Part 2, Part 1.
When my son started secondary school, I was as worried as any parent would be. To get there, he had to catch a bus from the bottom of our road. I wanted to walk all the way down with him, just to make sure he was okay. But he didn’t want me to.
In the end, we compromised, he let me walk part of the way. I said goodbye, watched him walk off alone, and then turned around and cried the whole way back home.
In his first year of secondary school, he started talking about a new friend he’d made, a boy who like him, was a little bit different. His friend was autistic, and they seemed to understand each other in a way that felt easy and genuine. I was in touch with the boy’s mum, and before long, they were spending time together outside of school. He even stayed overnight at his friend’s house. For his birthday, they went coasteering together. He was still very much an outdoor boy at heart.
I have photos from that time: him climbing, laughing, soaking up the adventure. He was still finding joy in the world. That same year, he went on his first trip away from home with Scouts, a Jamboree in Holland. It felt like a milestone, like he was growing into independence, one step at a time.
Little did I know that this would be the beginning of a series of letdowns and the slow unraveling of his friendship groups. Towards the end of that first year, his friend, the one he’d grown close to, had to move away.
I tried to talk to my son about how he felt, but he shut down. I gently said he must be feeling sad and asked if they were going to keep in touch, but he gave me nothing to work with. From that point on, it was as if a door had quietly started to close between us.
He stopped sharing who his friends were. Instead of names, he’d mention “friend one” or “friend two” and I was left to guess who he meant.
It was around this time that something in him began to shift. He would sometimes explode in sudden rages over things that seemed small and then break down in uncontrollable tears. Afterward, he’d retreat into silence, shutting off all communication.
As parents, we’d always tried to protect and guide him with intention. We didn’t give him a phone until his second year of secondary school. We wanted to hold off as long as we could. He had a Kano computer at home, which he used for programming and creative play. We encouraged him to explore the digital world through curiosity and imagination, not social pressure. We had a no screens in bedrooms rule and tried to limit time online. Above all, we wanted him outside, in nature, where we enjoyed spending time together as a family.
But despite our efforts, something was clearly wrong. On the rare occasions I managed to reach through the silence, he’d reveal glimpses of what was going on, just enough for me to understand that he was being bullied at school. He wouldn’t tell me what was being said, and he wouldn’t let us intervene. It was as if he was trying to carry the weight of it all alone, even as it slowly wore him down.
In 2019, we had a beautiful family holiday climbing in France. We took him and his younger brother to Fontainebleau and the Ardèche on a climbing trip, and they both loved it. It was the kind of experience we had always dreamed of giving them, adventure, nature, time together outdoors.
Of course, there were still moments, occasional bursts of frustration when he couldn’t climb as well as he wanted to, but overall, it was a joyful trip, full of laughter, shared challenges, and connection. It went so well that we immediately booked to return the following April.
But the world, as it turned out, had other plans.
Both my children were very active in scouts from the beginning and completed their highest honors. I remain an active adult in the program thirty years later in the venturing program. I love adventure and I treasured sharing it with my family. The happy family chapter closed 3 years ago with my daughter in the trans cult. Overnight, from kids that called her mom as the positive influence, to political left chaos. All she talked about was blue states and Bidens legacy. The heroes Biden called trans. Suddenly, she got tattoos and frequented the marijuana stores. She went from two jobs at age 23 to one then none and wanted "me time". She went from two degrees in a great job of five years to waiting tables then drugs. Her new room mate replaced the other, going be he pronouns. He and they, went as blue as could be into Newsome territory. It's been over two years since she moved, no contact of course with anyone here. She would be 27 later this year. Most people would never understand this kind of pain. I hurt and cry every single day. Barely existing. It sucks.
You did all the right things, and still this ideology came for your son. This is why parents must not indulge the tendency to blame ourselves, or think that if we had done X, Y or Z differently, there's be a different outcome. We were in a battle that we didn't even know was happening, and after six years, I've come to believe there is nothing any of us could have done to stop it. It was already too big and too powerful.