I had the most awful row with my teenagers yesterday

[JensonsAcolyte]

Both totally TWAW adherents.

DS is 18, his girlfriend is Non Binary and goes by a made up name (male Greek god). I am polite and go along with pronouns and use their chosen name.

For some reason Eddie Izzard came up at dinner time and I ‘misgendered’ them. DS really started laying into me about my bigotry so I played him the clip of Eddie saying Eddie has boy mode and girl mode and uses both sets of pronouns (I've tied myself in knots there as I don’t want to be deleted).

It came out in the conversation that DS believes, absolutely and 100%, that Izzard has changed sex. Actually changed sex. And that if DH came down for breakfast this morning and announced he was now a woman then DS would absolutely 100% believe that he had changed sex overnight.

DD was chiming in at this point and said that actually she would like to go by she/they as sometimes she identifies as ‘less female’. I was a bit irate by this point and I’m afraid I said that is navel gazing bollocks (oops).

Anyway it all got a bit shouty, and then DS dropped in that ‘some lesbians have genital preferences, and ultimately that’s transphobic but nobody’s trying to force anyone to have sex with anyone’ and I lost my shit a bit. I’d hoped this nonsense was confined to Twitter tbh and I hadn’t really seen it in the wild.

I told him he was a privileged, woke little shit. That lesbians my age have spent their entire lives having to justify their sexuality, being told they just haven’t met the right man, not to mention the sexual assaults and corrective rapes. And now are being told they are BIGOTS for not including penis. I was really angry. He then turned round and said the reason his girlfriend (and yes he calls them his girlfriend which is a whole nother eye roll) doesn’t like coming here is because I’m well known for being a Terf and she feels unsafe.

I’ve basically left it as saying I don’t adhere to your religion but that doesn’t make me hateful or phobic, we had a bit more of an argument where he tried to say it’s not a religion but actually I think I made that point quite clear. I don’t believe in God but that doesn’t mean I hate Christians, I don’t believe people can change sex but that doesn’t make me Transphobic.

I’ve woken up this morning and I just still feel sick about it all. He called me some dreadful things, bigot, hateful, dangerous. I said some things I regret, particularly about the arrant nonsense that is non binary, I’m usually a lot more measured than that to avoid offence but I was just so angry.

Is anyone else having this with their teens? I could do with a bit of solidarity, advice maybe or just a hand hold.

What is the point in becoming angry?
THey are just kids- brains and attitudes still developing.

It does seem to be a movement of trying to appear happy rainbow folk but being utterly miserable and scared org saying/doing the wrong thing. Checking what the group think is before stating an opinion. Being told that anyone who doesn’t agree is guilty of ‘violence’.

At 18 he should be contributing to the household income and cooking and cleaning - is he doing this? Or is it mostly down to you because you are a woman? I’d be furious if this was my teen. What brainwashed bullshit.

@BigButtons

Oh lord. I refuse to have these discussions with any of my teens. My 15 year old dad says that it is actually frowned upon to be straight amongst her peers. She says they are desperately trying to be bi/ lesbian or non binary and most of them are utterly miserable because of it. What a load of bollocks.

Both of mine have used the phrase ‘social suicide to be straight’.

Which is just mindblowingly offensive really.

I am handholding from afar.
My DDs best friend is a transboy who is gay. So basically a straight girl. He has now got a boyfriend. I made the mistake of asking if the boyfriend is gay. DD says of course he is! I then said well I am not sure how it'll work out in the end and heartbreak will happen as gay boys like penises and her gay trans bestie has a vagina. BUT SHE'S A GAY MAN!

I just couldn't not eye roll. I hugged her and apologised for being a crazy inflammatory middle aged person.

To which I’d reply ‘crap. If that’s the social circle, I’d rather be out of it’.

So these kids would not been able to refuse a cigarette, or drugs and try self harm of it was the style of the day?

You are the parents.

They are the children - the younger generation.

They are programmed to take a different view from you.

This is not primarily a political/sociological discussion you are having with them as you would with a fellow adult.

It is an expression of the generational difference between you.

If you respond as IF this is a political debate with a fellow adult you are making a category error.

Remain the adult. State that you disagree. Don't get enraged! Your job here is to remain calm contained and control yourself. That way they will be feel contained too in a the craziness.

This debate just happened to be the thing - but it could have been short skirts or music or drugs or whatever.

Eddie izzard says she ( I'm respecting pronouns here) uses boy mode when acting men's roles. Which begs the question is Eddie acting when in girl mode?

I honestly think the world is going mad. I 100% understand that identity is important and that people can choose to be referred to as something other than their birth sex, but fuck me, it's just become a minefield of what you can and can't say, and teens are standing by ready to shoot you if you use the wrong wording. It's utter bollocks, the lot of it.

IMO people can identify as whatever the hell they like, I will respect that and call them what they choose, but for goodness sake it's become something so huge and ridiculous now, and I dread what will happen next.

I shocked my oldest DD when she said that all women are a little bit lesbian.
I replied - well they’re not because I like cock far too much for that 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I bet the fact he has a girlfriend rather than a boyfriend has every to do with biology and bugger all to do with gender identity.

It's all such a luxury. Ask if if he thinks Swiss or Israeli young men can identify out of national service? They can't. Ask him if young girls can identify out of having their clitorises cut off and their vaginas sewn up in Somalia? They can't.

It is no coincidence that identity politics has taken most hold in the most privileged middle class liberal corners of the U.K.

Well if the non-binary girlfriend (an oxymoron there) doesn’t feel safe coming round, they no longer need to come round do they?

Lots of sympathy OP. I’m starting to get this with DD13.

I’ve found the best approach is to ask questions - do you think people can change sex? Why do you think people say TWAW? What has JKR said that’s transphobic?

And then there’s always the Staniland question ...

[quote oldwomanwhoruns]@SylviaPlath1984 it's a Social Contagion, like anorexia was for us... and schools/organisations are getting teaching from Stonewall/Mermaids..

Upthread people were saying 'ask questions', don't argue facts - I was watching a great video/article on this very approach yesterday:

Identity Crisis: The Trick To Having Better Conversations on Hot-Button Issues
4w.pub/identity-crisis-better-debates/

for you, @JensonsAcolyte. Others have said: it's ok, they will grow out of it - BUT once children have taken puberty blockers/surgery their bodies are ruined. It's so much worse than anorexia (which was the 'social contagion' in my teen years. We survived that, albeit with slightly weakened bones. But this stuff, it's not only batshit, it's dangerous batshit. Good luck[/quote]
Thanks so much for this - I have checked out their webpage and it's a fantastic resource. Nice to know that there are younger women out there questioning this and waking up to the reality.
To anyone who has teenage/ early 20's daughters, they may be more inclined to listen to these two because you can't accuse them of being old fuddy duddies.

I'm sorry OP, it must be so hard. I think previous posters are right, this is their generations civil rights movement and their feel good activism, and if you don't scratch beneath the surface, and take it on face value it all looks rosy. Only it's rotten on the inside.

In ten years time they may look back and cringe (they may even be able to read the ridiculous tweets that have been archived), but my worry is how much damage is being done in the mean time. Laws being changed, single sex spaces being eradicated, women's sports colonised, and children's bodies forever damaged - all at the alter of an unproven and extreme ideology.

Middle aged women are the problem apparently.

Yes, I look at at the problems round the world, war, poverty, famine, and think "Christ, the middle aged women are at it again" 🙄

Both of mine have used the phrase ‘social suicide to be straight’.

It’s pan or die in my DD1’s peer group, it seems.

OP "Interestingly DH was involved in the conversation and didn’t get anywhere near the abuse I got. He said he would be ‘superstraight’ as he’d never want to sleep with a man, and in his opinion TWAM and the kids both said well that’s up to you and went back to shouting at me. "

I would get your DH to ask them about that when you're not around.

I'm so sorry all this happened. I have an acute sense of that generation being very alien to me and I have never felt any kind of generational divide.

@Justhadathought @singtothesky
@JensonsAcolyte

The Coddling is a great book. I highly recommend reading Jonathan Haidt's other book The Righteous Mind : Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

There are loads of interviews with Haidt on YouTube and lots of his lectures. He has some fascinating insights that I've found really helpful.

www.hive.co.uk/Product/Jonathan-Haidt/The-Righteous-Mind--Why-Good-People-are-Divided-by-Politics-and-Religion/12769026

'If you want to know why you hold your moral beliefs and why many people disagree with you, read this book' Simon Baron-Cohen, author of The Essential Difference Why can it sometimes feel as though half the population is living in a different moral universe?

Why do ideas such as 'fairness' and 'freedom' mean such different things to different people?

Why is it so hard to see things from another viewpoint?

Why do we come to blows over politics and religion?Jonathan Haidt reveals that we often find it hard to get along because our minds are hardwired to be moralistic, judgemental and self-righteous.

He explores how morality evolved to enable us to form communities, and how moral values are not just about justice and equality - for some people authority, sanctity or loyalty matter more.

Morality binds and blinds, but, using his own research, Haidt proves it is possible to liberate ourselves from the disputes that divide good people. 'A landmark contribution to humanity's understanding of itself' The New York Times'A truly seminal book' David Goodhart, Prospect'A tour de force - brave, brilliant, and eloquent.

It will challenge the way you think about liberals and conservatives, atheism and religion, good and evil' Paul Bloom, author of How Pleasure Works 'Compelling . . . a fluid combination of erudition and entertainment' Ian Birrell, Observer'Lucid and thought-provoking ... deserves to be widely read' Jenni Russell, Sunday Times

@SingToTheSky

Both of mine have used the phrase ‘social suicide to be straight’.

It’s pan or die in my DD1’s peer group, it seems.

When I was a teen it was ‘mind your own business’.

I would be massively pissed off they essentially gave your husband a pass and had a go at you

@AcornAutumn

OP "Interestingly DH was involved in the conversation and didn’t get anywhere near the abuse I got. He said he would be ‘superstraight’ as he’d never want to sleep with a man, and in his opinion TWAM and the kids both said well that’s up to you and went back to shouting at me. "

I would get your DH to ask them about that when you're not around.

I'm so sorry all this happened. I have an acute sense of that generation being very alien to me and I have never felt any kind of generational divide.

I think you're right and is very painful to feel the generational divide.

But our kids are supposed to be different from us. Developmentally it is totally appropriate regardless of how painful it is to us.

Feeling the pain of it confronts us with all sorts of difficult feelings. Feeling we live in a mad world we don't understand. Feeling our children are lost to us. Feeling we are old and irrelevant.

Our parents probably felt like this about the normalising of homosexuality.

Our grandparents about sex outside marriage and divorce.

Completely feel for you. Eddie has often swapped his pronoun preferences, he doesn't sit with just one.

What massively concerns me about this whole situation is that gender is being lost is a fog which I think is more confusing.

I am proud of being a woman, it's part of my identity and who I am. If others too want to take on a female identity then that's their call, I won't judge it, similarly if they don't want to embody a female identity. But it's part of who I am and I'm not going to dilute that. I have an unborn son, I am going to celebrate his masculinity and teach him the norms and values associated with it, and if as he is growing up form a different gender balance then I will respect and follow that.

It's a very confusing world and it's worrying me so much that we are bringing up a generation of people who cannot celebrate parts of their identity for fear of offending.

My gender is as much as part of me as those who wish to remain gender neutral.

Love that you called him a privileged, woke little shit.

100% correct.

This is something that often causes disagreement in my house, dd is ‘pan sexual’ and runs a LGBT+ group at school so it’s something she’s very very passionate about but sometimes it drives me nuts and it causes arguments, mainly about “is it....her...him...them..” and wether trans women should be allowed in female only spaces.

Bumps I don't have children so it's not personally painful.

It's more that I've always thought making friends from 18 to 80 was quite straightforward but now I don't. There's a slice of that, I guess uni age, who just seem completely mad and to have no sense of nuance.