CBBC - When Mum Becomes Dad

[ScoldsBridle]

My Life, Series 11: When Mum Becomes Dad: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pz3c via @bbciplayer

I’ve just watched it. First thoughts are what a lovely, bright child the daughter is. Her little brother is sweet too but is very quiet and my heart was breaking when he was talking about a story in school about a child losing their Mum. The mother that is now Dad Jack, was doing all the standard legwork stereotypically done by a ‘Mum’ - ferrying the kids about, organising play dates and birthday parties, helping with piano lessons. The Dad that fathered them featured only when he came to ‘help support’ at his own daughter’s birthday party.

Dad ‘Jack’ (formerly the person the kids knew as their mother) was dressed how I dress but had a deeper voice and facial hair so was obviously taking Testosterone. They were not interviewed as the whole programme was ‘led’ by Tilly (except we know how TV programmes are made and we know it will have been guided and ultimately steered by Dad Jack and the programme ‘consultants’).

It was a classic scripted/constructed ‘documentary’ masquerading as a fly-on-the-wall. Therefore there was lots of ‘oh let’s go and talk to this other person with a transgender dad that I’ve never met before’, or ‘oh look at these photos of my Dad when he was a child that I’ve never seen before’, ‘oh let’s get the boy with the transgender Dad who I just met in Brighton come and help me talk to my little brother’s class of 9 year olds about having a Transgender Dad’.

I felt uncomfortable at the scene where the first child they met who had a Transgender Dad was talking about having to have counselling to deal with it all - it was actually referred to as bereavement counselling. I also felt sorry for the little brother being probed about the upsetting incident in school where someone likened his situation to his Mum having ‘gone away’.I thought it was intrusive and I’m not sure the poor lad was entirely happy being jollied along in the making of this ‘documentary’ by his big sister and Dad Jack.

I couldn’t help but wonder at the ultimate selfishness of Dad Jack and the other Transgender Dads. Dad Jack used some abstract musical metaphor about how living as a woman felt like playing a wrong note on the piano. And there was this infuriatingly unexplained concept of ‘living as a man’ and ‘living as a woman’ What does it mean??!

I felt sorry for the children having to accept this concept that they no longer had a mother. It seems an awful lot to ask of children and, personally, I thought that some of them looked like they were carrying a weight. The class of seemingly well-coached 9 year olds, looked slightly baffled but that might just have been because there was a film crew in their classroom! And the children reinforced the mantra of ‘being kind’ and accepting everything to make other people happy.

I hope I’m allowed to discuss this programme on here. It’s on CBBC so I feel it valid for me to critique it honestly as both a parent and an interested viewer. I see that Freddy McConnell (the Transgender man who is campaigning to be called the father on their child’s birth certificate) was a consultant on the programme and Fox Fisher also helped with the ‘casting’.

Be interested to know what others think. It’s been on Iplayer since 30 November so very recent.

Just watched it. Those trans dads are selfish! I'm raging but also heartbroken for those kids, having to deal with such selfish self-absorbed parents. Really beautiful kids though, all of them, having to come to terms with this is going to cause lasting damage for sure. And that first young girl Tilly met, my goodness, she's really struggling. Her "dad" may well lose her in the future. At least there was more reality in this one than the Lilly story, which was all very fluffy and positive, but nobody could miss the negative undertones of this doc. I hope the kids will be ok. I worry for Tilly's young brother, I think he might be very impressionable in the future and no doubt "dad" will affirm him in a heartbeat if he remotely hints at being Trans in the future. I'm genuinely worried about the amount of trans content the BBC are putting out, especially across the CBBC output. What are they up to??

I've had to deflect school from giving us advice from mermaids and stonewall, and I had to put in writing that no one was to talk about being in the wrong body or transitioning to her - they seem to be doing this. She has dealt with a teacher asking her what her preferred pronouns were in front of the rest of the class, (he was surprised she said she/her).

If they were singling her out that's so rude and sexist. The irony is they think they're being progressive.

Losing a parent in childhood is hideously destructive and can have an ongoing effect on an individual’s ability to form relationships, and their sense of safety & self worth, as an adult.

If the adults around these children are sending them to bereavement counselling, they must know perfectly well the children experience this as losing a parent, a bereavement- only with potentially more destructive effects because the children will need to grapple with the fact that the parent chose to leave.

I simply cannot understand how a parent could be so self-indulgent & selfish & irresponsible as to inflict this loss on a child. Maybe the parents themselves have had very easy, cocooned lives, and simply don’t have any conception of what parental loss does to a child?

I had a friend who died leaving 2 small children. I think of how hard she fought to stay with them and and compare this...

Children need consistency and a rather boring home life (so a teacher told me) so no dramas, no ‘what am I coming home to’, no huge upheavals... for their emotional well-being.

So many of us put our life plans or wants on hold if we can to keep a consistent homelike - we don’t always have a choice mind you.

This doesn’t pop into people’s heads overnight does it? I have found that people who make big life changes spend a lot of their time and effort ‘exploring’ new possibilities to the exclusion of their family life.

Selfish. Inconsiderate.

@sananbaz your daughter, who sounds fantastic, is luckily to have you as a mum fighting her corner

@sananbaz

My ten year old daughter watched this the other day. I'm mad at the BBC tbh. My daughter does not conform to gender stereotypes and has been mistaken for a boy most of her life. This doesn't bother her and she's happy as she is. When she was seven, she watched two CBBC programs (one with a girl transitioning to a boy, and one of a non conforming girl happy as she was). She got confused when a holiday club worker told her she could change into a boy, and she went through a period of saying she was born in the wrong body. After many talks about her being perfect just the way she is, born the way she was meant to be, I could see a massive weight lifted from her shoulders and she has continued to happily be a girl with short hair and practical clothes. I've had to deflect school from giving us advice from mermaids and stonewall, and I had to put in writing that no one was to talk about being in the wrong body or transitioning to her - they seem to be doing this. She has dealt with a teacher asking her what her preferred pronouns were in front of the rest of the class, (he was surprised she said she/her). She is genuinely happy with herself, her life and her friends. I wouldn't be surprised if she was gay, and if she's happy, we are happy, so no concerns there. However, watching this latest CBBC offering has once again made her think changing herself would make life easier for society to accept her. I am resolute that societies idea of gender stereotyping should change, not my beautiful daughter. I don't want her medicated, sterilised or mutilated to allow society to accept that she is a girl that likes short hair and practical clothes. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Hi I'm new and don't know how to quote just part of what you said here... but bravo!!! I am so happy you have done and are doing this for your girl!

I say this realizing that not long ago, I was cheering parents for giving their children a "new name" and allowing them to "socially transition." I never knew that they would be given puberty blockers, or I might have thought twice.... Glad I finally caught on.

@BlueCatRedCat

Interesting that the biological dad is not required to hang about, supporting his now husband and enjoying his newly homosexual identity. Bit of a contrast with the previous CBBC offering where dad became super-mum, and biological mum looked like she was in a hostage video.

I don't think we know anything about the biological father. I think it was carefully stage managed to keep him sidelined to the point of almost irrelevancy.

I think Dad Jack still playing the "mother role" as some of you put is a mixture of the idea held on here by many of you that parenting is rarely equal and Dad Jack playing up to that.

Personally I never allowed the parenting of my son to be anything other than equal- week about for school run/ turn about for everything else.

I have a suspicion from what we saw of the whole family's slightly bohemian lifestyle and the fact the biological father lives just across the street that the biological father may well be far more involved than made out to be here. I think it suits Dad Jack to play up how good he is at taking on the responsibilities a mother would do in an unequal household. I'm not however convinced that the household would naturally be unequal.

I have a friend (ironically met them at a new mums slingmeet as a very ardent breastfeeder, natural birther) who has now "realised" they're trans and actually a man. Three kids - and they go on on social media about how awesome the children are that they have "never ever misgendered me."

Then in the next breath how the oldest of the children is under assessment for loads of behavioural issues at school... no wonder when their mum suddenly started insisting on being called "dad" and "he" and spending hours with breast binders and trying to get on the list for therapy.

My brain just can't compute how someone can have so much of their identity bound up as being a mum, a breastfeeder (full on very opinionated about it) and then suddenly they flip over. The biological dad fathered the three kids - then they split up - suddenly friend went down the asexual, non binary and then trans rabbit hole and now it's all they seem to go on about.

CBBC seem to have really gone for it lately though - I'm suddenly so glad my kids prefer to watch brain rottingly loud shite on Cartoon Network instead. I spend a long time with my kids reinforcing that girls can do whatever in terms of clothes, hairstyles, careers - but that you're still male or female.

And yes it's not nice to think these things of a friend but we just maintain the friendship by not discussing it. I don't push my views, they don't push their views and we do agree to disagree on it - we also managed to get through the lactivism phase in the same way where views disagreed. They're very much a person who goes through phases of latching right into a community and then moving on to the next interest so I'm kind of hoping the interests change before they go down any medical route.

We should all complain to BBC that they are ignoring instruction from Gov to stop promoting "trans" in schools - CBBC programmes are used in schools and are broadcast at end of school day.

As a transwidow raising (then) 12 and 10 year-olds I have strong views on why “grooming” (or “manipulation”) is destructive of emotional truth and thus of the internal emotional development of the child. I can contrast the development of my two children, now competent adults, by my trans ex-husband with the development of my stepson (13 years older) whose life was blighted by uncertainty and a mental breakdown at University. Mental illness is well known to run in families unless it is identified and tackled – RD Laing: “The Voice of Experience”, which I read in 1982. Old but still wise.

Please read the very critical review safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2020/12/09/when-mum-becomes-dad-review-where-are-all-the-adults/ which gives the specific guidance from Dept of Education.
I have much, much more to say on this matter.

I haven’t watched the programme so can’t comment on that but I do have a trans friend and have watched many documentaries about trans people. The most common theme is that there is a grieving for the person they once was (for example a parent who had a son and now they have a daughter) so the fact that their children are having bereavement counselling from my point of view is a good thing and I don’t find it selfish, it shows that Dad Jack understands that this is not a normal thing for children to go through and cares about their mental wellbeing.

The fact that there is an increase in mental health in young people is possibly the shaming of the fact that children do go to see therapists.

My previous posting was removed with no message to me about my "offence". Could Mumsnet HQ please send it back and tell me where I infringed? Thank you.

Sorry, Mumsnet: I miscounted the pages. Please remove this and my short message of 15.19.08. Thank you for keeping my first, long message.