that we have experienced together that were definitely not abusive:
- Singing “Let It Go” in the car when we had the hiccups
- Walking down to McDonalds and stopping to watch the ducks on the way home
- Taking you to the pool with a friend each summer
- Hiking around the Lake District in the UK and having a warm hot chocolate at the end. “We are highlanders!!”
- Holding you from a distance and encouraging you to “stay in the boat” when I was working so hard to get you back home from your dad in Queensland during Covid lockdown.
- Telling stories in bed before turning the light out
- Pointing out the Teslas so that you could scream your disgust
- Coming to your rescue when you were upset at school
- Trying so hard to help you navigate high school without any information or understanding about neurodiversity
- Sitting with you in your room whilst you cried and waiting patiently until you were ready to share (although you don’t do that anymore)
- Making suggestions and listening whilst you were trying to navigate your online relationships
- Coffee outings
- Holiday trips together
- Walking the dog to the local park, sitting and talking together
- Laughing over silly memes and video clips in bed at night together
- And many more ponderings
You are an amazing young person (I can feel your eyes rolling again). You are creative, sensitive, thoughtful, inquisitive, complicated, fragile.
I see you. I may not see you the way you see you, but I see you. I gave birth to you. You were and are loved and cherished.
There are tens of thousands of families dealing with this very situation in Australia and New Zealand. We all share our stories, listen to each other and comfort each other in an online parent support group. I won’t share their stories until you are ready to read them. These parents share their distress and heartbreak. And the majority of these parents are not religious. We have done the research too. We are worried about the harms of this ideology. But our voices/views are interpreted as bigoted, phobic, harmful, discriminatory, TERF, abusive, you name it. I’m not going to get into a debate here. We will only dig our heals in deeper on each side of this chasm.
You are loved. Our views are different. I am a parent. I can’t agree with something that I believe will be harmful for my child. If this is something you need to pursue so that you can find out for yourself to see if it gives you the peace and harmony you are searching for, then go, my little bird, my little moth. I am not going anywhere. I will be here waiting.
I will not stop pondering.
I love you.
I love you.
I wrote a similar letter to my daughter when she was 18 - the part about what unconditional love is in particular. It's especially heartbreaking that they look upon their childhoods with us as abusive. My daughter does the same. It couldn't be further from the truth. She was loved, supported, and yes - parented. Parenting does not mean blind agreement. Hopefully these kids will someday wake up from their slumber and realize that they were misled, and the only people that truly loved them were those that they thought were hateful bigots - their parents.
I love the way you rehearsed the good times. Sometimes our children try to rewrite history, claiming that we forced them into some gender stereotype, but we all know this is not true.
If anything, we spoiled our daughter. Taking her out to eat, traveling to various countries, ponying up cash for all kinds of extracurricular activities and coding classes.
There does seem to come a time when it’s appropriate to tell the person straight out that you will never pay a penny for them to physically harm themselves, and that you love them, even though you disagree.
As parents, we must remember that we did not cause this social contagion that sprung from the Internet and cultural propaganda. Regardless of our marital status or religion, our parenting did not cause their dysphoria in most cases.
My husband and I take our kids to church every week and we are celebrating 30 years of marriage. Our son is fine and our daughter got sucked into this cult. It doesn’t discriminate. I’m praying that your daughter will come to her senses and come back to you.