Usbourne publishing calling mums transphobes

[Abite]

Go woke go broke

GirlDownUnder Yes I am raging! It's awful on so many levels.

Nobody, but nobody is going to be taken in by this. It's just embarrassing.

Wow, thanks for the screenshots!

It's worse than I thought it would be - it's just outright propaganda. Let me guess - coming to school libraries up and down the country...

So disappointed in Usbourne, I have bought a lot of Usbourne books over the years and now I have first grandchild would have bought more over the next few years but I'm not using a company that would call me and my DIL trolls for expressing safeguarding concerns.

PRIMARY SCHOOL KIDS FORCED INTO SEX CHANGE

That's meant to be a newspaper headline? Has anyone ever seen that in real life?

Dunno datun
Poor Issy might have seen this:
metro.co.uk/2017/10/08/charity-advised-mum-to-force-her-son-7-to-live-as-a-girl-6984649/

If they're going to push a narrative, they should have the decency to own it. That book should have stonewall branding all over the front.

The screenshots are even worse than I'd imagined.

There is a particular form of emotional abuse in which the parent makes the child responsible for the parent's happiness and wellbeing. See:

bit.ly/2tZGJHw

bit.ly/2uQIasB

bit.ly/2FPwpEN

If an adult writes a novel for children advocating that children take on responsibility for a parent's happiness and wellbeing, that book is grooming all the children who read it to be vulnerable to this type of emotional abuse. Because the story they read told them it's not them being emotionally abused; it's them being heroic. All children want to be heroic. This will affect all the children reading, so it could be those with a parent with ANY issue, yes, transitioning, but also divorce, mental health issues, etc etc.

It's entirely possible to write a novel about a transitioning parent - or a parent with any other emotional struggle - that is sympathetic to the parent's struggle as well as the child's. But front and centre would be that while yes, the parent and child love each other, the child can never be responsible for what is going on in the parent's life. This is not that book.

It is that child who wants to please, to be loved, make their parent happy, in the face of the world in turmoil around them that will be most vulnerable. They are likely to read something like this and believe that if they help their parent out, it will put their world back together.

Young children can be very protective and need to learn when to be like this and look after themselves (ie when the parent is too busy doing their own thing) We put a great deal of store into teaching them not to be selfish. They need to learn where they are not responsible for other people's needs too.

They may well find themselves in a situation where their needs are not being met, that is abusive if they do as the adult wants.

What can we do about this?

I am really wondering, Tinsel Angel. The publisher is so hostile and lots of school librarians seem keen to stock this to prove they aren't 'transphobic'. Melroses is 100% right about how by this is grooming children to cooperate and please their fathers. I hate to think how this could do damage to vulnerable kids.

A friend has suggested writing to Peter Usbourne who apparently as well as founding the publisher also founded Private Eye!?

I also wonder if Stella O'Malley would be interested.

This book in particular? Or safeguarding principles being undermined generally?

Usborne should withdraw the book and invite the author to submit a new draft for a story in which a parent transitions, after having acquainted herself with the basics of harmful messages. But they won't. So I suppose pointing out that the problem is the valorising of an emotional abuse dynamic between parent and child, not that the parent is transitioning.

Generally: get to grips with the principles behind safeguarding rules and protocols and educate others.

I meant about this book in particular.

Well, if communicating with Usborne itself - or the fella above - I'd use the links I posted above, tying them to extracts from the book that illustrate what's said in the links, and complain about the book from a safeguarding perspective.

I wonder if Stonewall provided any money?

Charity so should be willing to answer question?

Usborne deleted the tweet about "Transphobic trolls" earlier when safeguarding concerns started to be raised on Twitter. Funny, that! Good job there's screenshots.

Does a children's publisher not have safeguarding staff to look over the materials they publish?

Ah screenshots... that and the fact that nothing is every really deleted...

As prominent trans activists are actively promoting it on Goodreads you might want to go there as well as Amazon. So far it has almost all five stars, which is definitely not honest as it's very badly written.

Wish there had been books like that in her day?

Unless she too had a trans parent, I assume she means books that could have been given to her children to "reassure" them that their role was to support their dad's transition.

Children and family as bit players in their dad's brave and stunning metamorphosis to a fabulous female being.....

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3795910-Michael-Rosen-queering-children-s-literature?pg=1

The author is appearing on this panel, btw. Run by FWR's own queer theory academic, Anna Carlile.

My review is up on my blog :-)

childrenoftransitioners.org/2020/01/31/your-childhood-now-freshly-whitewashed-reviewing-nothing-ever-happens-here/