From "How to parent in our new, awkward age of pronouns" by Tracy Moore (WaPo)(https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/04/does-your-kid-want-to-change-her-pronouns-read-this/).
From the comments over there: "Suspend disbelief and listen to the kids. They are definitely on to something, and it's very interesting."
ADDED: The link to this article interfered with my blog format for some reason (causing the sidebar to shift to the bottom of the page). That's why you just see the URL now. As the current URL reflects, the headline for the column has been changed to "Does your kid want to change her pronouns? Read this." What's the subtle mood change from "How to parent" to "Does your kid want"? I'd say the new headline — "Does your kid want" — contains more of a suggestion that you need to be the adult in the room and provide guidance, but that's not the message of the column. The more mysterious headline "How to parent" sets you up to hear the advice that you need to listen to the child and learn... and "buckle up and deal with it."
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81 comments:
I hope Dr. Spock is burning in Hell.
What those kids need is a dose of reality and a good spanking, not indulgence.
11 year old kids? You're fucking kidding me.
This is totally and completely fucked up.
And these babies are getting this from their parents and the predominate liberal culture.
We need a law to prevent minors from transitioning.
So the Archbishop of Omaha told those in attendance at the Red Mass that "we all have to get along."
I'm not going along with this.
It always seems to be the “mom” or mother figure that writes or comments in these articles. Does not often seem to be a two parent household creating pronoun dictionaries.
She shouldn't be reading fucking Slate for advice. That's for damn sure.
No. Nein. Nada. Nyet. Nōh.
I would imagine you could pinpoint it to the time that the child was given an iPhone with access to Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat.
there are two factors that most strongly influence trans transitioning
1) having friends that transitioned
2) having parents that wanted to get this 'right,' whatever right looked like
it's a sickness, a contagion. Show how it's Not?
This is inane: "Suspend disbelief and listen to the kids. They are definitely on to something, and it's very interesting."
They are children. They haven't discovered something new. They are simply parroting the poses struck by the silly adults modelling adulthood for them.
I suspect there will be many young adults in the coming years sifting the ashes of their childhood and wondering how they ever became so confused.
These people are idiots.
Buckle up and deal with it we must, but indulging it is unlikely to be healthy or helpful for the kids involved or society in general.
Do we listen to 11yo kids about any other decision they wish to make in their lives?
No...we even tell them what goddamn cereal to eat.
But let's all agree that we should give them puberty-blocking drugs when they can't even spell their own names in cursive.
We are fucked.
listen to the kids. They are definitely on to something,
Other than obtaining abortions, please name One other thing we let 11 year olds decide ?
At 11, you can't vote, can't sign contracts, can't drive a car, can't stay out late...
But, You CAN; All By Yourself, decide
a) to have an abortion
b) to take puberty blockers and hormones that will sterilize you
Because...
We've Got To Trust The Children, Let THEM make These Decisions...For their own good!
What am I missing?
Why would you need pronouns for Talking face to face discussion
My teen daughter also started talking about it a few years ago, on the heels of a trans English teacher joining the staff—a hip, penis having person with a penchant for other penis havers, whose preferred pronouns are plural. About half the vagina havers we’re using new pron9by the end of the year. I’m a dad, not a mom, by contribution and habit, so all I had to say about it was that it’s one thing to prefer a set of pronouns to another, and quite another thing to compel people to use your preferred pronouns. In this respect the teacher set a good example, occasionally reminding student and parent who erred with the "correct" pronoun at first, but never chastising and avoiding repeat corrections for the stubborn and/or forgetful. Mom definitely had more to say and hear about it, but kids trying on and shedding identities and social contagions are not things that get me too worked up.
"They are definitely on to something, and it's very interesting."
That their parents believe nothing. and therefore anything.
Most kids revolt. The object of their revolt changes like the seasons.
It used to be mini-skirts and long hair; now it's pronouns and gender.
---"Just buckle up and deal with it."
Precisely what she is not doing. She is ennabling. Then she feels like a superior parent. All while her daughter just wants her mother to say whether this is real or make-believe.
Mom, listen up -- it's make believe! At least until you have ennabled your 11yo daughter all the way to gender change chemicals.
I did enjoy the anxiety of some parent who embrace progressive shibboleths but freak out when their kid bring one home, but for the most part parents were very supportive and encouraging of their kids’ identity discovery. Getting too into it is creepy, and I’ve seen a sort of munchausen by proxy situation in a few cases where kids are pushed into non-binary identities by attention craving and otherwise disturbed parents. That is fucked up.
Munchausen by proxy. Some kids are immersed in this at home through "conversations" (=lectures) and some Cartoon Network shows; no doubt some schoolteachers also promote it.
Democracy Dies in Darkness!
"Suspend disbelief and listen to the kids." Cotton Mather couldn't have said it better. Salem, Mass. invented cancel culture!
"They are definitely on to something, and it's very interesting."
Yeah, they are on to something. A lifetime of therapy and pain; especially if they do surgery and drugs.
We haven’t come to any conclusions here, but that doesn’t change what I would tell any parent, boss, teacher or colleague: Just buckle up and deal with it."
Ignoring (or worse- supporting) idiocy is not dealing with it.
In my gut, the non-binary stuff hits different than, say, a bunch of 6th grade girls claiming a bisexual identity. That stuff bothered me because it seemed like premature sexualization, where the non-binary phenomenon explicitly takes sexual preferences out of identity. It is in many ways aggressively asexual.
Then it was tales about her schoolmates announcing their queer status or 'they/them' pronouns.
At 11 years old, I think we pretended to be cowboys and Indians, which is more interesting and probably more fun than pretending to be sexually fucked-up.
"Suspend disbelief and listen to the kids. They are definitely on to something, and it's very interesting."
"The face of a child can say it all. Especially the mouth part of the face."
These kids are not being helped; their minds are being poisoned.
I'm going to continue my theme for today. This is another case of when living in the real world meets living in the 'nice theory, wouldn't-want-to-live-in-it' world. (or make-believe, but-it-feels-good-to-me world).
There is nothing even remotely sane about making up pronouns for adults (young or old), insisting that others refer to you in a plural sense when you are so obviously not plural (crazy...maybe; plural, no). There is nothing sane about wanting the room to choose to identify with a different gender from day to day, or week to week, or month to month- as if it's the latest top video selection from TikTok.
But it's a sign of civilizational insanity when you allow this to be drummed into the heads of your kids. This is where we allow the fake world to supersede the real world in which we actually live. No good ending comes from playing along with the fake world's dictums. In the end, the real world always comes in with it's invoice, waiting to be paid. I personally choose to live in the real world. My Democratic and many Republican friends have chosen to 'go along' with the fake world. Just how do you all think that will end?
A is A. A thing is what it is. You can call it something else, but it's substance, it's very essence is what it is. Reality is. College-borne theories on 'justice', social or otherwise, are just theories that should have stayed in the classrooms, but like a badly run lab in Wuhan, were allowed to escape.
I suppose there is some benefit in knowing what a pronoun is.
They don't call them personal pronouns for nothing.
"Suspend disbelief and listen to the kids. They are definitely on to something, and it's very interesting."
We've seen this Cultural Revolution before.
Don't let kids be kids...indoctrinate them to think they are something other than what they would be if left alone. I am a cat. Meow. The progressives are nuts...We live in upside down world.
The current prevalent rash of identity disorder claims is oddly akin to mass sociogenic disorder )previously hysteria), abetted by social media connectivity and legions of gobsmacked and overindulgent parents.
Here's one thing (of many) that I don't get about the whole pronoun thing.
The only pronouns affected by someone's gender dysphoria are the third person pronouns, like he or she (or "it"). First person pronouns are all about me, not anyone else. Second person is always "you" (or down South, maybe 'yall,' especially if plural). Doesn't matter what the person addressed as "you" is, boy, girl, demigirl, semigirl, whatever. When someone is in your presence, do you use third person pronouns in a conversation involving them? That's talking about someone in their presence as if they are not there, which I've never thought of as being polite. Seems to me the better practice would be to use their name, not a pronoun.
"So, Heather, Jill just said she thought your teacher was lame. What do you think?"
What Jill's identity is, what she thinks about her sexuality, doesn't enter into the conversation. End of problem.
I think this whole pronoun brouhaha comes about because the woke folk enjoy making the rest of us act like dancing bears at the circus, performing according to their dictates, which are intended to strip us of our dignity and free will, and to affirm their own moral superiority. I don't accept their gender dysphoria as a form of moral superiority. Sorry!
The story of Vroom. Soon to be an illustrated children's book, coming to a school library near you.
https://www.thelibertybeacon.com/my-niece-is-a-car/
To start, parents should realize that searching for pronouns that feel accurate isn’t some kind of emo phase....
But it is. Have 11-year-olds magically changed in the last few years? They are always trying on some sort of new "Hey we found the REAL essence of truth that all the generations before us were too stupid to realize" secret to life. Only this time, their amazing new wisdom comes with life altering consequences unlike pasty skin and blackened hair.
The correct pronoun, as much as "demigirl" is a pronoun, is fucker. It's all based on who the individual prefers to fuck. Fucker is a useful genderless word. Yes, I'm being bitchy. For forty years I've refused to learn more than 2 last names for women friends, 3 if we are really close.
It is this type of parent who later claims to be clueless when her daughter goes off the deep end of gender dysphoria. Parents should understand that when a child comes to them with the current crap from the left, they are looking for a strong response about their family values and why they hold them, not a feckless flexibility that reveals a lack of values. Ground the kid in their family values and encourage showing respect for others but not openness to every current trend. Your kids will thank you later in life.
I remember watching Boris Badenov during the 1960s,years before a professor of linguistics told me that there are no grammatical articles in Russian. I didn't seem to bother him, so maybe we can learn to live in a world without pronouns.
And when those friends visiting us tell me their preferred pronouns, I use them. And when I slip up, I apologize and correct it.
What a horrendous error. Jump aboard Charon's ferry, lil' children! There's room for plenty and more!
A friend who insists on Newspeak is no friend. He's an enemy who hasn't begun to drag you to Room 101, he's just prodding you in that direction.
I doubt the best way to address the confusion in the current culture is to add to it. My long-time friend says he feels as though he is living in Rome in 328 AD. He is onto something.
For the most part, we have XX and XY. Let's cling to that fact. Has anyone considered that this story and the comments might be coming from a Russian bot farm? Just asking...
More idiocy. A parent doesn't do a child a favor by indulging them with acquiescing to every nonsensical idea. Eventually the child grows up and will face the fact that the world won't indulge them.
Follow teh Science!
Madness.
>"At first it was one conversation about a friend who identifies as a 'demigirl.' Next, it was stories of her friends talking about transitioning. Then it was tales about her schoolmates announcing their queer status or 'they/them' pronouns.... I told her it was absolutely okay to let all this marinate, evolve and emerge<
Next, daughter is a breast-amputated "boy." Marinate that, you idiot.
And when the champion of the boys track team tells you he feels like a girl, why you simply pat him on the head and call him Caitlyn, of course.
Sorry, Ms. Moore is not “parenting” in the age of pronouns, she’s shirking her responsibility as a parent. Just wants to be seen as woke by her book club and the PTA. Grow up.
These kids need you, now more than ever, to straighten them out (no pun intended) when the schools fill them with this garbage. Or better yet, pull them out and send them to a nice private school.
My son wore his Superman pjs all summer one year (complete with Velcro attached cape). Didn’t make him faster than a speeding bullet or more powerful than a locomotive. Then he quit that and wore the Batman outfit. That didn’t make him a superhero either.
F’ing garbage…
But this is why I don’t read the WaPo or the NYT. And this isn’t a serious article anyway. Ms. Moore probably doesn’t even exist. It’s just more brainwashing/social engineering. They publish these articles so the “birthing adults” in the sewing circle think they’re all supposed to think this way. It furthers the collective, socialist ideology.
If you pump people's heads full of nonsense, a significant number of them will believe it.
(trying to post again)
i was reading an article, by bari weiss, about some other topic
(they Fired a professor, because he "argued for the importance of treating each person as an individual worthy of dignity and respect.")
But, while there, the mentioned Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
[which ties in Directly, to the topic of 11 year old 'thems']
I've wondered about the order: D E I, and have often thought it should be more like
Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE) . . . But THEN, it hit me
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is so often referred to as DEI, that if you do a google search on DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is what comes back
BUT! What IS DEI? What did it mean... BEFORe it meant Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?
What DEI Really means, is: GOD (try Google Translate, it Still shows it)
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) IS their Mother F*cking GOD!
Which, is WHY they are so big on having it EVERYWHERE
How will mom deal with the genital mutilation that is sure to follow? Just buckle up and deal with it?
It's fine if children want to use this sort of thing amongst themselves -- secret child languages aren't a new thing, after all -- but this prescriptivism in favour of ever more elaborate neologisms is deeply silly.
It's also, oddly, fundamentally at odds with the "progressive" take on linguistics that dominated while I was at college -- a comprehensive rejection of linguistic and grammatical prescriptivism in favour of accepting demotic speech (e.g. African American Vernacular English) as equally valid as standardised educated speech. Nowadays, a segment of the educated class is instead hell bent on stamping out vernacular useage wherever it conflicts with their newly invented rules (whether on pronouns or on women and pregnancy) and even trying to rewrite foreign languages that include inconvenient gender markings.
What happened to giving children loving correction?
it's a social disease of a different kind.
So getting it right means encouraging and facilitating whatever cockamamie ideas a bunch of eleven year olds come up with?
When my daughter was about 11, one of her friends decided I needed a nickname, and started trying to call me "Colonel" on a car trip. I told her that if she did so once more, I'd turn the car around and take her back to her house, no trip! She accepted that my preferred references did not include "Colonel" and we got along fine after that.
I also explained that respect was a two-way street, and a prerequisite of being respected isn't demanding it, but earning it, by showing respect to others.
The linked article shows an adult behaving respectfully to others, even small people of few years. And if the kids requesting they be called "xer" don't get any rise out of the adults, they'll stop doing it sooner rather than later.
We are raising a generation of spoiled tyrants.
It isn't about the pronouns.
It is about creating an army of fodder and shock troops.
I wonder whether introducing - and then indulging - even more uncertainty about identity and "gender" at the brink of adolescencea time of identity ambiguity already, is a good idea...
I'm reminded of the post a few days ago about how focusing on their trauma, rather than on their healing and/or the march of time and reality, causes PTSD sufferers to suffer more.
I hope Dr. Spock is burning in Hell.
Probably ought to throw Marlo Thomas in there as well.
Free to be them and they.
It's hard to read this piece on Bari Weiss's substack and think this is all harmless. It leads to tragedy.
I wonder how much of this gender delusion is the product of the culture having moved so openly against the so-called "Cis, hetero, white, Christian" portion of the culture (some 60-70%)? I would guess most kid don't wants to accept that the culture actively hates them. So, to learn that you can "opt out" of that status must be attractive to some. Which is why it has to be called out at the delusion it is.
Take your kids out of the indoctrination centers..and teach them yourself if you want normal, well adjusted kids. If you want crazy, ideology minded hate....send them to public schools.
It seems to me akin to the witchcraft claims in Salem.
A kind of mass hysteria/psychosis.
Like when there are serial suicides of young people in the same school.
It applies to all things 'trans' and all things 'covid.'
It's really weird...
It is abundantly clear with the explosion of young kids having gender confusion that this is not something natural, but something learned and imposed upon them by the schools and culture.
If you don't set the gender norms for your child right from birth, someone elses will do it for you, and those someone elses won't give a flying fuck about the health and welfare of your child.
There are too many people asking for certain pronoun usage. I cannot keep up. So, I would ask these people who have preferred pronouns to please wear a sign around their neck with the pronoun they prefer so I know how to address them.
The link in this post was screwing up my blog's format, so I took it out.
Here it is if you want to copy and paste it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/04/does-your-kid-want-to-change-her-pronouns-read-this/
When my daughter was about 11, one of her friends decided I needed a nickname, and started trying to call me "Colonel" on a car trip. I told her that if she did so once more, I'd turn the car around and take her back to her house, no trip!
Lighten up, Colonel Francis.
Teaching grammar these days must be challenging. "They" and "them" can be singular? "They want a drink of water." Or is it, "They wants a drink of water."?
By the way, what does a real teacher say when a student uses "feminist" as plural? Or any other noun that ends with an "st" sound. "The activist gathered to confront the racist."
And, really, what's the problem with using "you're" and "your" (or even "yr") interchangeably? "'They're", "there" and "their"? Why not "thar"? "Them thar wants a drink of water."
In Murakami's novel, "Norwegian Wood" a teacher says of herself, "I am the scratchy stuff on the side of the matchbox."
What happens when you take the friction out of teaching? Or talking or writing or reading?
You know, puberty is hard. If I had to go through the process from being a girl to a young woman and I saw some way to get out of it, I would take it. Relatively, as an outsider even at the time I thought going through puberty as a male was easier than what females have to go through.
That said, after reading this Althouse post I am left to wonder if cultures, like Mexican with the quincenera (sp?) Or Judaism with their bat mitzvah (and bar mitzvah), have fewer 11 year old girls looking for an "out" to the hell of adolescence? Put another way i wonder if cultures with a coming out party and celebration, to have everyone come together and affirm feminity (or masculinity for a bar mitzvah) stave off androgyny/trans/demisexual in their young people?
Until someone gives me evidence to change my mind I am going to assume the answer is yes. Because I believe ancient man figured out lots of this stuff thousands of years ago.
And I think there is a real fear there, of the pro-trans groups. Because if you can demonstrate that sexuality is a maliable trait based upon *gasp* culture and ceremony, then the obvious conclusion is that there are some cultures and some ceremonies that yield demonstrably better results than the current fruit basket turnover we are living in now.
All this, imho.
Here is that same link address as a tinyurl.com
https://tinyurl.com/26mt8bdu
Gender complexification is primarily a revolt against a society that sexualizes young women at an increasingly young age. It offers girls a refuge against cultural expectations they are not yet prepared to embrace.
Free to be
He/She
It's the job of children to explore, it's the job of parents to provide a safe environment for them to explore in. A vast majority of these kids will end up identifying with the gender "assigned" to them at birth (purely coincidentally, I'm sure) and they will use the normal pronouns. They will live average middle-class lives not so different from their parents.
But if it makes them feel better to play with other identities as part of their search for their own true selves, there's no harm in supporting it. Just don't let them do anything that can't be undone next week when they decide they are something different.
The reality check will eventually come due. And when it does, I assure you that everyone will claim never to have really supported this insanity.
Even half of the lost causes at WaPo think this gender stuff is nonsense, but will still vote for Dems because of MEAN TWEETZ!!! or something.
I try to be supportive and accommodating to adults who transition. But with kids, I just don't know; it feels faddish and dangerous.
cr said...
But with kids, I just don't know; it feels faddish and dangerous.
That's a pretty serious understatement.
There's a word to describe a kid that had chemical castration (also known as puberty blockers)
and then testosterone hormone treatment. The word is: Sterile
IF the kid decides to remain a "man" (with a womb), Surprise!... They're sterile
IF the kid decides to retransition to female... Surprise! They're sterile
One way, or the other: That kid's genes are out of the gene pool. Forget about freezing eggs; You've stopped puberty BEFORE it started
“This Ain’t Rock-N-Roll; This Is Genocide”
The star party I'm going to in March (if Australia opens up) has a group email list. Recently an attendee posted a 'looking forward to meeting you all' message to it; an anthropology graduate student from the UK. She posted her pronouns in the email. So far, no one has responded. Not sure what she going to think of us; mostly 50 to 80 year old guys.
We will be more than welcoming at the star party, but there will be no declaring of pronouns, I'm sure of that.
Blogger John Borell said...
"Most kids revolt. The object of their revolt changes like the seasons.
It used to be mini-skirts and long hair; now it's pronouns and gender."
I revolted, but it didn't entail surgery and drugs (well, there were drugs but that's different).
When I was done revolting all I had to do was get a haircut. What's going on today is madness.
When my granddaughter sees the Disney film "The Little Mermaid," and decides that she wants to be a mermaid, I'll for sure pay a surgeon to cut off her legs. Absolutely.
And later, when she becomes anorectic but thinks her 80 lb. body is too fat, I'll arrange for a gastric bypass.
Finally, when she recovers from her double amputation and manages to gain a few pounds after her stomach surgery, she will decide that she's a fella. I'll happily help her get her breasts and pelvic reproductive organs removed.
Much more sensible than telling her, "you're not a mermaid, you're not fat, and you're not a dude."
This is an age of self-expression, and people don't have that much to express. Once people could express themselves through their sexuality. Now many express themselves through their gender identity.
I was impressed by the people who said their gender could be "wind" or "sand" or something like that. It reminds me of J Crew catalogues in years gone by. Once people expressed themselves through a persimmon sweater or honeydew slacks or a sandalwood blouse. Now they express themselves by choosing a personalized gender.
Puberty comes earlier than ever, with social expectations about sexuality. I think the surge in girls declaring themselves "nonbinary" means "I don't want to have sex with anyone right now. Give me some time." Also: "Pay attention to me. I'm special."
I think I'd tell my daughter or son to reject gender stereotypes that don't fit without rejecting their biological gender. You don't have to be a stereotypical woman to be a woman or a stereotypical man to be a man.
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