Later she got married and asked me to come to her wedding, but not to bring my new wife. I said, “Sorry, I won’t be there.” She was mad at me and still is, according to her brother. I just “deregistered” it but was encouraged by a friend to try and reconnect. I think she has a grudge, like Hatfields and McCoys, and there would be no point in attempting a reconciliation or, failing that, it would open me up to more pain. I think she’s stuck in what happened 30 years ago and she’s not about to let go. Your opinion?
— J.: My Opinion: Instead of supporting your daughter or being patient with her as she worked through the emotional fallout of her family’s breakdown – just as she was emerging into her own adult life – you got it. blamed, ditched it for your new family and never checked for impact damage.
Then, instead of taking the half wedding invitation as a cue to talk to your daughter and try to fix the damaged relationship, you just dumped her again.
So I disagree with your friend. Not unless you’re prepared to hold yourself as responsible for your mistakes as you held her for hers, given that you “wrote” your own daughter before full maturity and just got divorced. Unless you’re 100% sure you won’t let her down again.
Dear Caroline: Our daycare sets up art projects for children who are ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ and the children are separated as they do them. How can I politely object?
Anonymous: Yeah, it’s a head-to-keyboard special. I am sorry.
In the interest of uniting and not of dividing, and because these are people who do the thankless work of caring for little children, and because they care for your children, let’s take the organizer of this artistic project for a form of well-meaning misguided. (Old habits left unexamined, for example.)
Then appeal to these good intentions: “What is your plan if a girl prefers the designated boy project or if a boy prefers the designated girl project? This is an entirely predictable outcome in children too young for pink shame to set in. Just ask any parent back in the days of Happy Meal toys for boy or girl (RIP and good riddance), because the much cooler toy was always, always the one for the other sex.
How the center responds to this logical and justified request will tell you whether there should be a more formal next move, which can be as light as keeping your child home that day or as extreme as moving to a non-reactionary daycare. .
All this assuming you mind. The work of keeping children out of arbitrary gender boxes is essential and ongoing, to enable children to be comfortable in their own skin rather than locked into ill-fitting “shoulds” of judgmental adults. . But this should not be confused with asking every person to join in every battle. You decide whether free gender sorting is systemic or ad hoc, harmful or just annoying, useful or not.
