Transgender teen struggles with parents' reaction
For your parents, the transition is going in the opposite direction, from the son they raised and thought they knew intimately, toward the daughter they are still getting to know. While you are feeling ever more whole, they are feeling more alienated.
Some of what you are experiencing is unique to your situation, but this dynamic is also more typical parent-teen tension, expressed in inappropriate ways.
These protestations represent their efforts to continue to parent you, which for them consists of telling you who you are. Nobody wants to be told who he or she is, and yet parents have been doing that to their children since the dawn of time.
It doesn't seem fair, but to some extent you will have to reject their ignorance or inappropriateness while still reassuring them that the person you are becoming will always love the parents they are, complete with their flaws and misapprehensions. Please keep talking. Gentleness toward them might inspire gentleness from them.
DEAR AMY: What can I do when my mother tries to push her design taste on me by continually buying items for my home that SHE likes, but I hate?
It is driving me crazy! -- Design Secure
DEAR SECURE: The best answer is to tell her specifically that you would like her to stop imposing this upon you. You say, "Our taste is really different. I am making my own home now. When you do this, I feel like you are trying to impose something upon me. Can you understand how this makes me feel?"
After that, you should listen to her motivations, thank her for her interest in you and your home, but stand firm that you won't accept this loaded form of generosity from her.
DEAR AMY: You dismissed the concerns of "Pro-Vax RN," the nurse who didn't want to invite unvaccinated children to her home, even though her children were vaccinated.
No vaccine is 100 percent effective, so it is best to be careful. -- Disappointed
DEAR DISAPPOINTED: If the fact that no vaccine is 100 percent effective is justification for keeping unvaccinated children away, then why not keep vaccinated children away too? After all, a room full of children vaccinated less than 100 percent effectively could spread and contract disease.
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(You can contact Amy Dickinson via email: askamy@tribpub.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or "like" her on Facebook. Amy Dickinson's memoir, "The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter and the Town that Raised Them" (Hyperion), is available in bookstores.)
