Blame

It's one of those days where the blame ends on me. It always

starts with the failures of the school to safegaurd and protect my vulnerable children, then it moves to the SNP Government, then it widens to society at large, to liberalism, to unbelievably middle class ponsy academics, to misogyny, to photoshopping perfection, for allowing this ideology to take hold in our home.

I always hoped and thought that my two autistic children would be less naive than I am. I was ripe for indoctrination. I was always searching for connection and belonging. I yearned to be part of a supportive loving environment and I absolutely hated my body. I had no emotional instincts. I knew right from wrong, raised a good Jewish girl. Hospitable, kind and welcoming. I had no boundaries or coping mechanisms. It was a manic chaotic mostly fun childhood. Very little in way of life skills, just a cute smile and a persistent attitude. 

I raised my children in a completely different but probably no less chaotic and fun way. Anchored by my sensible husband. We made a good team. We aspired to liberalism once. We embraced connection and attachment with our children. We co-slept, we babywore, we did baby led weaning, baby led EC (elimination communication), I did long term breastfeeding,  tandem feeding. We tried hard to cast of the shackles of our heavily laden expectations. We were responsive to their needs as babies and nurtured their independence as toddlers. We set loving caring thought out boundaries always tinged with a yes if truly possible so it wasn't an arbitrary no. We believed in The Continuum Concept as a way to raise our family. Unfortunately we didn't have much of a tribe. We took belonging from our Jewish community with education and religious traditions as our bedrock of humanity.

Until this. Until this ideology took hold, grew arms and legs and we instantaneously lost connection and family values in it's wake woke havoc. Until my Jewish upbringing told me it was just a changing state of modern society and I should love my children even more.

Nothing prepared us for what our family experienced. Nothing in my relatively naive middle class socialist outlook prepared me for the barbaric severing of my children from our close knit family, from my bosom, from safety and security into this pit of confusion and harm. I'm reminded of the feeling when I was unable to do delayed cord clamping with my middle. She wasn't breathing, they cut the cord almost instantly and I felt her soul sever from me in an earth shattering moment.

Navigating the teenage part of parenting was never going to be easy. I just didn't realise or know that autistic puberty is especially difficult and confusing. Having an ideology like gender ideology come along at just that developmentally unstable moment of my children's lives became their panacea.  A reason for their uncomfortable feelings. A reason to feel awkward and belong to a group of equally awkward people but just be that little bit more interesting. They marginalised themselves out of existence. They confused themselves into delusion. They convinced themselves of dysphoria and the school convinced them they were born in the wrong body. The internet compounded their feelings whilst society continues to push them further down the affirmation path. 

Today I feel a deep weight of blame. I mean we all had difficult puberty. No one escapes do they!?  I didn't know about autistic puberty being so dramatically different. We prepared them for puberty as much as possible. I just never expected trans to exist with an ideology like this. 

I always hoped my kids would be less naive than I was. I was ripe for indoctrination. I thought I'd prepared my kids, I feel terrible that I was unable, no matter what we did, to help them navigate through their difficult autistic puberty.

Today I sit with my horrible feelings and terrible thoughts of the unknown scary future. Tomorrow is another day.