Are You A Passive Parent?

By Deacon Mike Manno 

(The Wanderer) – I remember as a kid how I would wait for my dad to come home from work. Sometimes I would run up to the corner where dad would turn onto our street, and he would stop and let me in the car to ride half a block to our house. That was a thrill for a kid my age.  

My parents would discuss the news, have dinner, then, if there was nothing else scheduled for the evening, we would settle down with the TV. On fight night, dad would get a pizza and the two of us would watch some of the best pugilists of the day on the old black ’n white.

I often think about that and I wonder if my parents ever faced the challenges parents face now. I doubt it. Now we have lost our moorings, something that never happened in my parents’ day. Then most people had similar values and ideas and our political differences involved issues on the fringe. I’m not sure there was much attention paid to gay folks and the issue of transgenderism was not even considered.

There were problems, of course, but none raised to the level of what we are discussing now. Then, we kept things to ourselves, our small band of friends, it wasn’t shared with the world as social media allows kids to do today.

Now all those little childhood “secrets” get splashed across social media, and with the encouragement of perverted school administrators and a wacked-out teachers’ union they are dangled in front of our little ones as if they are candy treats. And the little ones, curious about things, will begin to look for themselves and will find a treasure trove of information on social media; more than enough to keep the kiddies’ interests.

And the more exploration on social media the more the algorithms bring kids back, so much so that they now think those secrets are a normal part of life. Such as gender fluidity, which makes them susceptible to the suggestion that they, themselves, might be confused about their identity and could even be in the wrong body.

Is it any wonder now how so many of our children — who might have been naturally somewhat confused by sex roles in an earlier generation — are now ready to believe that some kids can or should change their gender?

And yet this goes on out in the open. And what are parents to do? And why aren’t they raising holy hell about what is going on with their own children?
Just an example that came across my desk today:

In California the Escondido Union School District (EUSD) has issued a directive to all teachers and staff to hide from parents the status of their children who are being socially transitioned during school hours. Two teachers from the district are suing over the policy; note the litigants are teachers, not parents.

According to the suit: “Once a child’s social transitioning has begun, EUSD elementary and middle school teachers must ensure that parents do not find out. EUSD’s policies state that ‘revealing a student’s transgender status to individuals who do not have a legitimate need for the information, without the student’s consent’ is prohibited, and ‘parents or caretakers’ are, according to EUSD, individuals who ‘do not have a legitimate need for the information,’ irrespective of the age of the student or the specific facts of the situation.”

Notice how the policy relegates “parents and caretakers” to the status of someone who has no legitimate interest in the status of the child. This isn’t the only school doing this; these facts keep repeating themselves across the land. Some have even gone further by providing a secret change of clothing for students to wear during the day, which then are changed back when school is over and a parent comes to pick them up.

These policies are being implemented by people who have been elected to their office, and many of them have been re-elected several times. So why haven’t the parents caught on? Perhaps because if they raise their voices Merrick Garland will send in his henchmen from the upper levels of the FBI to investigate them for being white supremacists and domestic terrorists.

In a companion pro-trans scenario, a licensed marriage and family counselor is petitioning the Supreme Court to give him relief from a Washington State law that prevents him from plying his trade honestly by requiring that he follow certain norms when dealing with a minor. Thus, the counselor, when dealing with a gender confused child must reinforce the child’s self-identity and does not allow the counselor to fully probe into the depth of the child’s sexual confusion.

According to the attorney representing the counselor, “Significantly, the law only prohibits counsel in one direction: For example, it allows counseling conversations that aim to steer a young person toward a transgender identity but prohibits conversations that aim to help that same person return to comfort with his or her sex if that’s what the individual may want. The law threatens fines of $5,000 per violation, suspension from practice, and even permanent revocation of a counselor’s license.” 

This idea too has been replicated across the nation.

Unfortunately, around the nation federal courts are being inundated with such cases all brought because somewhere someone has made the decision that biological facts are out of step with today’s society. And, of course, somewhere parents wouldn’t look, or refused to see, and they allowed this to happen in their communities.

Anyone who has a child or loves a child should get a backbone and go to the mat with these politicians and school administrators. Relying on someone else to make a legal challenge is passive parenting. Your child is entitled to better.

That’s a long way from my dad’s day. He knew how to keep us safe all the while eating pizza and watching Carmen Basilio out-box Sugar Ray Robinson for a 15-round split-decision and a world title.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every weekend on Faith On Trial or podcast at https://iowacatholicradio.com/faith-on-trial/)