Yessssss thank you for the reflections here. I think transitioning offered this natural opportunity for me to deconstruct a lot of the fences and walls I put up as someone socialized with all these boy pressures you mention, even if everyone gets them to some degree, it's especially pronounced with boys. Even then I still have so many walls and I'm recycling more of them than I ever thought possible!
My friend shared a tiktok of a mom with five kids noticing the guilt trip of her generation was "barefoot uphill both ways in the snow" and then when she would get overwhelmed trying to validate everyone's feelings and manage the chaos she would sometimes let slip "I wasn't allowed to have feelings". That feels like the guilt trip of this next generation; I certainly get that and see it in people all the time. Or even just under the surface, the subtext of what they're saying is exactly that.
Yessssss thank you for the reflections here. I think transitioning offered this natural opportunity for me to deconstruct a lot of the fences and walls I put up as someone socialized with all these boy pressures you mention, even if everyone gets them to some degree, it's especially pronounced with boys. Even then I still have so many walls and I'm recycling more of them than I ever thought possible!
My friend shared a tiktok of a mom with five kids noticing the guilt trip of her generation was "barefoot uphill both ways in the snow" and then when she would get overwhelmed trying to validate everyone's feelings and manage the chaos she would sometimes let slip "I wasn't allowed to have feelings". That feels like the guilt trip of this next generation; I certainly get that and see it in people all the time. Or even just under the surface, the subtext of what they're saying is exactly that.