Lovely post @McGonagallshatandglasses 💐
I was a wayward teen 30 years ago and I never stopped loving my mum, even while I was pushing her away.
I loved her even when I told her I hated her and I really did tell her that, ‘I hate you and you are ruining my life’.
I didn’t. She wasn’t.
Hindsight eh?
Try and come up with something genuinely complimentary to tell your DD - I know you are all hurting right now but if you break all that’s gone on into little chunks, there are positives in there.
She’s consistently going to school (whereas I did a proper runner from home AND school) and she’s managing to do that despite not having you around to make sure she’s awake/has packed her bag/hasn’t mislaid her bus pass.
And she is working (for the first time?) which is a good thing in terms of being around a variety of people of all ages (and not just her alphabet teens peers).
I know you are likely worried about her working resulting in less time for study and having her own money meaning less likely to come home, but if you break it down into small chunks some of those chunks will be positive!
Working part time is a great way to develop important skills for young adulthood eg responsibility, resilience, team working, self confidence, real world maths & budgeting, negotiation, good time keeping. Earning your own money gives you a sense of payday-pride, it makes you feel less powerless (a tiny almost-adult in a big world can feel like a legendary emperor one minute and a pointless pipsqueak the next, and swing between both multiple times a day). Earning your own money gives you confidence that you can get on in the world, you just have to do some boring bits.
Perhaps think of some anecdotes from your own first job (or her uncles, or grandparents, if there is a better story there). Find commonalities and remind her, subtly, that no one knows her the way you do (eg if she says I really enjoy aspect x of my new job you can say, ‘oh! When you were little you used to play at doing x, so it makes sense you’d good at it for real all these years later’.
Resist the urge to interrogate her, it won’t go down well (teenagers are prone digging in on positions that they don’t even hold anymore, just because they don’t want to give mum and dad the satisfaction of being right all along). Try and keep it light and ask open ended questions where you can and give her lots of reassurance, you could say you aren’t keen on the situation, but you’ll always been keen on her.
The trans movement teaches our children that adults (‘Karens’ ‘Boomers’) are a hostile force, that their parents will reject them for not being the perfect, socially conforming offspring, that the only way they can be their true selves is to kill off the old self (‘deadnaming’) and be reborn in their new gender.
Our job as parents is to quietly demonstrate that they can both strike out on their own (as all adults must eventually) and live a life that suits them, but they don’t need to jettison their entire past to do that.
We’ve found reverting all three kids to their younger pet names (Rabbit, Chicken & Mouse) is a great way to keep them all connected while sidestepping the new name: I avoid pronouns and call them all my kids/babies (semi ironically) rather than sons/daughters. I also call them ‘Eldest’ ‘Middle’ and ‘Little’ as if they are their actual names.
Don’t fret about the name on exam certificates, the exam boards reissue them for free when an older person transitions, so I’m sure she will be able to have it reissued for free if she were to revert. The exam board wouldn’t necessarily know she was going backward rather than forwards, because the request to them would be the same in all practical ways.
Is your daughter interested in learning to drive? If so, I wonder if that could be a pull factor? Obviously it’s a way off yet but perhaps arranging a few lessons that pick up and drop off at your house could be a useful strategy? Or perhaps making a pact that if she saves something towards lessons from her new wage, you will match it (so if she saves enough for 3 lessons you will top it up to 6). It would a) give her an incentive to save some of her wages and thus she
won’t be able to afford as much fun stuff, making living away less fun overall b) you would be rewarding her good/responsible behaviour (saving) in a way that ties cause and effect together in a really obvious way (which is great for subtly reinforcing the desirability of those good behaviours) and c) you would be acknowledging that she is heading towards adulthood and that you, her mum, are practically preparing for her adult stage (learning to drive is probably the closest things secular Britons in the 21st century have to a coming-of-age ritual!)
if driving lessons aren’t appealing to your DD, see if you can think of something similar that you can make a matched savings agreement on?
The key point is that it’s not you just offering her a gift (she’s had gifts without obligations her whole childhood already) nor is it an obvious bribe (she’ll probably be on high alert for bribes as a sign you aren’t accepting her new self and just want a compliant little girl again 😬) but that it’s framed as an acknowledgment of what she will have achieved independently (getting a job and saving some of her wages) and her reward is the ability to take another step towards autonomous adulthood.
It’s not the cash that matters, it’s what it will represent.
(and if she does shit all to save anything, you are off the hook, as it’ll be her lack of action that breaks the deal, not you talking something away!)
I hope you have a lovely time today and you both walk away from your meeting spot feeling positive and loved.
💐