When strangers or new acquaintances ask what I do for work, I just laugh. "Oh, how wonderful," they say, "To stay home with your children- that is just great."
They obviously don't really know my children.
My kids have turned my expectations of motherhood completely upside down, to say the very least. My oldest daughter is on the autism spectrum and is genderfluid, my middle child is transgender, and my youngest daughter doesn't have any diagnoses at this point. She is only four- we are giving her time to come up with something.
My middle daughter, Alex, who is transgender, first introduced us to the concept that not all people fit nicely into the boxes of "male" and "female". That was a long process, and a journey toward acceptance.
And then, several months ago, my oldest daughter announced to us that she was actually a he.
Leah is my oldest child. Leah is also on the autism spectrum, very high functioning, diagnosed with Asperger's when she was 4. Looking back, Leah has never fit nicely into her assigned gender box. When she was just two years old, and her friends were playing with princesses and dolls, Leah could be found poring over a book from the library called "Dinosaur Autopsy". My husband and I assumed that Leah would be a tomboy, maybe a scientist, an artist, a brilliant outlier, and that was fine.
Leah has always been my wild child. Part of that is her temperament, part of it is the sensory issues associated with her autism, and her inability at times to regulate her emotions. She is creative, she is an extreme out-of-the-box thinker, and she is an artist. I have always called her my wild child, my wild horse, and even my wild card- some days, you just don't know what to expect when you're dealing with autism.
So, when Leah announced in May that she was actually a boy, we took it in stride. Surely it was a phase, just like the donkey phase of Fall 2011, and the very long dog phase of 2013. At least Leah, now asking to be a boy named "Benjamin", was a human again. At least Ben walked on two feet instead of four, and could answer us using words, not braying or barking.
And then Leah started flipping back and forth. She was a girl. She was a boy. Girl. Boy. Girl, boy, girl, boy. It was exhausting.
I read some more. I talked with our doctors and therapists. We learned more about genderfluidity, gender variance, gender nonconforming kids. Because in a way, our experience with our transgender child felt very different- the Alex that we thought of as a little boy had always known she was a girl. Always. It was challenging to accept, but at least it was clear.
This felt wilder, more unpredictable, even more out-of-the-box. How did I explain my child to acquaintances, or friends, when her gender was so fluid? Friends would call me: "Is it Ben or Leah today?"
Or strangers would say: "Wait, I thought you had a little girl named Leah? Whose little boy is that?"
Over time, I learned to reply, hesitantly at first, and more confidently with time and acceptance: "Oh, yes, Leah is a boy named Ben today- she is pretty wild when it comes to gender. We call her genderwild."
And so, genderwild was born.
I used to really question my ability to parent such exceptionally different children. Now, I am simply grateful for the chance to be around such amazing little people every day. Don't get me wrong- it can be very hard, frustrating, and full of challenges. But I love these authentic children, and I love learning alongside them, finding beauty in the ashes of my previous expectations of what I thought my life as a mother might look like.
I write this blog anonymously to protect my children's identity. I think their story is an important one to share, but like many families of transgender children and gender variant children, we do not feel safe at this point to divulge their identity. We feel that it is safer for our children to be anonymous at this point. To those of you who know us personally- thank you for helping us preserve our children's anonymity, as well as that of myself and my husband. And to our friends and loved ones, good luck with the pseudonyms and nicknames- I have to admit, it has been harder than I thought to blog with different names!
Thank you for reading, and for coming alongside our family! Welcome to our crazy journey of genderwild parenting!
They obviously don't really know my children.
My kids have turned my expectations of motherhood completely upside down, to say the very least. My oldest daughter is on the autism spectrum and is genderfluid, my middle child is transgender, and my youngest daughter doesn't have any diagnoses at this point. She is only four- we are giving her time to come up with something.
My middle daughter, Alex, who is transgender, first introduced us to the concept that not all people fit nicely into the boxes of "male" and "female". That was a long process, and a journey toward acceptance.
And then, several months ago, my oldest daughter announced to us that she was actually a he.
Leah is my oldest child. Leah is also on the autism spectrum, very high functioning, diagnosed with Asperger's when she was 4. Looking back, Leah has never fit nicely into her assigned gender box. When she was just two years old, and her friends were playing with princesses and dolls, Leah could be found poring over a book from the library called "Dinosaur Autopsy". My husband and I assumed that Leah would be a tomboy, maybe a scientist, an artist, a brilliant outlier, and that was fine.
Leah has always been my wild child. Part of that is her temperament, part of it is the sensory issues associated with her autism, and her inability at times to regulate her emotions. She is creative, she is an extreme out-of-the-box thinker, and she is an artist. I have always called her my wild child, my wild horse, and even my wild card- some days, you just don't know what to expect when you're dealing with autism.
So, when Leah announced in May that she was actually a boy, we took it in stride. Surely it was a phase, just like the donkey phase of Fall 2011, and the very long dog phase of 2013. At least Leah, now asking to be a boy named "Benjamin", was a human again. At least Ben walked on two feet instead of four, and could answer us using words, not braying or barking.
And then Leah started flipping back and forth. She was a girl. She was a boy. Girl. Boy. Girl, boy, girl, boy. It was exhausting.
I read some more. I talked with our doctors and therapists. We learned more about genderfluidity, gender variance, gender nonconforming kids. Because in a way, our experience with our transgender child felt very different- the Alex that we thought of as a little boy had always known she was a girl. Always. It was challenging to accept, but at least it was clear.
This felt wilder, more unpredictable, even more out-of-the-box. How did I explain my child to acquaintances, or friends, when her gender was so fluid? Friends would call me: "Is it Ben or Leah today?"
Or strangers would say: "Wait, I thought you had a little girl named Leah? Whose little boy is that?"
Over time, I learned to reply, hesitantly at first, and more confidently with time and acceptance: "Oh, yes, Leah is a boy named Ben today- she is pretty wild when it comes to gender. We call her genderwild."
And so, genderwild was born.
I used to really question my ability to parent such exceptionally different children. Now, I am simply grateful for the chance to be around such amazing little people every day. Don't get me wrong- it can be very hard, frustrating, and full of challenges. But I love these authentic children, and I love learning alongside them, finding beauty in the ashes of my previous expectations of what I thought my life as a mother might look like.
I write this blog anonymously to protect my children's identity. I think their story is an important one to share, but like many families of transgender children and gender variant children, we do not feel safe at this point to divulge their identity. We feel that it is safer for our children to be anonymous at this point. To those of you who know us personally- thank you for helping us preserve our children's anonymity, as well as that of myself and my husband. And to our friends and loved ones, good luck with the pseudonyms and nicknames- I have to admit, it has been harder than I thought to blog with different names!
Thank you for reading, and for coming alongside our family! Welcome to our crazy journey of genderwild parenting!
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