“I catch a glimpse of you when I look at myself in the mirror. It takes my breath away at first. You died six weeks too soon.”
‘Your grandson looked around the table and announced he was going to take over your job. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked him. He smirked. You’d be so proud.’
‘I can’t look like this anymore!’ I begged my parents for surgery. I’d arrive a new person and no one would have anything to say about my looks anymore. I was sure this was it.’
“I returned to school after going under the knife. ‘Are you thinking about a career in porn? You look like a porn star now,’ a boy said. I was shocked. I decided it was time to finally fight back.”
‘I worry your big heart will lead you down a path of bullying. Being the sensitive kid is not the ‘cool’ thing when you’re growing up.’
“Most of your friends will be much more tough and rugged than you. Childhood may be rocky. As an adult, being the man with a big heart is more revered than the little boy who would rather give hugs than play contact sports.”
‘We are forgetting about our boys and that’s not OK.’
“Article after article is about raising daughters, not sons. And, when I do come across an essay on raising sons, it’s about how and why we need to raise our boys with particular values for the sake of the females and daughters of the world. This is something I’m not entirely on board with.”
After I found out I was pregnant, my dad suffered a massive stroke. I snuggled up under his mighty arms and told him our secret. He smiled and said, ‘I can’t wait to meet her!’
“Thinking he was confused, I told him we didn’t know if it was a girl or a boy yet. He just winked at me.”
‘Someday you’ll settle down with a girl. She’ll get pregnant. You’ll race her to the hospital and watch her give birth. You’ll see her become the woman she was always supposed to be.’
“You’ll try to fathom how the teenager you fell for all those years ago managed to become the fiercest woman you know.”
‘You are a boy, hunny,’ I would say to him gently. By age 4, he was flat out denying this could be true.’: Mom reflects on when her daughter ‘was born my son’
“Matthew was constantly asking to watch Disney princess movies. ‘Kids are kids,’ I thought. I loved my feminine, eccentric son. The problem was, the older he got, the more he did not love himself. He was always angry. He’d flip chairs at school. He was misunderstood, but to what degree I had no idea. ‘When I grow up and I’m a girl…’ My husband and I would correct him, and often, he’d be sad with the reality.”
‘One day, some girl is gonna like you. Just remember, I called you baby first.’
“The big moment will come. Everyone will be looking at her, but I’ll be looking at you.”
‘Mommy, I’m ugly.’ She was staring at a photo of herself, sobbing. She tugged at her hair, begging it to grow.’: Mom says ‘genetics’ caused daughter’s lack of hair, paints it pink to prove she’s a ‘beautiful princess’
“My daughter who was just skipping about was now shouting, ‘Please take me home!’ I know her struggle because I, too, had no hair. I wanted to make her feel beautiful, so I bought a pretty hair dye. She anxiously giggled as we waited for the big reveal. When I finished drying it, she gave me a look that said, ‘Thank you, Mama.’ I’ve never seen her smile so big.”
The letter your teenager wishes he could write you
“This fight we are in right now. I need it. I need this fight. I can’t tell you this because I don’t have the language for it and it wouldn’t make sense anyway. But I need this fight. Badly.”
