Opinion: Mom and pop psychology

Guest commentator Dwayne Biggs explores importance of parental rights versus parental responsibilities in age of talking about issues he thinks are just icky

By Dwayne Biggs

Policy 713 and the issue of gender identity among children has put New Brunswick in the spotlight on the international stage, and I don’t like it - not one bit.

One reason for my discomfort is that the term “stage” evokes thoughts of the theatre, and as we all know, the theatre is the sole domain of… people engaged in “alternate lifestyles,” as they say. That’s just a fact. The wife made me watch the Tony Awards one time, and it prompted me to tear the page out of my high school yearbook that showed me as a member of the cast of Calamity Jane in my senior year.

But the main reason this ruffles my feathers - very manly ones, I assure you - is that there’s this inexplicable pushback against the notion of keeping parents in the know on the state of their kids’ identities.

Dwayne Biggs (Photo: Gub’mint of Nu Brunswick)

The premier and the Education minister are pushing for revisions to a policy that allows kids of any age to determine their gender and even their names. Previously, if the young’uns wanted to keep Mom and Dad in the dark about who they were, what others called them and what they thought, well, that was just hunky dory by members of the Indoctrination Vocation, or the profession of teachers, as they call themselves.

The shift to take that choice away from students under the age of 16 has proven to be a controversial one.

Speaking as the leader of the Regressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick, I too take issue with the change - because it doesn’t go far enough!

Why allow for such an arbitrary cutoff at the age of 16? As long as these kids are in school, a policy requiring parents to be informed of what their offspring are asking for, saying and thinking ought to be in place all up to Grade 14. Er, Grade 12, I mean.

As parents, we made these kids, and that means they belong to us. They carry the names we gave ‘em, the haircuts we give ‘em and the genders we picked out for them. (I read a book that directed me to gorge myself on pomegranates or Flamin’ Hot Cheetos ahead of the Dance with No Pants, depending on if I wanted boys or girls, and it worked, for the most part.)

Parents have the right to know if their children are tinkering with their factory-issued branding. I mean, what if they end up voiding the warranty?

Mothers and fathers - but especially fathers - need to know what their kids are getting up to in school. They’re entitled to ensure their names are the same, and they’re entitled to know what their kids are doing, saying and even thinking at all times.

That’s why I routinely read my daughter Dwayna’s diary, and why I read Dwayne Jr.’s journal before I burned it BECAUSE BOYS DON’T KEEP JOURNALS, daggummit!

Parents have rights, but they also have responsibilities. Some have argued those two notions are in direct conflict, but I reject that notion. They go hand in hand.

Moms and dads do have rights - to conceive, coerce and control - but they also have responsibilities. They are responsible to shape their sons and daughters into upstanding, contributing and - most importantly - obedient citizens who conform to what society (as envisioned in the 1950s) expects them to be. That could be a forestry technician, a refinery worker or a nurse with sufficient compassion (and by “compassion,” I mean a tolerance for long hours and low pay).

Our province would run more smoothly, economically and esthetically if everyone just went back to a simpler time. There was a time when we had men in fedoras and gals in the kitchen, not non-binary people or gender fluidity. When Injuns were the bad guys in movies rather than the victims of colonization. When workers just took what scraps they were given rather than turn to unions to demand [shudder] fairness.

Now, there are aspects of today’s society that we ought to keep. For the most part, we’ve left behind things like affluence on a single household income and affordable post-secondary education.

But when it comes to education, gender identity and parenting, I long for how things used to be. And since that’s how I feel, I can state with confidence that’s how most everyone else must feel.

Right?

Dwayne Biggs heads up the [fictional] Regressive Conservative Party and once ran for the leadership of the Conflagration of Seasons Party before it fell apart once everyone realized what hateful bastards they were.

Don MacPherson can be contacted about this piece of satire at ftonindependent@gmail.com.