I appreciate the effort shown

But hey if you love using they you love using they! Doesn’t hurt me, up to you whether it hurts you, go forth in your self discovery process.

Meaning if you’re embarrassed about explaining the pronoun change to grandma and grandpa that’s a logical social consequence of the choice and you gotta step up and handle it. Your mom handled that shit! Grown person decisions require grown person problem solving.

Also worth mentioning I’d roll over for pronoun requests. I’ll use whatever pronoun or name they want, my limits are just they have to give it at least a month before the next change and I’m using it across the board.https://twitter.com/careycallsbs/status/1372931299875360770 …

If your kid is a little shit to you but you hear from other adults what nice manners they have- I regret to inform you you are officially a very good parent.

Ok one more parenting folk wisdom thing I really buy into- don’t judge your parenting by how your kid treats you, judge it by how they are with people outside the family. Unfortunately part of the parental role is being the adult it is safe to be a jerk to.

I guess what I’m saying is I fantasize about running my house in such a way that my 17.5 year old has detailed plans for where they are moving to the morning of their 18th. Fly like the eagle you are baby, fly far!

I’ve just had too many teen clients who socialized exclusively through their phones in their bedrooms. Get out of my house and bitch about your horrible life while making eye contact. And no i’m not driving you better get your bike together.

Just to clarify I do not expect the teen to produce the powerpoint. I expect them to go to a friend’s house and tell the friends’ family how evil I am. (They will have to leave the house to have this convo bc no way are they getting a smartphone.)

But karmically gender dysphoria will probably not be how my teen ends up torturing me, since I do feel confident about how to handle that one . They’ll probably want a self driving car chip implanted in their brain.

One privilege of being detransitioned is I know how low the stakes actually are. I know TONS of ppl who made it through puberty, transitioned as adults, had a great transition experience. I can literally say “I made it to 30 before I got T, you can wrap up high school first.”

How existentially terrifying would it be to be an adolescent who KNOWS they can get what they want through threats? How do you ever feel like your parents can keep you safe when you’re all powerful like that?

And I’d also say, “or you can wait the (blank) # of days till I’ve got no parental duties and this is solely your business. Depends on how urgent this really feels. If it’s urgent better work on your deck.”

I’m being serious about expecting some PowerPoints. Kid has got to prove to me they have a plan for long term healthcare, they know how a prior authorization works, they’ve identified career paths where they get generous medical leave and social support, all the problem solving!