Responsibility vs Fault
When my daughter was a few weeks old, she developed colic. Obviously in pain, she cried for hours. Since I was exclusively breastfeeding, I asked her pediatrician if my daughter could be reacting to something in my diet. The pediatrician dismissed the idea with a comforting yet condescending smile. "It’s unlikely to help and you need your nutrients. You can try changing your diet but..." Her tone trailing off, clearly to indicate that she was just humoring a worried new mom. "Just eat healthy and continue to breastfeed" she encouraged me. Her advice made no sense: How can what I eat NOT affect my baby? If I am consuming it, surely it is coming out in the milk. If it didn't matter, we wouldn't be advised against smoking, drinking, and prescribed medications. After doing some research on my own and some trial and error, I eliminated all "gassy" foods from my diet. Instead of proudly consuming legumes and multicolored (organic of course! Nothing but the best for my baby!) fruits and vegetables, I was surviving mostly on meat and iceberg lettuce.
My daughter's colic was clearly NOT MY FAULT but at the same time the result of SOMETHING I WAS DOING. While I should not have felt guilty for putting her through the pain, I certainly needed to take responsibility for her well-being and change something… Even if that something was generally considered good, healthy, and responsible.
When my daughter was 13 years old, she developed teen angst, the colic of adolescence. Obviously in pain, she cried for hours. A few months later she “came out as trans”. Her pediatrician and school counselor claimed that nothing can be done, and some children are just “born trans”, the advice that once again made no sense to me. Her behavior looked like rebellion, a healthy desire to individuate going off the rails, like an allergic reaction to my parenting. How can what we parents do NOT matter?
When our young teen children develop a trans identity, it is NOT OUR FAULT but at the same time a sign that we need to CHANGE SOMETHING WE ARE DOING. We need to change not necessarily because we are doing something wrong, but because what we are doing is not working for this particular child at this stage of the child’s life. Most breastfeeding moms can eat whatever they want with no detriment to their infants. Most parents of teens can be strict or lax, a bit over- or under-involved in the kids' lives, religious or secular, and the teens are none the worse for wear. But sometimes something goes wrong. Your baby has allergies or food sensitivities. Your teen is on the spectrum, is gay, extremely gender non-conforming, you have a personality mismatch , etc. And all of the sudden, what you are doing, what all the good parents around you are doing, what wise parenting books are telling you to do - is not working. It's not your fault, it's not fair, but you (me) need to figure out what it is and CHANGE SOMETHING. We can't just be victims of this evil cult; we have to fight back with all we've got.
In the comments, please share what changes worked for you, what didn't, what you wish you did differently (maybe it will help someone else).
I lost a daughter to the trans cult. She has mental illness issues, which isn't her fault or mine. But I do not use opposite sex pronouns or her new name. I can continue to hold my ground on reality even if she cannot. Of course she is angry with me about that. But I must hold onto reality even if she cannot. One of us needs to stay sane.
I was terrified that my transsexual husband would corrupt our two young children (then 10 and 12 years). He wanted to be their "sibling", taking no responsibility or lead as a protective father. He wanted to manipulate them into his belief that he was somehow both "Dad" AND someone who was their contemporary AND their "friend". It was grooming. He had moved out, so he was only writing e-mails to them. I had their passwords because they were so young. I looked out for e-mails from him. I printed them out and we went through them line by line or word by word: "This is a lie, this is a half-truth, this is a manipulative statement". So I introduced them very early to textual analysis, and I established an emotional distance which saved them. In a couple of years they saw that he did nothing except whine self-pityingly and complain that they didn't reply quickly. He "forgot" the fact that HE had WALKED out on them He never offered to come to our home (I said that he was welcome provided he wore male clothes and behaved as a father to them). He sent tiny presents and made a huge fuss about them. He was emotionally very detached. This meant that our children could concentrate on their own lives and school work, instead of propping up his fragile self-worth. They have independant lives now, and both live in the US. Their father, my ex-H died two years ago. A fight for his estate is on-going. with his older son from a previous marriage. All this has been very time-consuming, exhausting, and has prevented me from doing anything except part-time work. I will be suing when there is enough momentum from a variety of victims, including transwidows, children of transitioners and, of course, detransitioners.