How Should We Then Parent?

Applying Shrier's insights

I have a good habit of NOT reading a book cover to cover. Years ago, a teacher taught me to “ransack” books, rather than absorb every word. That challenged my perfectionistic tendencies, but I eventually learned that not everything page and chapter are worth the effort.

I was quite tempted to skip the last chapter of Irreversible Damage. So glad I did not!

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria is the label for this craze Abigail Shrier so compellingly and thoroughly describes and documents. How are parents to navigate this trend?

Again, let me state that this phenomenon is not the same as legitimate and fully diagnosed gender dysphoria. We will take that up in another series of blogs. Nor is Shrier a right winger, charging into the culture war. In fact, she supports gay marriage, and fully agrees with adults who do transition, due to unwavering dysphoria experienced since childhood. 

But the last chapter of this incredible book may very well be her best. Not only are her thoughts filled with wisdom, but her ability to write clearly and poetically truly shines. 

What follows is a point by point summary of her advice to parents. And I will follow in a future post with some thoughts about how we ourselves minister to those under our care.

So are you ready? The first one’s a doozy!

1. Don’t Get Your Kid a Smartphone

Wow. What a challenge. Each of us wants to be the best parent we can be, and we don’t like to think our kids are disadvantaged in any way. Shrier states, “Most consider this an unimaginable amputation.” But researchers have little doubt on this point. The year 2007 when the iPhone was introduced was ground zero for the destructive chaos that has hit a generation. At that time, who would have thought this?

And yet here we are: the statistical explosion of bullying, cutting, anorexia, depression, and the rise of sudden transgender identification is owed to the self-harm instruction, manipulation, abuse, and relentless harassment supplied by a single smartphone.

2. Don’t Relinquish Your Authority as the Parent

She interviewed many parents who made this very mistake. When their thirteen-year-old announced they were a boy in a girl’s body, most were warned they could send their child into suicidality if they didn’t go along.

Pushback and rebellion should certainly be expected. After all, this is adolescence. And parents will need to be attentive for any signs of suicidality. But caving to their demands is ill-advised.

Additionally, Shrier recommends that parents not give in to name changes and pronoun accommodation. She quotes Sasha Ayad, a counselor who works with gender-questioning teens, as saying, “. . . there’s a way to support your child and to honor this kind of identity exploration without necessarily taking the identity literally.”

Our brains were not fully developed until age 25, and we’ve all made decisions in our adolescent years we came to regret. Our grasp on reality is not quite firm, and parents need to be the ones who ground their kids. To be their reality check, if you will.

Despite the anger, conflict, and outright mutiny in the home, the daughter needs to know that there are guardrails. So hang on to your role of authority.

3. Don’t Support Gender Ideology in Your Child’s Education

Just as school assemblies on suicide have actually increased the rate of suicide, so too classes and lessons focusing upon the LGBTQ+ rainbow have created this wave of gender confusion. Protest bullying? Absolutely. But put gender ideology or any other single issue as the focus, and you create confusion.

4. Reintroduce Privacy into the Home

In short, get off of Facebook. Find another way to stay in touch with family. This is simply good family practice. People don’t need to know your family’s business. But if you or your daughter announce to the cyber universe that she has come out as trans, you will get more than sympathy. You will attract people to your daughter you’d wish would keep away. Also, as stated in another post, when all of your acquaintances know of the decision, you make it much more difficult for her to change her mind and walk back such declarations.

5. Consider Big Steps to Separate Your Daughter from Harm

When Shrier speaks of “big steps”, she means BIG. Some families have simply moved to another town or state. For one girl, the parents forced her to spend over six months on a horse farm with no internet. Yes, these are drastic measures, but when your daughter’s health and wellbeing are in jeopardy, you are in drastic times.

About two years ago, I read Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. When published back in 2016, some thought he was over-reacting. Maintaining that we were entering a time of “soft totalitarianism” from the far left progressives, he was advocating for gathering Christians into communities and adopting some of the basic principles of Benedictine monasteries.

Yes, that sounded crazy in 2016, but a lot less crazy in 2021 where rage is all the rage, and arguments are won according to decibel levels reached. And around North America and Europe, some Christian communities have been forming to do just that, pooling resources for homeschooling and developing networks of cooperation.

While Shrier is not advocating for retreating to monastic communities, she is clearly advocating for parents to consider life-altering options, Benedictine or otherwise, in order to save the lives of their teen girls.

6. Stop Pathologizing Girlhood

Girls are simply wired differently than boys, and the path through puberty is certainly harrowing for the family at certain points. Allow for grace and provide boundaries.

Adolescence is especially hard on girls. Effervescent with emotion, they buck and bray like wild horses. Parents might be forgiven for assuming this can’t be right—that there is something wrong with them. Parents might even be forgiven for wishing to put their daughters on medication to flatten their moods and short-circuit these crazy teenage years. This is the fantasy of inducing a kind of Sleeping Beauty coma until your daughter is ready to awaken, calm and refreshed, having arrived gracefully at womanhood.

Differently wired, but let’s remember they are differently gifted! And the world needs their gifts!

7. Don’t Be Afraid to Admit: It’s Wonderful to Be a Girl

The current generation of feminism has done much to harm womanhood, in her estimation. But the earlier tenets of feminism ought to be pasted to her bedroom walls: women are every bit as valuable as men; equal pay for equal work; a level playing field for everyone. Whether a man or a woman, there’s no reason not to aim for the stars and have an equal opportunity to board the spacecraft. 

But whatever else you teach your daughter, remember to include something more. Tell her because the culture so often denies it. Tell her because people will try to make a victim of her. Tell her because it’s natural to doubt. Most of all, tell her because it’s true.

She’s lucky. She’s special. She was born a girl. And being a woman is a gift, containing far too many joys to pass up.

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria is yet another slice of the Sexual Tsunami destroying lives in our culture. In the next post, I’ll share some thoughts on how we as pastors and counselors can minister more effectively.