Smithereens

From the Archives XVI

My most important people, July 2011. Photo credit: Me.

Then:

May 8, 2022

My daughter doesn’t know the extent of my loathing for her religion. Her cult. I look for ways to hint at it but mostly I just try to avoid the subject altogether. Luckily I found an approach that preserves our relationship. It goes against all my own childish impulses. It’s called “ignore, redirect, reward”.

If this were about something other than her safety, health and future, I would probably share all my findings with her. And I have So. Many. Findings. But I don’t have the luxury to indulge myself. Also, of course she’s fifteen, so maybe I am underestimating my own maturity. Maybe I know better than I think I do about what is appropriate to discuss with her.

The funny thing is, ever since she—not so much “came out,” but passively let us know that she identifies as transmasc at the beginning of the school year, we’ve been even closer. She seeks our company, rather than us frantically hovering over her. Why would this be? Well, my fantasy is, when we told her she’s not allowed hormones until she’s twenty-five—because pre-frontal cortex—she secretly felt relieved. She just wants to get through high school and then become who she already is. Spoiler alert: woman.

But on the few occasions where her trans identity does get discussed, she blows my dream into smithereens. Her whole personality changes. The words that tumble from her mouth don’t seem her own. I grit my teeth. Flinch. Nod a little. Maybe utter a feeble dribble of dissent which she stamps out, and then we change the subject.

I guess I am on the lookout for some foolproof way to present an argument she won’t be able to rebuke. But I know that’s just another fantasy.

Now:

February 8, 2025

She’s eighteen, a college freshman, just broke up with her boyfriend—a real boy—and maybe or maybe not likes another. My fantasy of her ideological awakening continues to fester and then liquefy, like my empty-nested mind. No wonder I take to my bed. This age we live in is so overtly rife with propaganda it can’t help but depress a sensitive gal like me. Every so often I check in on both my kids’ socials and am never not demoralized by the beliefs I see them sharing. Elon is a Nazi. Trump is banning books. LGBTQIA++ folx are in danger of becoming erased. Conservatives don’t care about “queer and trans people.” Gaga is a queen because she “sees trans people.” The list goes on and on.

I worry even to post this, but where the hell else can I find solace/catharsis/validation if not here?

One of the reasons—besides my marriage—that I went on a media diet was to preserve my relationship with my kids. It’s far too easy to see “the other side” as a sorry bunch of mindless cult followers. But what happens when the cultists are the most important people in your life? The people you’d die for? What then?

This is not a rhetorical question.

How in the world could I—the mother they evolved to individuate from—ever dissuade them of their false beliefs? And now that I am on the other side, my son fears that I might one day become a flat-earther.

I am in a pickle folks.

So I ask Mr Miller. I show him the evidence. The reels. What does he say about it?

One, he does not agree with the kids’ takes. That right there is a victory. But I don’t dig in to clarify any of it. I allow his vague concurrence with my disavowal of their panic. I don’t need to find out that he still thinks Trump is a unique threat to democracy. Two, he says that the kids are their own people, and specifically that Miss Miller continues not to pose a threat to her own health and future by one day medicalizing her “he/they” identity.

So I exhale. I don’t like it, the chasm between us, but I can bear it. It’s not unique, and it’s not a deal breaker, as long as it lays low in the shadows and doesn’t storm forward, hogging the spotlight and sucking all the oxygen from the room.

Let them believe lies. I know I certainly did.