Kerala brought a recently updated essay about the loss of control that hits when your kids’ social lives start eclipsing your carefully curated world, called What No One Tells You About Parenting an Adolescent.

We covered a lot of ground: the compliance-rewarded childhoods we inherited and the daughters we’re trying to raise differently; the loneliness of parenting adolescents, especially solo; and Kerala’s counterintuitive take that she feels more solution-oriented now than when she started writing — less grappling, more acting. Her definition of success for her kids: find your community, be kind, be empathetic. No pressure on career, marriage, or children.

The hour closed on something heavier — Kerala navigating what it means to be a white mom raising a biracial Black daughter who’s already being read as far older than 14, code-switching with her relay team, and fielding flak from peers about her friend group. A lot to hold.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in, and special thanks to and for moderating the chats on Substack and YouTube with such grace.

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The conversation landed at the exact right moment: Dana's essay "Middle-Aged Men Keep Ogling My 16-Year-Old" had just gone live, and Christopher's work is essentially the other side of that story—helping the adults in boys' lives raise kids who don't become the men in Dana's essay. They talked about how to actually have hard conversations with teenagers, why screen time's bigger problem is what it's replacing, and the radical idea that staying close to your kid matters more than any single talk.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with , , and ! Join me for my next live video in the app.

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It’s an awful mess, but it sure helps when we have likeminded folks to talk to about it.

Here’s my latest essay on this topic, just live today on :

Blue Amp Media

She’s Ready for College. Her Country Is Coming Apart.

Read more

3 months ago · 106 likes · 29 comments · Dana DuBois and Blue Amp Media

Also on tonight’s show, Ossiana proposed we host a “Crones Cocktail” live on Substack, where we drink and read Tarot and astrology and play with our cats.

I’m SO in.

, we’re gonna need t-shirts…

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in.

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I wrote this essay a couple of years ago on Medium, and it still feels true—maybe more so. Sharing it here as we head into another December, with all its lists, rituals, and quiet revelations.

I destroyed my children years ago.

Or at least, that’s how it feels every December.

Perhaps it’s because of my Jewish upbringing—one where I longed for the excess of Christmas—that my children came down the stairs on December 25th to a tree overflowing with gifts. I go a bit crazy. I know it’s not exactly right, but I love this childhood tradition: a day of pure indulgence, where giving delights me almost as much as it delights them.

My children worked painstakingly on their Christmas wish lists, starting months in advance. Even by mid-December, they were still updating them. It was kind of nuts.

But it was also so much fun.

And every year, I learned something new about them by studying what they wished for.

I always anticipated that their lists would change as they grew. I remember the first year neither child asked for stuffed animals or dolls. I got misty. I ran to our local toy store like a fool and bought each of them a tiny stuffie to sit atop their stockings—a squirrel and a rat, if memory serves.

They might have been ready to let them go.
I wasn’t.

What I didn’t anticipate was that my younger child would change their gender—or how clearly their wish lists would track that shift. Parenting keeps us on our toes in all sorts of unexpected ways. I might not have been ready, but thanks to their meticulous lists, the Christmas gifts kept pace with who my child was becoming.

My child came out as genderfluid in 2020, just ahead of their eleventh birthday, and then moved through a series of gender and sexual identities over the next few years: genderfluid, nonbinary, neoboy, bisexual, pansexual, lesbian, trans. Hair was chopped off. Color became fluid—blue, red, bleach blonde. They avoided most tween markers of femininity: makeup, perfume, dresses.

For a couple of seasons, their Christmas wish lists reflected that shift. Clothes were oversized and gender-neutral. There were lots of plaid flannel shirts. Toys and art supplies still dominated.

I tried to keep up.
Sometimes I got it wrong.

One year I bought them an adorable kawaii kitty t-shirt in nonbinary flag colors, thinking I was being supportive and clever. Unfortunately, at that exact moment, their identity was genderfluid—not nonbinary. My child was gracious, didn’t wear it, and didn’t say anything until we were well past the return window. I ended up donating it to a friend whose nonbinary child gave it the love it deserved.

I just kept trying.

And I kept making sure my child knew I loved and supported them, no matter what—
even if I occasionally bought the wrong t-shirt for Christmas.

By the end of 2023, I found myself reviewing my now thirteen-year-old child’s wish list and marveling at how… well, feminine it was.

It made sense.

My child didn’t talk much about pronouns anymore. When asked, she brushed it off—“whatever, I don’t care, mom”—before launching into a more interesting topic. She said either she or they was fine, so I vacillated between the two, though admittedly I leaned toward she more often. It’s my first language. And I trusted my child to tell me if that ever changed. They’d earned that trust.

In the absence of pronoun exploration, her interests had settled into something decidedly girlish—and her wish list reflected it.

Taylor Swift CDs.
Taylor Swift vinyl.
Taylor Swift t-shirts.

My youngest had followed her older sister’s musical footsteps her whole life, but this year she came into her own tastes. Taylor Swift was the dominant voice in the earbuds she wore nearly constantly. I didn’t mind. What a powerful first musical crush. What a role model. My only regret was my complete inability to secure concert tickets—three cities, zero wins. At least we got to Taylor-gate.

Then there were the clothes. Denim miniskirts. Dresses. Cropped tops. Brandy Melville. Makeup and perfume topped the list. And beads—so many beads. She’d become an accomplished jewelry maker this year, producing not just Taylor Swift friendship bracelets, but enough handmade adornments to accessorize all of Seattle.

What did this mean, in terms of my child’s gender journey?

I had no idea.

We were parenting in unprecedented times, without much of a roadmap. Perhaps by next Christmas my child would pivot again—new pronouns, a new name, a new way of being. Or perhaps she’d landed where she was: her chosen name, she/they pronouns, a Christmas morning heavy with Taylor Swift merch and glittering beads.

As I worked my way down the list, wrapping each gift in sparkly paper, I felt nothing but gratitude.

What I did know was this: my child felt at peace with their fluidity, whether it was in motion or paused.

My child knew she was supported and loved every step of the way, through every version of herself.

Oh, what joy.

Greetings!

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

Four years ago, on a sun-blasted drive across town, my fourteen-year-old called me transphobic. I argued boundaries. She argued fairness. Back then it felt like a mother-daughter stalemate.

Now, as trans kids are targeted in public and in policy, I understand what she was really asking of me.

My favorite place to talk to my teen has always been the car.

It’s late afternoon, sunny, and I’m driving across town with my then–14-year-old daughter. She’s picking the tunes — Mitski, Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers — and we’re rocking out. She loves DJing on long drives, and honestly I love it too.

Driving time is the best time to connect with my teens. We’re trapped together. They can’t retreat to their rooms, and I can’t escape into work.

Even with our bodies fixed side-by-side, moving through space at 60 mph somehow makes for easier conversations. It makes no sense and yet, it is. And she’s on the cusp of high school, where the stakes of maintaining an open line of communication get so much higher.

So I focus on the road and take advantage of how we can talk about big things without the discomfort of eye contact.

Onward we drive, chit-chatting over her playlist.

And our conversation turns to boys.

Specifically, we talk about Chris, a boy she had a crush on in elementary school who she doesn’t talk to anymore. According to her, it’s because Chris is not cool — and my cooler-than-thou child has extremely strong feelings about coolness. So I let that comment sit, in the interest of getting further scoop.

I ask, “If Chris isn’t cool, then who is?”

“Niles is cool,” she replies.

“Oh yeah? Who else?”

“Just Niles.”

Now, Niles was named Audrey when I last saw him, pre-COVID, and he was in her friend group then too. So it’s not surprising my child finds him cool. Other than the name and pronoun change, he’s still the same kid she’s always liked. But I’m curious. At her age, I certainly had a list — albeit a short one — of cool boys. Cool meaning: I wanted to date them.

So I probe. “It’s kinda strange that the only ‘cool’ boy you know is a trans boy.”

“So???!” she fires back, righteous in that way only a 14-year-old daughter talking to her mother can be. “What’s the difference?”

That’s a good question, kid.

What is the difference to her, I wonder, as she teeters on the edge of her own sexual awareness?

She’s unabashedly femme, self-assured, bold. When all her friends and her sibling changed their names and pronouns, she remained steadfast as the lone girl in the group. And she is unabashedly femme — chronically exposed midriff, a striking sense of style, someone who will almost certainly be one of the first in her cohort to make up for lost COVID time.

Knowing all this, I ask her carefully: “Is there really no difference at all to you?”

“None,” she says, instantly.

“Like… would you date a trans boy?”

Now she’s offended. “YES, MOM. Of course I would. There’s no difference!”

I barely have time to process this before she flips the questioning onto me.

“Would YOU date a trans man?”

And I answer honestly. “I don’t think so.”

She recoils, horrified. “So you just like… parts??!”

Oh, my virgin child. The audacity of you, schooling me on my own hard-won sexuality.

I take a breath. There’s no way out but through.

“You know it’s okay to have a preference for certain parts,” I say.

“Would you date a trans woman with the right parts?” she demands.

“No, I don’t think I would.”

And that’s when she goes full volume.

“SO YOU’RE TRANSPHOBIC!!!”

The conversation goes from zero to screaming-in-an-SUV in three seconds flat.

I’m not great with impromptu heated conversations. I don’t want to fight; I want to learn from her, and impart wisdom of my own. I adore her generation’s inclusivity — their sense of fairness, their refusal to put people into boxes, their moral clarity. I’ve raised my kids to use their voice, and clearly my 14-year-old is acing that part.

But here’s where I tried to make a distinction: there’s one place where you don’t have to be inclusive at all — your body.

Your boundaries are yours.
Your desire is yours.
Your consent is yours.

At the time, I framed it as empowerment: You don’t owe anyone your desire — not even in the name of allyship. You can be respectful of everyone’s bodies and identities and still only want what you want. We all deserve partners who want us for the entirety of who we are — parts and all.

She listened. Somewhat. Her shoulders lowered; the rage dissipated. I could feel her processing. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. And then she escaped back into her Spotify queue, where emotional safety lives.

“You know I’m totally fine if you date a trans boy or girl, right?” I added. She just sighed and focused on her iPhone.

Taylor Swift went back on. Conversation over. Car karaoke resumed.

We drove and sang, side by side, as I wondered how much sunk in.

I didn’t know it then, but that argument would keep echoing.

Nearly four years have passed. She’s almost eighteen now — sharp, self-possessed, and fierce in her own sexual agency. Watching her step into adulthood feels like watching a bird test her wings in slow motion: tentative, then certain, then unstoppable. I feel ready for her to fly into this world. Almost.

And I also feel something else — something I didn’t quite understand during that drive.

My daughter wasn’t just talking about her own boundaries. She was talking about fairness. About safety. About not making trans kids prove their humanity before being considered dateable or lovable or worthy.

At the time, I thought her certainty was idealistic teenage absolutism. Now? Now I see it as moral clarity.

Because the world she was imagining — one where trans boys are just boys, where desire and identity aren’t weaponized — is not the world we live in.

I see now how naïve I was back in 2021, to believe that was the world she and her peers would inhabit. I assumed our culture, our country, couldn’t backslide. I cringe now at how wrong I was — and at how much the political landscape has darkened.

Trans kids have been turned into pawns. Across dozens of states, bills have targeted gender-affirming care, bathrooms, school sports, and even library shelves. Their autonomy — the very thing my daughter was defending in theory — is being shattered in practice. Rights I once assumed were unalienable are, in fact, alienable. Easily. Cynically. Cruelly.

And I ache for them.

I ache for the kids who don’t have homes where they can call out a parent without fear. I ache for the ones legislated into silence. I ache for the ones caught between adolescence and a country that refuses to see them.

Looking back, I think my advice made sense. And more importantly, so did my daughter’s indignation.

Both things can be true.

My boundaries were about my own body, and those still stand. But hers? Hers were about justice — a world where everyone gets to be wanted, safe, protected, free.

I’m glad she called me out. I’m glad she challenged me. I’m glad she reminded me that our kids are not only inheriting this world; they’re reshaping it.

And I hope — years from now — when she looks back on that car ride, she remembers that I listened. That I tried. That I stayed open, even when it stung.

And that we kept driving and singing, side by side, toward a world that still needs people like her — people who believe in fairness so fiercely they’ll shout “MOM, YOU’RE TRANSPHOBIC!” if they have to.

I know I’ll remember it. All too well.

Greetings!

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

This is Thanksgiving week. Many of us in the US are preparing for the familiar mix of comfort-food nostalgia and low-level dread that comes with spending time around extended family.

But 2025 isn’t usual. Not even close.

The political climate has shifted; anticipating these gatherings feels different. This is especially true if you’re raising a trans or nonbinary child. Suddenly, it’s not just about whether a grandparent stumbles over pronouns. It’s about what the world is telling them they’re allowed to be. It’s about whether being in that room is genuinely safe for your child.

And here’s the hard part: some relatives are doing their imperfect best, and those folks deserve a little patience. But others? The ones who lead with contempt, cruelty, or rigid ideology? They’ve made your decision for you. Your kid does not need to be anywhere near them.

Still, not every family dynamic is a crisis. Some are simply imperfect humans, doing their best. And sometimes the best way to understand the difference is through the smaller, more ordinary moments.

When my youngest child came out as genderfluid just before their 11th birthday, they changed their name and pronouns. Annika became Nico, and she became they.

Thankfully, our friends and community around here had no issues. We live in a liberal blue bubble, and some days, it seems more tweens than not are playing with gender norms by selecting new names and pronouns. So Nico was no outlier.

My family was also accepting — perhaps questioning (to me, not to Nico), but overall, accepting. They adapted to using Nico with no problem. As for pronoun usage — well, they try. Sometimes Grandma succeeded with using they/them pronouns, but often she stumbled. My instinct was to protect Nico, to step in, smooth the moment over, make it easier. I asked Nico if they wanted me to be more vigilant with their grandmother, to ensure she’d catch on faster.

Nico said no.

So I listened, didn’t intervene, and let Nico self-manage Grandma’s pronoun usage. That choice taught me more about resilience than any parenting book.

My mom lives in Florida, across the country from us, and we visit a few times per year. So, it’s not real life, per se. It’s vacation time. At the beginning, I could see Nico didn’t like it — but I also noted they didn’t say anything, most of the time. These days they don’t care which pronouns people use to refer to them, so it’s less of an issue.

It’s also part of my child learning to manage different interpersonal relationships. I’ve noticed that if I slip up on someone’s name or gender, the retribution from both my kids is fierce. They expect me to keep up. I hold this as a source of pride.

When Grandma biffs her pronouns usage, neither of my kids says peep. And you know what? I think that’s okay. I think it means they’re showing some grace.

But grace is a choice we make situationally — not blindly, not at the expense of safety, and not at the expense of our kids.

This Thanksgiving season, as trans rights are weaponized and kids like mine are turned into political talking points, protecting them comes before any holiday tradition.

If you’re parenting a gender-nonconforming child, you may find yourself in an especially delicate situation, forced into choosing to keep the peace with extended family versus protecting your child.

And here’s the thing: the stakes feel different now. This isn’t just about a harmless pronoun slip. In some states — including the one my mother lives in — there are legislators who have made it clear they want to erase or criminalize our kids’ identities. That danger doesn’t turn off just because there’s turkey on the table. Every time we fly there, I feel the shift in my shoulders.

If you’re in this situation, I can’t tell you what you should do. Only you know your family, and the risks they pose to your child. Sometimes the situation is outright fraught. Then the decision is easy; you cannot risk putting your child in harm’s way. Find friends to spend the holiday with and avoid any family members who are blatantly transphobic.

In this circumstance, your child needs you to protect them.

Pink Hair & Pronouns editor Simply Sophia writes about this beautifully in her essay Chosen Family Saves Lives. As a trans woman with an Evangelical family, she knows the dangers — both overt and subtle — of bringing a gender-diverse kid to the literal table.

Her point lands even harder today. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do as a parent is decline the invitation entirely. Not out of spite — out of safety. And not just physical safety, but emotional and psychological safety, too.

But I’d like to augment Sophia’s story and suggest that at times — when your family flubs your kids’ gender identity not out of malice, but out of carelessness — there’s a case for showing some grace at the occasional holiday meal, and especially with older relatives.

Does it suck when Grandpa says, “But how can a single person be a they?”

Sure.

Is it annoying when Grandma says, “But it’s hard to remember your new name?”

Yes.

But if your elders are putting in some effort, and are otherwise loving and respectful, I think it’s important to discuss with your child and — if they feel safe and okay with it — tell them that it’s harder for people to learn new things as we age.

It’s important to teach your children that people can be flawed and still love us, and that sometimes it’s okay to keep a door open to family members you otherwise love and care about, even if you don’t like some of their behaviors.

The trick now is discerning the difference between harmless imperfection and harmful ideology.

Harmless imperfection is clumsy. Harmful ideology is cruel.

One is survivable — sometimes even repairable. The other? We don’t gamble our kids’ well-being on that. Not anymore.

As parents, the bar is high. We need to keep up, with all of it. It’s our job to stay on top of the culture, norms, and vocabulary of our kid’s world — especially of gender and identity.

But for the grandparents and other elders of the family? I say, use your judgment, and talk to your kids. Teach and model empathy and nuance. Talk to them about how you can gently correct name and pronoun errors, let family members know you appreciate the effort, and encourage them to keep trying.

Show some grace.

And also? Show a spine.

If someone isn’t trying — if they’re hostile, cruel, or threatening — there’s no holiday on earth worth putting your child through that.

Sometimes, the only leverage we have with family is our physical presence. Let your family know that if they can’t behave respectfully around your trans and nonbinary child, then you won’t be spending the holiday with them. Sometimes, it’s love that starts to move hearts and minds to move the arc of the moral universe toward good.

If it works? That’s a wish we can all be thankful for.

If not? Perhaps by next Thanksgiving, things will start to sink in.

Grace is a gift. Safety is a boundary. And this year, our kids deserve both.

Greetings!

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

(This story originally ran on Medium in March 2024.)

My ex-husband’s birthday is March 4.

It’s the only date, to my knowledge, that’s also a proclamation. March forth! the world proclaims on March fourth, and sure, I know it’s a homonym. But that doesn’t make it any less of a banger of a birth date.

This year it fell on a Monday, and so the neighborhood spot he chose for his birthday dinner was pretty empty when my kids and I met him there to celebrate. He’s an extreme introvert to my extrovert, even more so as we age, so a mellow weeknight is just right. I smile, watching our family glow in the table candlelight. He orders an antipasto appetizer and our eldest daughter’s face lights up; they share a love of pink Italian meats that our youngest and I don’t feel. They devour the plate as we chat about school and work, just uneventful stuff, as families do.

We do this every year, for every birthday. Because while he’s my ex-husband, he’s still my co-parenting partner, my dear friend, and my family. It’s not an overstatement to say ours is one of the most pivotal relationships in my life.

It wasn’t always like this. Our marriage ended with some hard betrayals, a bumpy breakup at best. But even then, we managed to keep things amiable, as far as breakups and divorces go. A dozen years have passed since. Together we’ve raised our children from preschoolers to teenagers. I’m relieved to have those early days behind us, and to enjoy the peace of our family time.

Over the years, as friends and acquaintances have divorced, they’ve reached out to me for advice. “You and David get along so well,” they say, “how can we get there?”

I never intended to be a poster child for how to divorce well.

But I’m infinitely thankful for the ongoing relationship we have, and the family we’ve grown together. I also love to be helpful, so I try to answer this question the best that I can.

The first thing I say is this: you need to ensure you married a kind man with high emotional intelligence, one who will value his ongoing relationship with you over any grievances about the demise of your marriage. If you didn’t, well, my only advice is to go back in a time machine and marry someone else.

Outside of time travel, my advice for how to “get there,” with “there” being a positive, supportive relationship with your ex?

You both need to march forth.

Know that the early days after the split are the hardest part.

You can’t expect to transition seamlessly from spouses to friends and co-parents straight away. The best you can do is give each other the time and space you need, even as you continue to co-parent or interact in other ways, and especially as you begin to divide your one life and household into two.

March forth, knowing it takes time, it takes emotional distance, and it takes a lot of grace — from both partners, and rarely in equal parts. Be kind as you each learn to transition from spouses to ex-spouses. Hold space for each other to move at your own emotional paces. This isn’t a race, and the heart is a lousy timekeeper.

Don’t dwell on what went wrong in your marriage.

It can be easy to assign blame your soon-to-be ex for why things fell apart. It’s good to take time the time you need to process what happened. But don’t continue to come to blows with your ex about issues once you’ve ended things. Process with your friends, or a therapist. Go to a rage room and smash stuff, if you must.

March forth, knowing that from now on, you’re forging a new, different relationship with this person, not trying to fix the old one. It may take time, but I’m here from the future to tell you it’s possible.

Avert your eyes from that fork in the road.

Even if you made the choice to leave, you may doubt your certainty around the decision, to question if you should’ve stay. You may always have lingering doubts. You probably will, to be honest. But don’t gaze wistfully at the other path, trying to envision what could have been. You can’t live a healthy relationship in the present if you’re still steeped in the past. Once you’ve made the decision, what’s done is done.

March forth, as your relationship lives in the present, and grows into the future. You can’t Ctrl Z in real life. Don’t stagnate. Keep on typing and living your stories, onward.

Try not to get annoyed with your ex.

You two are uniquely positioned to torment one another for all time, each knowing the other’s vulnerabilities, and each undoubtedly finding attributes in the other that are absolutely maddening. There are reasons why your marriage didn’t work. Most of them probably get on your last nerve from time to time. The good news is, those annoyances are no longer your full-time problem. So, put them down.

March forth, and learn how to manage your own emotional responses so you don’t fall back into old, irritable patterns. As much as possible, don’t share these annoyances with your ex. Speak up if they will impact your ability to form a healthy co-parenting or friendly relationship, but even then, don’t snark or fall back into unhealthy habits.

Let go of control over how your spouse parents.

I had a friend years ago who was in the throes of a contentious divorce. They’d established a parenting plan for their kids with a 50/50 custody split. She vented to me, “when they’re with him, he just feeds them pizza or boxed mac and cheese for dinner.”

“Do they like pizza and boxed mac and cheese?” I asked her.

She confirmed they did. So I replied, “I understand you’d like them to eat a home-cooked meal each night. But eating pizza for dinner is fine. When they’re with their Dad, he gets to decide the rules at his house. And that includes meal-planning.”

March forth, I told her. When you divorce, you agree not to fight over house rules and norms, because you no longer share a home. This means your ex may make different parenting decisions than you would. So long as he’s not doing anything harmful, that has to be okay. Extend to each other the freedom to parent independently.

Our relationship truly is a best-case scenario.

I recognize many exes have terrible circumstances to navigate. My advice doesn’t help in worst-case scenario situations, like separations involving acrimony or abuse.

I’m a product of a bad divorce, as is my ex. Neither of wanted that kind of turmoil, for ourselves or especially for our kids.

And these kids of ours. They’re amazing. They flit effortlessly between House 1 and House 2, as we call them, each of us accommodating the schedules of the group to keep up with our kids’ active lives.

They’re teenagers now, 16 and nearly 14. We know our years with them at home — our two homes — are winding down. I’d like to think we’ve modeled a positive, supportive, loving relationship for them all these years, even as it ceased to be a marriage when they were quite small. Our existing family model is all they’ve ever known.

We finish up dinner in what feels like a flash. The birthday boy proclaims he’s too full of pasta puttanesca to consider dessert. “Are you sure?” I ask him. I don’t feel like my birthday is really a birthday until I’ve had a candle ablaze in a cake.

He’s sure, he assures me. He’s anti-attention, so a birthday song is out of the question — no matter how much I want to make a fuss on his behalf.

I accept how different we are, and we pass on dessert and head out.

They hug their Dad goodnight in front of the restaurant, and we each go to our respective homes, the kids with me, because it’s Monday and that’s one of my nights. They’re both in mild food comas, dreading the homework that still awaits them and arguing over who gets first shower. You know, really normal teenage stuff — just as their Dad and I always wanted for them.

So, happy belated birthday to my wonderful ex-husband. I’m forever grateful we’re marching forth, together.

Greetings!

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

(Watch me read this story live here.)

It’s 2013, and my small daughters gaze at the pale pink dresses, their eyes alight as they take in the wee rosettes at the waistline and the full-length skirts of layered tulle.

“These are for us??” they gush. At just five and nearly three years old, they’ve never known such finery.

“Of course they are,” I tell them. “You need extra-special dresses to attend your first wedding. Do you like them?”

They grab the dresses from my arms and rush off to try them on, all giggles and squeals. I can hear their laughter as I zip zippers and straighten sashes, and I feel my own anticipation bubbling up.

Because this isn’t just any wedding.

Just four months earlier, voters approved Washington State’s Referendum 74, legalizing marriage equality in the Evergreen state. Macklemore’s “Same Love” serenaded us all summer, a chart-topping anthem the Seattle native and hip-hop star wrote expressly for the campaign, turning political activism into a Grammy nomination for the 2012 Song of the Year. And what a year. Through the magic of pop music and grassroots activism, something I never thought I’d live to see was happening: my daughters’ very first wedding would be between two women.

We know the happy couple because their son, Malcolm*, goes to preschool with my eldest. Their moms, Callie and Lena*, have been together for years, but only now could their love be legally recognized in the United States. And if that joy weren’t enough, Callie had led community outreach for the campaign herself, knocking doors and organizing campaigns to help make this moment possible — for herself, yes. But also for all queer couples in Washington state.

The magnitude of it all takes my breath away.

My daughters? They’re underwhelmed. When I try to tell them how historic this is, they shrug in that way they’ve more recently perfected as teenagers — a gesture that says, whatever, Mom. Only old people like you think this is a big deal.

Why wouldn’t Malcolm’s two moms be able to marry?

To them, this wedding is just a wedding. To me, it’s witnessing hard-won history.

I’m lying, a little.

When my firstborn was three months old, her uncle — my younger brother — got married in Hawaii. To a woman. So technically, she has been to a not-gay wedding.

She saw them say “I do,” all swaddled and sunburned. Then she nursed and took a nap. Of course, she remembers nothing.

I don’t think it counts.

I’m GenX, so I grew up in a world where gay marriages seemed fantastical — like jet-packs, or a female U.S. president. Except for that one kid Marco* with the bi-level perm and the lisp, there were no gay people at my huge suburban high school.

Except for my best friend.

And my high school crush.

And my friend Heather with the cool hair, who grew up to be a ‘90s rainbow rock-star icon.

I had no idea at the time. Just a few decades back, gay people were all but invisible.

Then I came into adulthood and moved to a city. My best friend came out. And so did so many others. GenXers like me showed up for Pride and tried to educate those older than us that being gay wasn’t a choice or a lifestyle. It was just the way some people were. Love was love. The Same Love.

But legitimized gay marriage still seemed impossible.

“You may now kiss the bride,” the officiant announces, tearing me from my reverie. I look around and marvel as Callie and Lena embrace. It’s all real. The crowd goes wild — with joy, with gratitude, and with a sense of wonder that’s hard to describe.

I glance over at my girls, and see them shrieking their approval. They might not get the significance, but in that moment, they get the joy.

A few months later, my conservative father visits us from Florida. My eldest, in kindergarten, chats him up as she draws. “Who do you think you’re going to marry?” he asks, and I groan inwardly.

My dad has no idea what to say to girls, other than to compliment their looks or ask about boyfriends. So this question doesn’t surprise me. Before I can intervene, my child chirps confidently, “I’m going to marry Carlos and Ellie and Kelly and Sam.”

“Carlos??” my dad nearly sneers. He’s racist, in addition to chauvinistic.

“Yeah, Carlos and Ellie and Kelly and Sam,” my child repeats patiently.

“You can’t marry Ellie or Kelly,” my dad says. I can’t resist correcting him.

“Actually, she can here. Marriage equality is the law in Washington state.” He looks displeased, but he has to acknowledge I’m right. I feel a surge of hometown pride and wisecrack back.

“The only thing she can’t do is marry all four of them at once,” I say with a wry grin, blowing my conservative father’s mind. “But perhaps that will fall to her generation, legalizing polyamorous weddings.”

At the time, I believed it could be true. Love is love, and relationships strengthen families and communities.

The arc of the moral universe is long. For marriage equality, it was finally bending toward justice. I felt confident it would only gain more curvature, protecting all unions.

I ache now for the false hope I held only a dozen years ago.

My youngest is about eight years old when she has her first crush. It’s on her best friend, Virginia*, and honestly, I don’t blame her — Virginia is a genuinely lovely human.

“I want to tell Virginia I like her,” she confides in me.

I pause. A revelation like this can be risky. Friendships sometimes can’t survive if feelings aren’t mutual. Worst-case, she might get teased or bullied. But I also never want her to live a lie.

“Things could get tricky if you say anything,” I offer.

“I know,” she replies. “But I still want to tell her.”

And she does. Virginia doesn’t return her feelings. She likes boys. But she isn’t bothered by my child’s admission. Their friendship continues until COVID hits, when remote learning and time apart naturally grow them apart. I haven’t heard about a new crush since.

I suspect that her future infatuations may also be with girls. And I don’t mind. I just want my children to find love. So long as they’re happy and their person treats them well, gender is irrelevant.

This belief became especially poignant once marriage equality became law in the U.S. with Obergefell in 2015. I watched, astonished, as couples lined up at courthouses across the country, eager to finally legalize what they had always known in love. I cried for their long wait, for decades of unrecognized commitment, and for the protections they could finally claim under the law.

What sanctity. What a relief. What a time to be living. What a blessing, as a mom, to know my daughters could marry whomever they chose when they were ready.

We haven’t been to too many weddings, really.

But we’ve had some ridiculously fun times since Obergefell passed.

We posed in a gold glittery photo booth. We watched as a throng of bearded, blindfolded bears smacked down a Star Wars pinata. We donned feather boas and sparkly sunglasses and then tore up the dance floor. And my children watched as I officiated my first — and so far, only — wedding on the beach, a beautiful late summer day, my best friend and his groom kissing their “I dos” at low tide as the seagulls squawked their approval.

Last year, the principal of my older daughter’s high school welcomed the kids back after summer vacation. During her speech, she mentioned the “gay wedding” she’d attended in July. I’m sure it was meant to sound inclusive, but the Gen Z kids found it hilarious.

“Gay wedding,” scoffed my teen. “Or as I like to call them: weddings.”

Me too, kid. Me too.

Last weekend, the news broke that Obergefell v. Hodges was going back before the Supreme Court.

I’d known it was coming. The election results had practically guaranteed it. But I still wasn’t ready. Legal experts say not to panic, that same-sex marriage isn’t going away overnight. But I can’t forget those courthouse steps in 2015, the lines of couples clutching each other’s hands, eager to turn decades of waiting into vows.

I sat at the kitchen table with my youngest, nearly grown. I didn’t want to have to break it to her, but I didn’t want her to hear the news from some meme.

“Did you hear what’s happening with marriage equality?” I asked. She shook her head. So I explained: the legal challenges, the stacking of our Supreme Court Justices, even Kim Davis and her horrible hair resurfacing in the headlines like a homophobic revenant.

She listened, and then shrugged.

But it wasn’t the shrug of a three-year-old in a pink dress, spinning in circles before her first wedding. That shrug had been breezy, confident, from a child who assumed the world was just. This one was just… resigned.

“Everything is so awful right now, it just feels like… okay, another awful thing,” she said.

I raised my daughters to believe progress bends forward, that justice wins in the end. Their childhoods seemed to prove me right: their first weddings were queer weddings, their first crushes could be spoken out loud, their first lessons in love were that it comes in many forms.

But watching her defeated shrug, I realized something I never expected as a parent: that arc I trusted to curve toward justice? It had bent backward. Had I steered my children wrong, to believe the world could get better?

I found myself floored once again by the pace of change.

Only this time, in the wrong direction.

Now I’m at the mall with my kids, back-to-school shopping. The pink tulle frocks are long gone. In their place, they’re on the lookout for jeans, tank tops, sweatpants, and sweaters.

We pass the American Eagle store with its ubiquitous Sydney Sweeney campaign, her “good genes” blue eyes staring us down. For all the online controversy surrounding their ads, the store isn’t busy. Sydney may have rattled the Internet, but the Gen Z kids are voting with their dollars at Tilly’s, Pacsun, and Garage.

My teens aren’t as exuberant as those wee girls once were in their pink frocks, but they’re still delighted with a budget to spend, trying on outfits with abandon. I see the echoes of my same sweet daughters — excited for what’s ahead, not knowing what awaits them. Back then, they were headed to a party. Now, they’re heading into battle — whether they realize it or not.

They look lovely. Not frilly. Just practical, day-to-day clothes to keep them stylish, warm, and ready for anything. They’re going to need them. We’re heading into colder days, both literally and metaphorically, and they’ve got a lot of work ahead of them.

These kids of ours must be ready to learn. To challenge. To fight, when needed. For marriage equality, yes. But also for their bodily autonomy. For justice for those in need. For the very future of our country.

I’ve raised these girls to believe the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.

Now I know it will only budge if they push harder than we did.

And I’m hopeful they will. Because they’ve seen what love looks like, so they won’t settle for less.

*Names changed for privacy

Author’s note: I read this story Live and provided some additional commentary. You can watch it all here:

Dana DuBois Writes

Story time: “My Kids Don’t Even Know What a ‘Gay Wedding’ Is”

Huge thanks to Elizabeth Silleck La Rue, Esq., cynmac, Robert Belanger, BiffBiff, MoonWater (Kosta*Κώστα), Fusae Hikari, cynmac and everyone who joined me today as I read my latest essay, “My Kids Don’t Even Know What a ‘Gay Wedding’ Is…

Listen now

7 months ago · 3 likes · Dana DuBois

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

We live in a very liberal neighborhood, in a very liberal city.

My children have lived in this liberal blue bubble their whole lives. It’s the ideal place for parenting queer kids.

Their friends’ families have had two moms or two dads, or a mom who became a dad, and they’ve thought nothing of it.

Rainbow flags have festooned their schoolhouse walls their whole lives. We’ve grown up attending (and marching in) Pride parades.

The GSA is the biggest club at their middle school and both were members — one as an ally, and one as a genderfluid queer person.

My kids have attended more same-sex weddings than opposite-sex ones. In fact, when marriage was legalized — first in our state, then for the whole country — they shrugged. As much as I tried to underscore the historical significance, they just rolled their eyes at me (this happens a lot lately).

This is just the way things are, to them, and so this must be the way things have been and are to all, in their young minds.

Until two years ago, when my youngest learned that even our city isn’t a monolith of queer allies.

My child was in a rainbow phase.

When my child first came out as genderfluid, they got super into the Pride flags. Their artwork, bedroom walls, and wardrobe exploded with all the rainbows.

At their request, I purchased a few 3' by 5' rainbow flags; they were intended to hang in their bedroom, but mostly were used as dress-up capes.

And really, what’s the fun in wrapping oneself in a flag if no one sees you?

Pride Walks became a new pastime. My child would dress in their rainbow finery and we’d walk up to the neighborhood park, sometimes with friends. It was adorable and heartening to watch the people in our neighborhood cheer them on.

One day, my child had two new friends over, another sixth-grader (Evie*) and one seventh-grader (Scout*). All three were gender-curious and damn proud of it. They decided to each wear one of the capes — trans, lesbian, and the traditional rainbow ones, if memory serves — and to take a Pride Walk around the block. I was working from home and sent them off with a cheer. Go forth and be queer, children!

They tore outside, laughing.

I returned to work at my desk.

A short while later, I heard the basement door open and shut. This door has a code instead of a key, so my kids tend to use it to come and go. But the footfalls on the steps up sounded too fast, and I only heard one set of them. I looked up from my desk and my child ran into the room, sobbing and nearly breathless. All they could gasp was, “SCOTT!!!”

Oh shit.

I grabbed my phone and bolted out the front door.

Our neighbor Scott lives about midway up the street.

I’ve been here 18 years; he was already a fixture when I arrived. In a neighborhood of welcoming families, Scott’s Craftsman house stood out with a large handmade “Hey Liberals, Up Yours” sign in his window.

He’s since toned it down a bit and replaced it with a tasteful Trump bumper sticker.

Scott is the grouchy old guy who stays inside on Halloween night with the lights on, in plain sight, who doesn’t answer his door or give out candy. I can just imagine him, stewing on his sofa about these damn liberal kids wanting their free candy handouts.

I’d heard stories about Scott, how he’d called our neighbor’s daughter the N-word as she walked past on her way home from elementary school, and called his next-door neighbor’s gay teen son the F-word. Rumor is he made sexually inappropriate comments to another neighbor’s teen daughter.

I’ve avoided him assiduously.

A couple years ago, Scott chatted me up as I walked my dog past his house. He tried to earn my sympathies by telling me his brother had died. He seemed to be having a human moment with me, and so I responded in kind. I told him that I was sorry for his loss.

“I used to hear from my brother every day,” he went on.

“Again, I’m so sorry,” I said, sincerely.

“Yep, every day I’d hear my brother’s voice, and now I’ll never hear from him again. And that brother’s name… was Rush Limbaugh,” he proclaimed.

“Your brother was Rush Limbaugh?” I gasped.

“No, but Rush has been like a brother to me all these years.”

Oh, good grief. I don’t remember exactly what retort I spat back at this, but suffice it to say, it wasn’t sympathetic.

My street is lined with older homes, and the property values have shot up astronomically since I moved here. Rumor on the street (literally) is that Scott’s grandmother bought his house way back in the day. To my knowledge, he’s the only one on our block who was gifted their home, while the rest of us work our liberal asses off to pay our mortgages and property taxes (or rents), to keep living in our liberal, accepting bubble.

Bootstraps, indeed.

But Scott’s free rent wasn’t top of mind when I bolted out the door.

The kids’ safety was.

Turns out: the kids are alright.

I found Evie and Scout at the other end of block, clearly rattled. Scott was nowhere to be seen.

I took them back to my home, fed them ice cream, and listened to their jumbled retellings of what had just happened.

The trio had marched up our street, chanting for gay and trans rights to our mostly empty block at midday. A few houses up, they’d encountered Scott, and not knowing any better, Evie cheered in his general direction. I inwardly groaned at my carelessness.

I should have warned them, or gone with them.

But I didn’t. I assumed our neighborhood was a safe space for these kids, just as they did. As the adult, I should have known better.

But more importantly, as an adult: Scott should have known better than to stomp on these tweens with his homophobic views. With any of his views, really. As a rule, it’s a best practice for old men not to engage with 11-year-old girls.

Oh, but he did.

What I gleaned from the kids’ recap is that Scott unloaded on Evie about why her views were wrong. And Evie — who is brilliant, defiant, feisty, and also has some mental health challenges, including anger management — did not take his tirade lightly.

She stood her ground. In her mind, she was defending queer people everywhere.

So she yelled back.

And this man — this grown-ass adult, easily in his seventh decade of life — starting filming her as he egged her on.

My child, knowing full well who Scott was, attempted in terror to untie the knot on their flag cape as soon as the altercation started, but it was tied too tightly. So instead they ran home the long way, to avoid passing Scott again in a trans cape, to alert me and bring another adult to the situation.

The poor child was terrified they’d abandoned their friends in need.

But they also recognized they were too small to fight back.

These three kids were so shaken as they told me what happened — and especially Evie, as she slowly regained control of her sympathetic nervous system that had clearly gone into panic mode. She told me, sobbing, that in the heat of her outburst, she’d threatened to kill him.

“I was so scared,” she blurted. “But also I was so angry, I actually wanted to.”

That’s what she confessed to me, breathless, simultaneously proud and horrified, this vulnerable child, a fierce warrior, a force to be reckoned with who also recognized the consequences her words and her emotions could bring.

I’m still in awe of her courage and spirit.

I hugged her and told her so. I told her she was safe now, and that her response was understandable and very brave.

Once their acute reaction to the incident passed, I called both sets of parents to tell them what had happened and to discuss next steps.

We all agreed we would walk over to Scott’s place — as a posse of parents— to let him know in no uncertain terms that this behavior was unacceptable.

So we went.

I’m not confrontational by nature, but I’ve learned over time. I led the way and was firm and angry, but calm. I told him he was never, ever to speak to, or even look at, these kids, ever again.

He got defensive and tried to yell back. We shut him down at every turn. “These are children, Scott, and you’re the adult. You needed to act like one.”

Evie’s dad was remarkably calm as he detailed how wrong it was for Scott to film his child, and that if the footage ended up shared anywhere, there would be consequences.

Scott yelled back that he was “terrified” of Evie, that she was unhinged and a danger. Yes, this old man bully who’d picked a fight with kids then had the audacity to claim he was scared of a petite 11-year-old girl.

Bullies are always cowards.

Scout’s mom absolutely tore into Scott for this. He yelled back and called her an “enema.” She retorted, “Well, if I make you want to shit your pants, then great — mission accomplished!”

I relished her, um, explosive response.

We’d made our point, so we turned and left. Scott hasn’t interacted with anyone in our family ever since.

But my child hasn’t taken a Pride Walk since, either.

Children need to live in the real world.

I’ve always maintained that within age-appropriate reason, I want my kids to understand the world around them. I let people swear in front of my kids, and I will discuss nearly any topic with them. My goal is to raise confident, knowledgeable, empathetic adults.

So with this, my child learned a very real-world lesson.

They now realize that being queer isn’t always a neutral event, as they’d always assumed. It’s one that involves bravery and can lead to harm — even close to home, when you least expect it.

I think they learned not to take the freedoms they have as a queer person for granted.

As a parent, I’m glad they know.

But as a parent, my heart also aches that they need to know, you know?

I’m countering my heartache with a few silver linings, a few hopes for their future that come from this experience:

• I hope they grow into even deeper allies, for LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups.

• I hope it arms them to continue to fight for the hard-won freedoms the LGBTQ+ community has gained in recent years, which are especially vulnerable right now.

• I hope they now proceed with a bit more caution in the future, to keep themselves safe from harm.

But most of all — I hope my child won’t be afraid to go on future Pride Walks, one day.

*Names changed for anonymity.

Greetings!

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?

(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

“This way, mom!” shouts my eldest daughter, carving a path through the throng gathered for the Fremont Solstice parade.

The parade is a wacky, wondrous annual tradition in our city, a counter-capitalism march through a once-bohemian neighborhood, and it always kicks off the same way — the riding of the naked cyclists.

Scads of people of all ages, sizes, and genders, mostly decked out in elaborate body paint and little-to-nothing else, ride up and down the parade route, leaving little to the imagination. The event isn’t sexual, just celebratory. Families bring their kids, and we all pack together and cheer for the artistry and exhibitionism of it all to celebrate the start of summer.

So my youngest and I pick up the pace and try to keep up with her. None of us want to miss a moment of the ride.

As we walk past a cafe, I notice a man and I ingest him in a flash — he’s my age; he’s kind of cute; he’s looking, no wait, he’s leering; ugh, he’s leering at my daughter, not me — as we walk past him. I catch his eye in that millisecond, glancing from her to him and back with a glare I hope wordlessly conveys a message: Knock it off, Leering Man. You’re staring at a child. My child.

He likely didn’t notice me at all, let alone my daggers.

I noticed this micro-leer moment, because I’ve experienced this scenario countless times since my eldest hit puberty at age 11, and escalating as she’s matured into the knockout she is at 16.

It’s disconcerting. It’s jarring.

It’s just weird.

And also: it’s completely commonplace.

My 16-year-old daughter is stunning.

While her facial features favor mine, she’s far prettier, and she inherited her dad’s long, lanky frame. And unlike me, she knows how to style hair, apply makeup, and invest in skincare. Maybe the beauty product gene skips a generation? Combine all that with her Gen Z propensity for tiny tank tops and ultra low-ride baggy pants, and you’ve got the idea. She’s gorgeous, she’s confident, and she knows it.

And really, why shouldn’t she?

I’ve been pondering this question and many others for ages, practically since our (male) obstetrician proclaimed, “those are labial folds!” during her 20-week ultrasound. Yes, the very first time a man responded to my daughter, he commented on her genitals. A simple “it’s a girl!” would have sufficed.

The questions pound my brain as we navigate our way through the crowd.

How can I embolden my daughters to own their beauty and move through the world with confidence, while also instilling a sense of caution about how men may respond to their bodies? How does it feel that my male peers increasingly see my underage daughters as sexual beings, but not me? How should I respond when I see my daughter objectified? Did she even notice what just transpired?

In the absence of answers and the rush of the moment, I don’t respond to Leering Man. I feel complacent, but also perhaps my default path of benign neglect may be the best response.

If I know anything at all, it’s that as women, we have to choose our battles.

I’m not a fan of modern-day hyper-sexual feminism, or what I like to call “WAP feminism.”

My eldest was 12 years old when Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion released “WAP,” and sure, one could argue how two women boldly rapping about their soaked genitalia is an act of feminist power. To my Gen X sensibilities, however, it’s playing into the patriarchy, a song — and subsequent culture — fully intended for the male gaze even as women proclaim their pussy power.

Also, I didn’t love how my daughters could recite all the lyrics when they were still in grade school.

I didn’t forbid them listening. Nothing short of taking their phones and friends away could have done that, and while I would’ve considered the former, the latter was out of the question. I couldn’t have fought it if I tried — so I didn’t.

I see this flavor of feminism permeating the “girl power” messages my daughters have heard their whole lives. Girls rule! Girls can do anything! These slogans dominated the t-shirts in the little girls’ section at Target, but then, so did the short-shorts with the one-inch inseam, starting at a shockingly young age. Now as teens, their tank tops are skimpy, their midriffs exposed. Girls can be and look like anything they want, and yet so many of them opt to look exactly as the male gaze wants them to — only this time, in the name of feminism.

I find it equal parts confounding and expected — and complicated to parent.

“That shirt isn’t school appropriate,” I told my eldest a few years back, and calling it a “shirt” was a stretch, as she tried to leave the house for middle school in essentially a sock tied around her chest.

“Mom, you’re slut-shaming me!” she protested. “You’re part of the patriarchy!”

I inwardly rolled my eyes at this absurdity.

I don’t see fashion as a one-way door, so I tend to be pretty permissive about what my kids choose to wear. I recognize she’s safe at her school. But in eighth grade, my child wasn’t allowed to expose her midriff at school, and she knew it. Those were the rules, and she was challenging them. I stood my ground, the alleged patriarchy be damned.

I am the matriarchy.

I’m not here to shame my child, or to try to squelch her sense of style or expression. But I am here to teach her about respect, propriety, and boundaries, three skills she’ll need in order to move through the world safely. That’s my job as her mom. There may be “some whores in this house,” but they’re still going to show up in appropriate attire for middle school.

“Go change your shirt,” I answered dryly.

I understand why my daughter wants to flaunt what she’s got.

I can only imagine how it feels to live in a body that aligns with current beauty standards as hers does, to never worry about one’s weight, or wonder if one can fit into the latest styles. My child knows this sort of insouciant body beauty. She’s not an athlete, she doesn’t diet. She eats with a hunger that awes me, always has; this child relishes good food and devours it with life-giving abandon.

Honestly, I’m grateful. I’d like to think her body confidence and eating inhibition comes at least in part from me, from how I’ve consciously parented her.

But her body shape does not.

Here I’m thankful she takes after her father. Turns out, my ectomorphic taste in men comes with perks for our two long, lanky, lean daughters. They’re graced with a musician’s long fingers, legs for days, and not an ounce of extra body fat between them. My eldest is a perfect size Brandy Melville, a size 25 jeans on a day when the 24s are sold out.

They’re lucky for this. I think? As I witness the lecherous leers in their directions, and recall my younger days when I was more likely to draw unwanted male attention, I’m not so sure. Is it best to walk through the world aligned to body beauty standards? Or is it easier to stay out of that spotlight and all the negative impact it can bring?

I’ve always considered myself to be a niche taste in terms of my attractiveness. If your thing is feisty, curvaceous redheads with cat-eye glasses and strong opinions — well then, you’re in luck. If not, then I’m probably not your cup of tea. And that’s okay! I tend to be drawn to odd men as well, and when stars align and two oddball people find one another and click? That’s a special sort of magic.

I’ve had an easier time navigating aging than many. Since my appearance falls outside typical beauty standards, I have less to lose as I age and become less visible to men. I’d like to think my offbeat looks have made me more resilient, and enabled me to focus on growing my intellect, interests, and other pursuits outside of my physicality. I’ve long tried to instill this in my daughters as well, that they are far more than their appearances.

And yet. Observing one’s sexual appeal diminish as ones daughter‘s blossoms is a strange sort of ache.

It’s a relief to me, to no longer draw the menacing male gaze. But it’s a sorrow to age out of desirability. It’s a heartache to recognize what doors are closing, or have already shut. It’s a guilt to feel so conflicted.

And it’s a constant worry, as a mother.

It’s hard to encapsulate the turmoil of emotions that comes with passing the leering baton.

Watching middle-aged men ogle my daughter fills me with rage. How dare they stare with such abandon at a child? How do we live in a world where this is so accepted?

Watching middle-aged men ogle my daughter fills me with indignation. Why does a 50-something man see a 50-something woman and a teenage girl and see the child as the sexual being, not his peer?

Watching middle-aged men ogle my daughter fills me with pride. Look at the way she holds her head up, how she moves through the world like she knows every ounce of her worth. It’s so much more than her physical beauty, the way my eldest takes up space and owns it without hesitation or fear.

But I know fear. Watching men ogle my daughter fills me with it.

I see the possible consequences of what can come next, when things don’t stop with silent stares. I know how vulnerable she is, as all women are. My daughter thinks she knows the potential consequences of their stares, but from the perch of my lived experience, I know she doesn’t. I hope she never will.

As I consider those possible consequences, I wish I’d lashed out at Leering Man. Suddenly I want to obliterate him, to call him out in the most unutterable way possible. I want to protect her, to place her out of range of his eyes and every other body part, of all the predatory male eyes and body parts she may ever encounter.

I want to take it all out on him.

But mostly, I want to change the way the world works, for her.

But I can’t do that. With our recent election and the onslaught of “your body, my choice” raging misogynists it’s emboldened, I recognize how the world she’s inheriting is a perilous one. I can’t change that in any way.

For now, I can only follow her lead across the crowd toward the parade.

We find our friends, who’ve thankfully saved a spot for us on the curb with a front and center view, and plunk down just as the naked cyclists begin their ride.

The artistry is incredible. A giant crow looms over the crowd, and buddies up to Darth Vader. Thing 1 and Thing 2 ride past on matching bikes. And my personal favorite, a cyclist costumed as Chappel Roan zooms by, waving and lip-syncing, alongside her friend dressed as a pink pony.

I smile as I watch the painted private parts zip by, colorful and strange. I can’t think of a better way to show-not-tell my kids about body positivity, how bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and how nudity can be joyous when shared consensually. They can see how it’s okay to gaze at bodies with wonder, humor, appreciation, and good intent.

I needed to see that, too. It emboldens me to check in with my daughter.

“Did you see that guy totally check you out earlier?” I ask her, keeping it light but watching for her reaction.

She doesn’t look away from the cyclists as she responds. “That old dude by the cafe?”

“Yep, that one.”

She rolls her eyes toward me. “Whatever, he was like, your age,” she replies, indifferent. Then she rummages in her bag, drags out a mirror and cosmetics bag, and takes a look at her reflection.

“Ugh, my makeup is already a mess!”

Now she’s dismayed, her smudged eyeliner making far more of an impact than some “old dude” ever could.

The male gaze will always be there: flirting, threatening, and interrupting our freedom to move through the world without fear. It’s a tale as old as time, a legacy to be passed from mother to daughter ad infinitum.

My daughter totally knows this, and understands why men stare at her, with a composure beyond her years.

I’ve prepared my child to be mindful of safety. I’ve taught her not to lead with the male gaze when making decisions about how to present her own body. We’ve had frank conversations about how men respond to her based on her appearance, and I’ve allowed her to test and learn how she wants to show up in the world — within limits, like classrooms.

I hope it’s been enough.

A few months later — a few weeks after the Presidential election — I check in with my daughter again. As she opens the refrigerator door for a snack, I ask how she feels, now coming of age in the era of “your body, my choice.”

She turns to look at me like I’m insane. “How do you think it makes me feel??”

“Well, yeah,” I answer. “But I mean, how do you think it will impact you? How will you change your actions as a result?”

She retorts without hesitation. “Why would I change my actions?”

She grabs a pomegranate and shuts the fridge door. As she grabs a cutting board and knife and begins to extract the seeds, my mind wanders back to that sunny solstice day, as my eldest trail-blazed us through the crowd.

“This way, mom!” she calls to me.

I’ll always be trying to keep up with her.

Greetings!

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

When my child Nico came out as genderfluid just over three years ago, they asked me to share their new name and pronouns on Facebook to inform everyone we know. So I did.

Because we live in a very liberal, queer-friendly part of the world, we met with no resistance. In fact, we got the opposite: encouragement, support, and praise.

“Thanks for sharing your authentic self with us, Nico!”

“Nico, you’re so brave.”

“I’m so proud of you and Nico!”

It’s the last comment that’s really stuck with me, back then and still today. Pride month just passed, and I’ve been contemplating how the word is woven into the fabric of the LGBTQ+ community, with good reason. For decades, centuries really, queer people hid their true selves, because being gay or trans was seen as unnatural, wrong, a sin. It was shameful. In some parts of the world and even here in the U.S. in our redder states, that’s still the case.

For 50+ years, the Pride movement has encouraged queer people to live authentically, not as a stigma but as a badge of honor. Queer people came out of the closet and marched into the streets, refusing to hide any longer were because they were proud of who they were. As a self-proclaimed word nerd, I believe in the importance of words to change the world. The LGBTQ+ movement has made astronomical gains since the Stonewall riots in 1969, and they all center on reframing the narrative, on owning their queerness as a source of pride, not shame.

It’s a thing to be celebrated.

But is pride a thing Nico and I have a right to claim? Should people be proud of us — them, for coming out, or me, for supporting my child?

I’m not sure they should be.

When I think of being proud, I think of achievements and bravery.

Pride involves overcoming challenges, being brave in the face of adversity, and challenging the status quo. The child who came out as gay in 1985? That was brave. The child deep in a red state, who comes out in spite of the consequences they might face from their family, friends, church, and community? That’s staggering bravery. I’m immensely proud of anyone who can live their authentic lives without the support of those around them.

My child? They came out to a middle school where a lot of kids and faculty are also gender nonconforming, as well as to a loving and accepting family and friends.

I was — and forever am — grateful for the support Nico received, and continues to receive. It’s no accident we live where we do, in our liberal blue bubble in the Pacific Northwest.

But was Nico brave for coming out? Should I feel proud of them?

I mean, sure. I’m always proud of my child.

But coming out as genderfluid was the very least of the things they’ve done, or will do or be.

You know what I am proud of my child for?

I’m proud of how they lead with kindness. They’ve always been a deeply empathetic person, and their gender journey has only underlined and bolded this part of them.

I’m proud of their creative mind. Nico rarely meets an art, craft, or musical instrument she doesn’t like. Drawing, piano, ukelele, painting, finger crocheting, pottery, and now especially jewelry making — my little mad crafter leaves detritus in their path and fills our home with beauty and melodies.

I’m proud of their social justice streak. Nico has always tried to help others, and as she’s aging and gaining a broader understanding of the challenges we face in this mad world, I always see them championing for marginalized groups and wanting to make a difference. It’s tied to their sense of empathy, and undoubtedly intertwined with their gender journey.

I’m proud of their growing resiliency. Nico’s empathetic nature can be at odds with emotional fortitude and resiliency. But I see evidence of it, growing every year: their problem-solving skills, their emotional regulation, their ability to adapt and learn. I especially saw this with her grandfather, when she tried to explain gender fluidity to him, and his dementia kept understanding out of his grasp. As important as it was for Nico to feel he saw them, they really understood that his Alzheimer’s was bigger than their need to be seen — and they accepted it with grace.

I’m proud of their ability to grow and evolve. Nico first came out as genderfluid, and moved through a myriad of identities. These days, they use she/they pronouns and don’t focus much on gender. I’m so grateful as a parent that they felt safe in exploring and sharing their gender journey with all of us, and I’m especially glad she feels equally safe in setting it down, when that feels authentic to her.

I’m proud of how animals are drawn to them. Nico has always been an animal charmer. When they were just a wee thing, I remember them approaching me with a clenched fist. “What’s in your hand, Nico?” I asked. “A bee!” she replied, delighted. Hiding my alarm, I asked, “Can I see it?” And sure enough, they opened their tiny hand and there sat a bumblebee, unfazed. It never stung her. That’s how much creatures love Nico.

I’m even proud of their teenage moodiness. Nico has been good-natured for their whole life. I know how hard it can be, to be known as the one who’s always agreeable. Because that’s not how life works. So I’m proud to watch them lean into their evolving emotions, and sometimes that means grouchy, or annoyed, or angry, even. I’m proud to see their ever-increasing emotional range expand.

I’m proud of how they move through the world. It’s hard enough to know oneself, let alone share it with the world. In their own way — usually quietly, sometimes boldly — Nico shows up as their authentic self, wherever they are. For a couple years, they did this most prominently through their gender identity. But there’s so much more to Nico than just their gender identity. They contain multitudes, and they always show up as who they are. I wish I’d had that placid sense of self at their age.

My pride in my child — in both my children — is nearly as endless as my love for them. If they needed to come out, I’m glad they did. I’m thankful as a parent that they felt safe coming out to me.

But I don’t think anyone should be proud of either of us. We were just doing what we should be doing: Nico, sharing how they want to be addressed, and me as their mom, supporting them. These seem like standard issue responses to being a person and a parent.

I long for a time when such actions aren’t seen as brave, but uneventful.

I’d be proud if we could all get there…

Greetings!

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

Sitting at our local airport terminal awaiting our first flight, an older gentleman struck up a conversation. He was a surgeon, flying to San Diego for a nurse’s retirement party. I told him we were heading overseas, and our first stop was to see Taylor Swift in Munich.

“She’s certainly a marketing genius,” he replied.

“She is,” I said. “But she’s also an incredible singer-songwriter and a once-in-a-generation performer.”

“Well, she sure writes about all her ex-boyfriends,” he chuckled knowingly — even as surely as he knows nothing.

I’ve heard this dismissiveness before, and not just from older men. But there was a special sort of derision in his voice, an invisible eyeroll negating my opinion because, well, Taylor’s a beautiful female pop star. So surely, her work isn’t important, or relevant, to him. And therefore, it’s not important.

Conversation over, I turned back to my iPhone and he headed to his flight.

He has no idea how wrong he is.

Seeing the Eras Tour is like having a baby. Everyone who’s done it has experienced essentially the same thing, with the same milestones. But when you’re the one experiencing it, each moment feels momentous, uniquely yours, magical.

Our show — on July 28, 2024, the second of two nights at Olympiastadiom in Munich, Germany — is the 123rd performance of her Era Tour, a 46-song, three-and-a-half hour set that’s flawless, pitch-perfect every second, with countless videos online to capture every moment.

So what was unique in our story?

We weren’t the only ones who traveled far for the show — though at nearly 6,000 miles, we were probably among the farthest.

We weren’t the only ones unable to buy tickets to past shows — though with three failed attempts via Ticketmaster and one more with a Facebook hacker who stole my $500 deposit, we’ve had our share of Taylor ticket fails.

We weren’t the only ones who Taylor-gated when we couldn’t get tickets — but we’re not unique there, either. Our Munich show alone had over 40,000 fans watching from the hills surrounding the stadium.

So this is my story: of a mom who traversed an ocean with her two teen daughters to finally see Taylor Swift live, and what we felt and experienced along the way.

It’s a Love Story.

Baby, we just said yes.

“In Europe, we wanted to do something extra for Taylor,” Jeltje tells me over breakfast at our hotel.

Jeltje is a young woman from Berlin who’s in Munich for the show. She’s gorgeous, edgy, effortlessly chic as she hand-rolls her morning smoke. She’s also kind and eager to chat with me, a fellow Swiftie nearly twice her age. “We’ve made our own Eras traditions to show how much she means to us.”

I already know about many Eras Tour call-and-responses, as my youngest daughter Nico explained them in the lead up to our trip. It reminds me of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, only at massive scale and ever-evolving.

“During the song ‘Fearless,’ Taylor makes a heart with her hands and the crowd does the same,” Nico tells me.

“Cool, I’ll remember to do that,” I answer.

Nico preps me well. Ahead of the show, I learn the Taylor-initiated traditions, like how she gives away the black fedora hat from her Red set to one lucky fan at the end of “22.” For “You Need to Calm Down,” Taylor initiates a hand-wave that the crowd mimics. And during “We Are Never Getting Back Together,” her backup dancer Kam replaces the “Not Ever!” with a different phrase each show, in the language of the country where they’re performing. You can see Kam and every phrase he said throughout the German shows. For our night in Munich we get “Vergess Es,” which translates to, “Forget it!” The crowd roars their approval.

Even cooler are the fan-created traditions. Nico tells me how during “Blank Space,” the crowd yells their city name after every line in the bridge. During “You Belong With Me,” the audience claps twice after she sings, “When you know you’re about to cry.” For “Delicate,” the audience yells “1–2–3 let’s go bitch!” after she sings, “But you can make me a drink.” (See the 26 second mark here to hear it for yourself.)

Nico’s face glows as she reveals each of these fan-facts. She’s now part of a sisterhood of Swifties who pay their respects to Taylor by learning the lore.

It’s important to Nico to be prepared for our show. And she sees educating me as part of her readiness. So I listen, and I watch how my child’s adoration of this singer has made her research, to pay attention. It’s made her feel part of a community. It’s made her want to keep up.

I’m honored she’s sharing it all with me. It makes me want to keep up, too.

I see Nico’s earnestness reflected in Jeltje, though she isn’t a starstruck 14-year-old. She’s a composed young woman, but she’s got the same fire in her face as she shares the Euro-Swifties fan-added traditions.

Jeltje tells me how during “Lover,” everyone brings paper hearts and waves them during the chorus. And during “Willow,” as Taylor and her dancers pass glowing orbs onstage, the audience inflates yellow balloons and lights them with their phones. “These trends started here in Europe and they’re growing with each show,” she gushes, her eyes alight.

I think I’m starting to get it. Taylor gives so much every single show, leading by example, showing her audiences what’s possible. Her fans learn the lore and then create their own to reflect back that they understand the lesson. They appreciate her greatness by adding to it and making it even greater.

I can’t wait to see it for myself.

I may not get all the moves right. But I’m going to try my best.

We’re in line for four hours outside in the Olympiastadiom park, which is gorgeous and very, very hot. We’ve brought no food or drinks because that’s what the venue website advised us to do.

It didn’t say anything about the four-hour wait ahead of the show. But here we are.

We’re standing behind four German women, who we learn are a mom, two sisters, and a friend. They’ve arrived with a bagful of snacks, which they graciously share with us. We don’t yet know that the food and bathroom lines will be untenable at the show, especially with our general-admission floor-tickets. Those cookies and crisps possibly saved our lives, or at least our blood sugar levels.

The younger women are decked out in their Taylor-finery, and especially the friend, who’s dressed head-to-toe in Midnights-era attire and makeup. She and Nico exchange bracelets, and then a young woman walks by in a perfect Lover-era outfit, sparkly in pale pinks and blues.

“Hey,” the friend calls out to the Lover woman. “I made these sunglasses, and I knew I’d find someone here who should have them.” She pulls out a pair of bejeweled sparkly sunglasses. “They’re for you.”

The young woman looks dazzled. “For me??” she exclaims, trying them on. “They’re beautiful!” They are indeed a perfect match, and I’m sure provided relief from the blazing sun.

She walks off with the gift, and I’m amazed. The magnitude of the Eras- fashions and the generosity on display here are blowing my mind.

You’d think a stadium in Germany would have a sense of decorum, adequate signage, and would be able to handle the 74,000 attendees if not with ease, at least with order. But you’d be wrong.

We enter the stadium to unabated chaos.

Mobs of fans crowd the unmarked entries, unsure of where to go and desperate to get inside. I cling to my kids to not lose them in the throngs, a harrowing experience anywhere but particularly in a foreign country where one doesn’t speak the language, and exponentially so when the language is German and one is Jewish, as I am.

I glance at the bathroom and food… well, I’d say lines, except they aren’t linear. Hundreds of people swarm around the limited bathrooms and food options. There’s no way, I think to myself.

Our general admission tickets also present a challenge. My youngest — at 80 lbs and barely five feet tall — can’t see a thing. She spends opening band Paramore’s set distressed, and I’m panicked. Did we invest all this time, money, and effort, only for Nico to not see the show?

We move toward the light tower, which has a view of the stage for those standing up against its railing. A German mother and daughter sit there between sets. As the girls exchange friendship bracelets, I ask the mom: “Would it be possible to let Nico stand next to you so she can see?”

The mom eyeballs Nico’s small stature. “Yes, I think it would be possible,” she answers. Is she aware her terse, pragmatic response means the world to my child, and therefore, to me? I’ll never know if she got the magnitude of her generosity, but I’m forever grateful for it.

Nico moves up, and I take a deep breath. Our bellies might be empty and our bladders halfway full, but no matter. Food and facilities can wait.

It’s time for Taylor.

We’re ready for it.

For those not in the know, “Eras” refers to each of Taylor’s 11 albums, and the different songs and aesthetic that imbue each. Many have a favorite. Many others, like me, appreciate different elements of each era and have a hard time choosing just one (though if I must, it’s Folklore or Red, or Reputation, depending on my mood, and yes, I realize that’s three).

Each show is as identical as a Broadway production — and at least as large in scope. On Saturday night, my eldest and I were doing laundry and ran into one of the tour truck drivers. He’s one of over 100 truck drivers who haul the set, the merch, the lights, all of it. I can’t express enough the magnitude of this production, and with what absolute precision Taylor and her band, dancers, and backup singers pull it off, every single night.

So how to review the 123rd show in a series of flawlessly executed, identical shows?

Well, because it’s not identical. Each audience member brings her own — yes, I said her; the audience was easily 90% girls and women — experiences, favorites, and impressions to each performance.

My kids and I were no exception.

“Don’t tell me what to say, and don’t tell me what to do.” The bombastic refrain of Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” fills the stadium as a countdown timer marked the final two minutes till showtime.

Nico turns to me. “The show always opens like this, with this song during the countdown timer,” she says, ever my Taylor tutor.

What an absolutely killer choice and homage to the feminist shoulders she stands upon, I think, giddy with anticipation of the show, endlessly relieved my youngest child can see, but a wee bit sad my eldest has darted off into the crowd to get closer. I don’t blame her — she is my child, after all — but somehow, after all this time and distance traveled, I feel like we three should be together. I let go of my expectations and ready myself for this show that we’ve been waiting for nearly 18 months to see.

Just before the timer runs out, Nico turns back to me. “Thank you for taking me here,” she says. “I’m so happy right now.”

My heart swells. Then the countdown timer finishes, and it’s show time.

My eldest bounds up to us, all smiles. “I had to come back for the start of the show,” she says.

I’m choked up as Taylor kicks off her show with “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince,” the first of five songs she’ll play from the Lover album.

“It’s you and me, that’s my whole world,” I sing along, looking at the backs of my kids’ heads.

The Eras Tour then moves through eight “eras”— nine if you include the “surprise songs” during the acoustic set, which we’ll get to later — so she performs songs from one record before moving on to the next. She merges her two 2020 indie-folk releases Folklore and Evermore into one set, and she omits her debut self-titled record, which is fully relatable, and otherwise covers each record of her career. Full costume, set, and even microphone changes follow each era, aligning with the colors, themes, and general vibe of each record.

Like good storytelling, the Eras Tour doesn’t move in chronological order, nor does it commit equal song coverage per release. The set instead commits to the trajectory of her career and in doing so, acknowledges how some songs need to come forward more now, in different orders, than others.

Taylor was prolific just before and during COVID. Since she couldn’t tour during peak COVID years, Eras serves as supporting tour for her five — yes, five — most recent records: Lover (2019), Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020), Midnights (2022), and The Tortured Poets Department (2024). Two of these won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Each of these releases deserve its own stadium tour. So the Eras Tour leans heavily into these records, leading with Lover and closing with The Tortured Poets Department and Midnights.

A mere mortal artist would’ve picked a couple tracks off each, maybe performed some medleys to cover more terrain.

But Taylor is no mere mortal.

She doesn’t have to perform 46 songs each night. Her fans would still show up for far less. But she does it — I think because she loves her songs so much, she legitimately enjoys performing them all. And more importantly, it’s because she loves her fans so much.

She wants to show them what’s possible.

I look around me and it’s clear we all see it. Her efforts elevate and unite us all.

“All Too Well” is the song that really put me over the top for Taylor — not in its original 5:28 format, but with the Taylor’s Version re-release of Red, where she unleashed it in its 10:13 glory.

This song is about an ex-boyfriend — hello, dude at the airport — Jake Gyllenhal, specifically. But it’s so much more. It’s a glorious song about a short-lived love affair and its demise, weaving in the betrayal, the longing, the age gap, the despair, and ultimately, the emotional acceptance of it all. The song takes place over a season, starting in autumn and ending by winter, just as the love affair presumably did. But “All Too Well” isn’t a vindictive tell-all. It’s an exorcism of sorts, a reckoning and a coming of age.

And most importantly, it’s a young woman refusing to let an ex-boyfriend — or anyone else — reframe her narrative or deny the depth of the relationship. We’re so quick to dismiss stories as superficial when they’re told by young women. But just because the protagonist is a 21-year-old woman doesn’t make the story any less universal or true. The repetition of “It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well,” is Taylor, standing her ground, reclaiming her recollection of the relationship and all it meant and was as the truth.

I get it. I’ve had men try to deny the significance of relationships. I’ve had others dismiss me when I’ve spoken of my heartache.

Their views didn’t make the relationship or my heartache any less real.

What could be more universal than this feeling?

Tonight Taylor introduces the song with a nonchalant, “In case you have about ten minutes to spare,” to the laughter of the audience. Then she’s raised on the platform, alone with her guitar, with her band and backup singers out of the spotlight so our focus falls entirely on her — a preternaturally talented, beautiful woman, now older and wiser but effortlessly recounting her heartache. Her red spangled floor-length coat sparkles as she sings.

“Fuck the patriarchy!” we all shout back during the third of six verses, because we know she needs to hear it as much as we need to yell along.

It’s what Swifties do.

Jeltje isn’t wrong about the new European fan traditions. During our four-hour wait before the show, a couple women approach us. “Do you need yellow balloons?” they ask. They don’t explain what for; they don’t need to. A tradition that three Swifties started during the July 4 show in Amsterdam just a few weeks earlier is now officially a thing.

We take the balloons, and I marvel once again at the preparedness and generosity of the Swift fans.

As the opening notes to “Willow” begin at dusk during the merged Folklore/Evermore set, we’re ready, we all are. Balloons inflated, we lift them up and place our iPhones underneath to illuminate them, and the entire stadium fills with their golden glow, mimicking the orbs that Taylor and her dancers carry onstage.

And oh, it’s glorious.

No Eras Tour show is complete without the acoustic segment, between the Tortured Poets and Midnights sets. Here Taylor plays alone on her guitar and piano, and plays deeper-cut “surprise songs,” ones not on the set list. It’s the one part of the show where the audience has no idea what’s coming.

For her guitar songs, she plays “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” x “I’m Gonna Get You Back.” The former song was written for the “50 Shades Darker” movie, and while Swift co-wrote it, it was performed by Zayn, featuring Taylor. “I’m Gonna Get You Back” is one of the anthology tracks from The Tortured Poets Department.

On piano, she treats us to “loml” x “Don’t You.” “loml” is a fan favorite and one of the original tracks from The Tortured Poets Department. “Don’t You” is an older track, from the Fearless Taylor’s Version vault, and our show is the first and so far, only time it’s ever been performed live.

These fun facts all brought to you by Nico, of course.

I’d like to think everyone has their moment at a show like this, where it finally feels real. I asked both my kids, and both said for them, it was as soon as the countdown timer ended and they saw Taylor onstage. They both teared up at the time, so that checks. For me, it was during the song “Lover,” one of my very favorite Taylor songs and the fifth song in the set.

The opening notes begin and like muscle memory, I’m back in the parking lot outside Lumen field in Seattle the night of her show a year earlier, when we didn’t get tickets. When “Lover” began, I could hear only echoes of it, leftovers spilling over the stadium walls, mere auditory crumbs. I savored but also lamented them at the time. It hurt. We were supposed to be inside.

Hearing those same notes in the midst of the 74,000 fans in the crowd is the moment I truly feel the enormity of what I did. I moved the three of us nearly 6,000 miles in order to experience this, the performer of a lifetime in her career retrospective to date.

I feel the gravity of loss I would have felt, had I missed this experience with my kids.

The expense, the planning, the time, all the work: it’s totally worth it. I’m overcome with the rightness of it all, that I’d heeded that call to action and gotten us there.

“This is our place, and we make the call.”

In that moment I know to my bones this is the most ridiculous, expensive, reckless, and utterly perfect parenting decision I’ve ever made.

Then the refrain begins, and the stadium fills with homemade paper cutout hearts, as promised by Jelkje. The pastels waving to and fro feel like a greeting, an affirmation set to the lyrics: “Can I go where you go? Will we always be this close?”

I sure hope so. “Forever and ever.”

I’ve seen hundreds, possibly thousands, of shows in my lifetime. But I’ve never seen one like this.

It’s not just that Taylor performs for 3.5 hours every night. Nor is it just the enormity of her songs and performances. It’s not only how she never misses a note, step, or beat, or how she manages to somehow take a massive arena show and make it feel, if not intimate, at least, personal.

The Eras Tour isn’t just a performance. It’s a whole universe of storytelling and sparkles, perfectly choreographed onstage and then reflected back by her fans. It’s solidarity with tens of thousands of others ecstatic fans, showing their appreciation by elevating the experience even higher.

It’s Karma. It’s Enchanted. It’s Fearless. It was our Wildest Dream.

And it all came true.

I think of that man from the airport and others like him, who shrug off Taylor’s importance because she’s pretty and blonde and young.

They can no longer ignore her success — the math is too compelling to dismiss — but they can sneer at her talent, at her influence, as insignificant. Anyone who does this, does it at their own risk. They’re missing out on what’s probably the most seismic cultural impact of the past 20 years.

An impact that’s mostly felt by girls.

I didn’t have that.

As I was coming of age, I had bad-ass women musicians to help guide me. But they were all “alternative” — Liz, PJ, Tori, Kathleen, Bjork, Sarah, Shirley, Fiona, even Courtney. The mainstream pop icon was Britney Spears, and she was a pop tart train wreck. That’s who the normies got, I thought. With the wisdom of time, I can see Brittney’s talent and also her trauma, and how her manipulative, horrid family of origin crippled her. She stood no chance, really.

That’s how GenX women came of age, divided. But now?

Taylor Swift has raised two generations of young women and girls, front and center at the mainstream, with the empowering, killer messages I had to seek in the alternative. These messages are only underlined by her unparalleled success and these epic shows and how larger than life they are, and she is. She is the icon, the role model, the best friend, the mom, “The Man,” the coach, the wing-woman, the everything. She’s unabashed about her success but demonstrates such gratitude to her fans. She’s brilliant as both a musician and businesswoman. She’s quietly generous to degrees that fund nonprofits for years. She’s doing it all out in the open. But mostly, only the girls and young women see it.

How’s that going to move the world into the future? I can’t say. But Taylor’s positive influence on these young women cannot be overstated.

The day after the show, I saw the image below of the stadium and surrounding park the night of our show. Turns out the park isn’t just beautiful; it’s also a way for people to watch and listen to shows for free.

For our show, 40k people covered those hills, bringing the total number of show attendees to 124k. The same thing happened the night before. A quarter of a million people showed up in two days. I stared at the photo, stunned by the magnitude and also by where we stood. See that red dot to the left of the stage runway? That’s our spot.

It was rare, and we were there.

Look what she made us all do.

I can’t wait to see what these generations of young women do next.

Greetings!

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

When Nico came out as genderfluid, I was filled with pride.

They first came out at 11 years old, about a year into pandemic living. Home schooling and isolation were our norms as Nico progressed from child to tween, and during this transition, a new identity was forming. Then one morning, my child handed me a note and with it, proclaimed a new name and pronouns.

She became they.

Daughter became child.

Annika became Nico.

My child was becoming: genderfluid, yes, but so much more. They were becoming their adolescent self, determined to figure out who they were and how they wanted to show up in this world.

I was becoming, too: a mom of a queer child. I got busy learning a new-to-me vocabulary, providing unconditional love and support, and navigating the world of my child and their ever-evolving gender identity.

When Nico came out as pansexual, I was filled with pride.

Nico was so young, still only 11 — and a very childlike 11 at that — when they added sexuality to their label exploration. Nico identified as pansexual, bisexual, and a lesbian at different points, fluttering between sexual identities like a little bird seeking a nest that hadn’t quite been assembled yet. I listened to her. We talked about how love is love is love, and that as their mom, my only wish was for their happiness.

So long as their person was good to them and made them happy, it was all good by me.

I also gently stressed there was no rush to choose, either a partner or a sexual orientation. I told them there are things you know about yourself deep down, and there are things you find out through experience and exploration. But I didn’t say too much, because Nico was still a child, contemplating these unchildish questions, and having one’s mom talk about such things is just embarrassing.

Oh Nico, stay a child a few years longer, I thought to myself.

I also inwardly pondered, why are these kids rushing to declare their sexuality, ahead of even a first kiss? It felt so premature. Then I thought about my high school experience, how I knew only one gay person out of 2,500 students, and he was only out because he was so visibly, stereotypically gay, he couldn’t hide it. Kids bullied him mercilessly.

Of course we had other queer kids in my high school. My best friend was one of them, and he didn’t come out to me until our early 20s. It still breaks my heart to know Lawrence couldn’t come out, even to me, because of the social stigma.

So if Nico and friends chose to come out prematurely — as a show of queer solidarity, or simply because they could — I was all for it. They helped me realize it’s okay to let these conversations start early, with no obligation to stay locked into identities declared as tweens. Discussing the possibilities was an act of liberation for so many, even if these kids didn’t know it yet.

I’m amazed, grateful, and yes, proud of my child and their friends for being so forthright, for feeling so free to consider love and sexual identity, in whatever form it may take for them, whenever they’re ready.

What an incredible coming-of-age shift in such a relatively short time.

When Nico came out as a neoboy, I was filled with pride.

Neoboy was hard for me — I’ll own that.

I had to consult the Gender Wiki to see what the term meant. I learned neoboy was first coined in 2020 and is defined as:

“…the feeling of being a boy/man outside the gender binary. Neoboy is a non-binary gender identity that is also considered under the mingender and miaspec umbrella. Some neoboys describe their experience as…. feeling like a man and/or connected to masculinity (partly or entirely) but in a “different” way.”

Neoboy was the first (and so far, only) time my child shifted from she and/or they and added he to their pronoun mix.

Nico’s older sister adapted seamlessly; I heard her introduce Nico as “my brother” to friends at their middle school and I’m not gonna lie, it shook me. Using a new pronoun was one thing; hearing a new familial noun was another. Turns out, I had a lot of my identity as a mom tied up in raising sisters. Our children have a way of challenging us and in turn, challenging cultural norms, and my offspring excel at challenges. I’m proud of them both — of Nico for having the courage of their gender convictions, and their sister for her unconditional acceptance. I managed to hold my apprehensions at bay (I hope), but for my kids, neoboy came with an ease and grace I found enviable.

I never looked at my child and saw a he.

I’ve never admitted that before; it feels almost wrong typing it now.

I also never had to use a he pronoun, as Nico’s neoboy status came pronoun-paired as he/they. I used they, and was never forced to confront referring to my child with masculine pronouns.

Still, I held space for Nico to explore it all. If neoboy had stuck, I would’ve learned, adapted, and used he/him pronouns. But I will admit — to you, readers, and to my adult support network — I’m glad it didn’t stick. As proud as I was of my child for researching and sharing this identity, neoboy was hard for me.

I’m not proud of that. I hope my kids couldn’t tell.

When Nico came out as nonbinary, I was filled with pride.

Nonbinary almost felt like an identity homecoming for me, after witnessing the sexual and masculine identity pivots that proceeded it. It was so similar to genderfluid, only with a stationary base, which seemed more stable for Nico. I’ve got this, I thought, and for the most part, I did. It felt familiar and so I made fewer missteps.

I did accidentally did buy Nico a kawaii t-shirt in genderfluid instead of nonbinary colors, which they graciously accepted, explained, and then declined to wear.

Luckily our hometown is teeming with genderfluid kids, and the t-shirt was cute. We gave it away to a friend.

I’m proud my kids didn’t make fun of me for my flag-color fashion confusion.

When Nico came out as “I don’t care,” I was filled with pride.

Somewhere along the way, Nico stopped creating art and jewelry in Pride colors. Their identity shifts slowed until eventually, they stopped. These days, she answers to she or they pronouns, and presents as feminine. If I ask questions about gender or pronouns, she dismisses me with an I don’t care before dashing off to play Roblox with friends, or walk to the record store, or literally anything else but have this conversation with her mom.

They say they don’t care. I believe them.

Because at 15 years old, Nico seems more settled and at peace than ever.

I consider their gender journey a foundational part of Nico’s coming of age. I see their return to a feminine presentation as part of their genderfluidity. Their gender exploration has quieted, for now — perhaps for good, or perhaps not. Who knows where Nico’s gender and sexuality path may go next? That’s entirely up to them to figure out. What I do know is this: exploring identity helped grow their confidence in ways I could never have imagined when they affixed their first they/them pin to their rainbow outfit.

Those pins have all but disappeared into the kiddo-clutter of our home. But I found an enamel frog pin yesterday, and it seemed like such a good omen for starting Pride month. Nico loved frogs during this era of her life, and it was a real score, finding a frog-in-a-rainbow-Pride-flag pin. Now it seems like a representation of these past three years: an adorable creature with a Pride flag unfurling on its back, inquisitive and hopeful for the future, but still looking back to me as if to say, do you see me?

Yes, little froggy, I see you.

I’m going to keep you someplace safe.

I think one day Nico will see you, too.

And they’ll treasure you — and the memories you represent — with a sense of pride, and Pride.

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

But I am not fine.

Now I’m talking with a writer friend, Melissa. We’ve met ostensibly to talk about our writing projects, but mostly to vent and lament about the election. It’s good to catch up with her, as she has a wise mind, an empathetic heart, and a fighting spirit. Melissa is an outspoken writer, and we share our mutual concerns over DT’s threats to the media specifically and our democracy in general.

That’s not all we have in common. Melissa has a trans teenage son and has written about him on Medium. It’s how we found each other.

“I’m getting ready to purge a bunch of my political stories from Medium,” she tells me. I nod. I’ve been considering the same.

“Are you planning to remove your stories from Pink Hair & Pronouns?” I ask.

We stare at each other through our screens from the opposite sides of the country. I see her uncertainty. I’m sure she sees mine as well, as we shrug at the unknowns and risks we need to assess, our eyes acknowledging with incredulity that we have to even consider these questions.

I’m the publisher of Pink Hair & Pronouns, a publication on Medium and Substack for parents and caregivers of gender nonconforming kids. My child came out as genderfluid in 2020, and has moved through multiple identities since. I founded the publication as a place to share stories, advice, and community at the intersection of parenting and gender, in large part in response to my experiences of uncertainty while parenting my own child.

As a second DT administration looms, I’m researching Project 2025, the roadmap for the next conservative president. I’m seeking answers as a writer and publisher first as I question: Will it still be safe to write about parenting trans and nonbinary kids? Should I delete my own stories and publication to protect myself and my contributors?

To say I’m concerned is an understatement.

But mostly, I’m grieving.

How is it possible we have to question our right to write in the United States of America?

I’ve never been one to get fired up over identity, perhaps ironically, given the topic of my publication.

I was born Jewish, but so what? I did nothing to deserve to be Chosen. I just happened to be born this way. I like some of the values of Judaism, and dislike others. I’ve long been agnostic and baffled by how much power people put into beliefs that seem so arbitrary. How can one be convinced one’s religion is correct, when it’s simply a matter of where one was born, and to whom? If you’d been adopted into another family with a different belief system, you’d be fervent about that one instead. Whatever that gene is that makes one devout, I lack it. I profoundly don’t get how anyone can consider it important. As a younger adult, religion enraged me. Now older and wiser, I’ve grown to respect that others share belief systems that differ from mine — so long as they do no harm and are likewise respectful of those with differing views.

Same goes with national pride. I was born in the United States as the descendant of Eastern European Jews who’d migrated through Ellis Island in the 1910s. My grandparents were born here just ahead of the Great Depression. Any relations who stayed in the old country were presumably extinguished during the Holocaust. I’m grateful to the U.S. for providing a safe haven for my family line, so I could exist. I’m thankful for the many opportunities I’ve known here, and for the educational, professional, financial, and social freedoms I’ve relished these past 54 years. I also recognize deep flaws in my country, always have. I don’t feel pride for being born here. Again, it was a matter of circumstance. Why would I feel a sense of loyalty or superiority by right of where I was born? It’s always seemed absurd. Of course there’s good and bad here in the U.S., like every other place. Blind nationalism seems misguided at best, and outright dangerous at worse.

Last Tuesday night, worse got way worse.

And I fear we’re nowhere near the worst of it.

It’s Saturday, and I’m immersed in the Declaration of Independence. This is not a sentence I ever thought I’d type, but then, these are not times I ever thought I’d be living.

I’m not a jingoistic American. But I do believe we should hold certain truths as self evident: that all men (ahem, all people) are created equal. I believe we are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. I also believe implicitly in the First Amendment and the freedom of speech. Of course I do. We began as a nation on the highest of notes.

I’m revisiting these 248-year-old words as I research what it may mean to rely on First Amendment protections as I write and publish about gender identity in 2025. I don’t want to be alarmist, just cautious.

That said, based on what I’ve read so far: I’m sounding the alarms. I believe we all could be facing catastrophic consequences.

While the exact text in the First Amendment is brief (“Congress shall make no law…. abridging the freedom of speech.”), further rulings by the Supreme Court have clarified what does and doesn’t constitute free speech. From Every Congressional Research Service Report:

“The Court has decided that the First Amendment provides no protection for obscenity, child pornography, or speech that constitutes what has become widely known as ‘fighting words.’”

No arguments here. But here’s how Project 2025 has taken these words and twisted them.

From the Project 2025 truth summary:

“Outlaw pornography: TRUE
Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership calls for the criminalization of pornography production, distribution, and consumption. Pornography has no claim to First Amendment protection and its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.”

Now, this claim is false, historically. Child pornography isn’t protected under the First Amendment. I see no mention that pornography isn’t. But it appears things are about to change — both the lack of First Amendment protections, and redefining what pornography is.

Here’s the language from the full Project 2025 manifesto (emphasis mine):

“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection.…

Pornography should be outlawed.

The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned.

Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.

And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”

I’m no legal expert. But here’s what I read loud and clear from Project 2025:

1. Content about “transgender ideology” will be considered pornographic.

2. Pornography will be punished by imprisonment.

3. Companies that share “pornographic” content will be shut down.

This is harrowing—for me, for all writers, for Medium and Substack as companies, and for the future of our democracy.

It’s Sunday, and I’ve spent the past 24 hours wrestling with what all this means for the future of Pink Hair & Pronouns.

Strangely, my musings bring me back to Judaism. I may not hold my religion as a source of pride. But I am proud that through my Hebrew school education, I was raised to recognize and respond to fascism. I was indoctrinated with Holocaust films my entire childhood. I know what fascist regimes and group-think can do. My personal family tree had its limbs hacked due to persecution by a fascist leader and the complacency — and I’d imagine, the support of many— of the people of Germany.

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out,” indeed.

In America in 2025, it appears that first they’re coming for the immigrants and transgender people.

I may be areligious, but I recognize religion exists to provide us with a moral compass. I’d like to think my own has developed just fine without a formal religious ideology, but also, I can’t deny the strong foundations I received in my given — if not Chosen — Jewish faith.

I also recognize I’m in a position of relative privilege. Yes, I’m a woman, and our rights are about to get clobbered as well. But I’m also white, cishet, and have some stability in my life. Even with parenting a gender nonconforming child, I have it easier than most in this political climate. My child never required or requested medical intervention. Her gender journey over the past three+ years has landed her back to a feminine presentation and identity. She came out. She explored. And effectively, she went back in. A government mandated restriction on gender-affirming care won’t impact her personally, and for this, I’m grateful.

That said, my child gained so much from her gender journey. Her exploration was an integral part of her adolescence, and has resulted in a teenager who leads with empathy, fairness, and confidence, one of the best outcomes I could’ve hoped for as a parent. My belief is that normalizing gender exploration as a part of adolescence will not only enable trans and nonbinary kids to live authentic lives, but it will also break down outdated gender norms that no longer serve us as a culture.

Well, that was my belief. It now appears a majority of my fellow Americans prefers a reinforcement of these outdated norms — or at least, cares about them less than it does saving five cents on a gallon of gasoline. I can’t fathom it.

But what to do about it? In the end, it comes down to my values, my faith. No matter who “they’re” coming for, I recognize that in the end, they’re coming for me. For all of us.

So I’ve reached a decision, or rather, several of them.

• I will not take down my stories about parenting my genderfluid child.

• I will not take down Pink Hair & Pronouns.

• I will continue to write and publish on Pink Hair & Pronouns. Now more than ever, we need a place to share stories, advice, and community.

If writing about parenting our trans and nonbinary kids makes me “the enemy from within,” a part of the “radical left” that Trump has vowed to target and use the military to go after, then so be it. I guess I’m the enemy from within.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m terrified of what lies ahead of us as a country. I think continuing to write and publish may be dangerous. But you know what’s even more dangerous? Deleting our stories, and living in fear.

That’s how fascism flourishes, by cowering in a corner. I can’t — or rather, I won’t — do that. Not now, at least.

As author Timothy Snyder writes in his book On Tyranny:

“Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”

He continues with:

“Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen.”

I could hide. I’m a middle-aged white cis woman with a small following. No one pays much attention to me. The easier path would be to delete what I’ve written and just fade into the background. But no.

I will not obey in advance.

I will not let my emotions dissipate on this screen.

I will speak out.

Unlike most trans people, I have the option to fade. They need allies like us. Our kids need protection from us. So I will stay here, and will not give away my power freely.

Medium has long stood for LGBTQ+ rights. Medium’s steadfast trust and safety guidelines are one of the reasons why I publish Pink Hair & Pronouns here. I’ve been proud to write on a platform that offers such strong protections for marginalized groups.

I only hope they can stand up to DT and Project 2025.

For as long as they do, I will be right here.

I hope you’ll join me.

Greetings!

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

I am a lucky mama today. My own mom texted me from Venice, where she’s enjoying a vacation of a lifetime with her partner. My two teen daughters are coming over with their dad shortly, to help me with a big house project—my requested celebration of the day.

I’m so grateful.

But I didn’t want Mother’s Day to pass without acknowledgement of an old heartache, diminished with time but still present—the loss of a little girl who, for a couple years, many years ago, felt like my third daughter.

I lost her when I lost him.

I know there must be many like me—former stepmoms and ex-girlfriends who lost a child in a breakup.

This story is for all of you.

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(Watch me read this story here.)

It’s nearly midnight, it’s 2014, and I’m in bed with the man I left my marriage for over two years ago. We’ve just split for the second and final time a few weeks before, and yet here I am.

He strokes my shoulder and kisses my head while his daughter Katy* sleeps in the room next door, unaware of my presence.

It’s probably for the best.

She’s only five, and for half her young life, I’ve been her acting mother. I’m the only one she can remember, and now I’m the third one she’s lost.

But it wasn’t an act. She felt like mine.

A lost lover leaves a bruise. But losing a child — one so in need of a mom, one who loved me and my daughters — is a singular pain, an ache I rarely acknowledge lest it take me down a mournful path of motherhood not taken.

I haven’t revisited this part of my life in years, not even in photographs. I gaze at them now and observe how the images of my three wee girls have faded. As I look at the faces of my two daughters, I can see how they’ve evolved into their teenage selves. I look at Katy and see a question mark, a child frozen in time.

Katy’s story begins as it ends, with loss.

According to her dad, she was born on the kitchen floor; her birth mother, young and drug-addicted, labored alone. He and his wife were 40-somethings who’d nearly given up on parenthood when they got the call — and got their girl. Katy was a beautiful baby, so lovely the adoption service asked to use her photo on the cover of their brochures.

The new parents were thrilled. They couldn’t believe their luck.

Then it ran out.

A year later, Katy’s mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Stage four.

By 18 months old, Katy had lost her second mom.

I showed up about a year later. I met Katy and her father because our three girls took gymnastics together. Every Saturday morning I’d sit and talk with this lovely widower and get to know his child, a fierce, bright thing. Katy had such determination, her muscular frame fighting for that next feat — trampolining higher, somersaulting faster, hurling herself into the foam pit with abandon, her grin as wide as the day. I could feel the way her dad glowed as we relished a shared joy in watching our kids bounce about. I was amazed at how radiant they both were, given their catastrophic loss. And what can I say, I’m drawn to the light.

I fell for that man. But the pull to parent this beautiful, motherless child? It was irresistible.

So I took the wildest leap of my life. I left my marriage to be his girlfriend, and to love them both.

Oh, I can still visualize my blue-eyed trio. My two were fairer, dishwater-blonde hair framing their sweet faces. Katy’s hair was darker, fringed around her expressive wide-set eyes and impish grin.

Together we went on countless adventures. At the community pool, Katy’s dad taught my eldest to swim; he’d already shown Katy how and she plunged in with gusto, even taking on the imposing rope swing over the deep end. We beachcombed our Northwest coast, the girls uncovering crabs and seastars and soaking themselves on the shoreline as the frigid tide rolled in. We visited our local candy shop, allowing the kids to fill baggies with rainbow-colored confections till they were giddy on sugar highs. We even took a vacation to a lake house, the kids delighting in boat rides on the placid water, and befriending slimy slugs along the shore. I relished watching their friendships blossom and inwardly beamed even when they’d occasionally spat. It seemed so sisterly.

But my strongest memory of Katy — the time when I felt most like her mom — came when she’d been wearing a Band-Aid on her knee for a week, refusing to let her dad take it off. It was clear the wound was infected but she howled at my suggestion to remove it. Her dad blanched as well; he didn’t want to hurt her. So we made it a team effort.

I held her head in my lap as she wailed. I could feel her fighting me and also leaning in for comfort as her dad yanked off the strip. The wound was angry, a bit fetid. He looked miserable as he cleaned it and applied ointment.

“You’re both going to be okay,” I assured him. He nodded and smiled. And right then, eyes held in support over her little body, it felt like we were her parents, in it together.

I’d worried about whether I could love another child as fully as I loved my own. That day, I knew. A mom’s heart can always expand to love more.

Her knee healed, of course, and we all moved onward, together yet separate.

But I couldn’t connect the dots to see how we could one day fully connect our lives.

Katy’s dad rarely spoke about adoption with her.

For him, it was imperative that Katy recognize his late wife as her mom. She was the one who’d chosen her, even if she hadn’t birthed her.

I understood his reasoning, and felt empathy for his plight. With no bloodline and no memories of her late mom, their connection was tenuous, a wisp of an act of love. I could see little hope that Katy would feel much for her, as gutting as that was, for both of them.

Looking back now, I can see the true sorrow: it was more important to him that Katy remember her late mom than she know her own origin story — or that she learn to love another mom.

He held steadfast to his late wife not only in parenting but also in our relationship. When we first fell in love we spoke about intent. If I left my marriage, I expected to make a life with him and Katy. He promised he wanted that, too.

“Jump, and I will catch you,” he told me.

Two years later, my leap of faith had us stuck on hard, craggy ground.

I can’t blame it all on him. The magnitude of moving from married to single had seismically shifted everything for me: my home, parenting, mental health, finances, all of it. I was overwhelmed by the fallout and underwhelmed by his lack of momentum toward merging our lives.

Yes, he’d welcomed me in his house. So long as I showed up in his world, we were like a happy family of three, cooking dinners and watching movies at home. Except his home wasn’t my home. My actual home was in shambles, neglected, because I spent half my life at his.

I was ready to blend our families. He had excuses. In hindsight, I recognize how his home represented a liminal space, where his wife was physically gone but vestiges of the life they’d built together, remained. The paint colors on the walls, the wool quilt on his bed, the pink mini chandelier in Katy’s bedroom — their home was filled with a lifetime of decisions made. Even after four years, he wasn’t ready to leave it, literally or metaphorically. Intellectually, I understood why. Grief is a strange thing, and a wounded heart knows no timeline. But emotionally, I was depleted from living in the shadow of her ghost. I’d moved my entire world for him. He wasn’t able to budge his toward me, at all.

Finally, spent by the inequities and strain of living a double life, I snapped. Without forethought, I blurted out in frustration, “Get some skin in the game, or get out.”

I can still see the way his green eyes stared into mine, profoundly sad but hard, immovable, resigned.

He got out.

And took Katy with him.

I’m not one to backslide after a breakup. But with him, I do.

I’m back in his arms that final night. He’s telling me how Katy’s been acting out at preschool. She’s getting physical with other kids, so he hired a psychologist to observe her. The diagnosis? Since Katy lost her mother so young, her emotional development was stunted. When she gets upset, she regresses and lashes out like a toddler.

I let this story wash over me. I wonder, did he even mention me or our breakup to this psychologist? Did anyone consider that Katy’s recent outbursts were a result of losing me — the only mom she can remember — and not the tragic death of her adopted mom, who she can’t?

I don’t ask him. Of course he didn’t mention me. He never saw me as her mom.

But I’m certain Katy did.

He shares one more Katy story that night, about a dream she’d recently shared. She dreamed she was lying in her loft bed, as always. Only in her dream, her bed has three layers. My daughters sleep in the middle bed right below her, and her Dad and I lie on the bottom one.

“Isn’t that cute?” he asks.

I don’t respond. My thoughts whirl around that dream, how Katy yearns to feel us all beneath her, supporting her, sustaining her, keeping her afloat and safe and stable. Katy sees me and my children as her family.

The family she just lost.

How does her dad not see that, too?

Since he never saw me as Katy’s mom, he’s blind to our shared sorrow. I’m thankful the room is dark so he can’t see my expression as I get up from his bed and leave his home, for good.

Then I return to my own, and I start to let go.

A mother’s love is mourning. We watch, proud yet helpless, as toddlers steal the babies from our arms and waddle off. Children emerge where our chubby-cheeked toddlers once were. The teens overtake the tweens, and so on. Our role is to help them thrive and soar, and never show how we mourn each motherly loss as they grow to need us less and less.

But for us “acting” moms — the ones who wanted the role for a lifetime, but got cast out mid-series — our grief is different. We don’t get to see if that child grows or soars without us. All we have is the grief, and memories of a child we loved, frozen in time.

We worry about their well-being.

We wonder if they remember us.

We know we have to let it go, even as we still love. As moms do.

I can feel my two teenagers outgrowing their need for me daily. My love for them permeates everything I do and am; they’re the motherhood journey I always longed for and got. And yet. A mom’s love can always expand to include more, and her wounded heart knows no timeline.

I know a part of mine will always hold space for Katy.

*Name changed for privacy.

I wake up in our Dublin hotel, jet-lagged and desperate for caffeine.

At home in the US, we'd probably have a mini Keurig or a drip coffee maker. But here, I find a proper electric kettle with ceramic mugs, Barry's black tea, milk, and sugar—coffee tucked away as an afterthought, in Nescafé instant packets at the back of the jar. I fill the kettle and smile. Despite hailing from a coffee capital, black tea with milk—preferably oat or almond, but whole milk will do—is my wake-up beverage of choice.

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“Want some tea?” I ask my two teen daughters. We have a day of adventure ahead but like me, they’re bleary.

They nod, and I pour us three steaming mugs.

I’m warmed with a sense of familiarity for this new-to-me city.

My eldest rolls out of bed, takes her tea, and breezes past me to the mirror, faint wafts of vanilla, musk, and red berry trailing behind her. At 17, she's deep into beauty products, filling our home with sweet-scented lotions and potions.

My heart tugs as I breathe her in. How I’ll miss her sweetness when she leaves my home for college next year.

“Can we go to those thrift shops we saw online today?” she asks, downing her drink as she rummages through her pink overstuffed cosmetics bag.

“Those are in Dublin. Today we’re taking the train to Galway for the university tour,” I remind her. She wrinkles her nose, displeased, before applying contour on its bridge.

She’s here to find stylish shops. She knows just where to go.

I’m here to help her find her future. And I’m struggling with what to do with mine.

I may know my way around words and storytelling. But finding my way around an unfamiliar place? I’m at a loss. I have to use landmarks and verbal cues to compensate for my utter lack of inner compass.

We’re in Ireland for the first time — unless you count last summer, when my daughters and I spent two hours searching Dublin for undies after Aer Lingus lost our bags and our connecting flight.

And I don’t.

I’m traveling with my daughters and their dad, my ex-husband — and yes, this is an unusual arrangement, even for us. But here we are.

Dublin is a gem of contradictions, each block an urban blur of artful murals, gothic cathedrals, stylish modern shops, tasty bakeries, raucous pubs, and back again. And the music! Buskers and bar bands flood the streets with songs, some traditional, some originals, and many covers — especially of U2 songs, of course. Lucky for me, it’s a great place to wander without a map.

But we’re not here simply as tourists. David and our daughters are dual US and Irish citizens, and we’re traveling with intent.

We’re here to tour colleges.

We’re here to explore their heritage.

We’re here to see if Dublin feels like home.

Well, at least I am.

I may be the only one without citizenship, but I’m the one nudging us to consider Dublin for our new home.

My ex and I share a sense of dismay over the state of the United States and, in theory, a desire to leave and live abroad. As our kids steer us to yet another trendy shop, we take in the sunny day and gorgeous sights. I marvel over how comfortable it all is — both the city, and traveling it with my ex.

“I love it here,” says David.

“Me too,” I reply. “Anytime you’re ready to move, say the word.”

“But I can’t afford to just up and leave.”

He’s not wrong — I can’t afford to either. Not properly. But I’ve got equity in my home. And he’s got citizenship. Together, these pieces are interesting but don’t quite complete the puzzle of relocating our nontraditional family.

“Perhaps we’ll find a way here eventually,” I give as my non-answer, a thousand unanswered questions lingering between theory and our shared reality.

Could our child starting college be the catalyst that moves us all to Dublin?

That’s a story not yet ready to be written.

I’ve done it before.

Over half my life ago, I picked Seattle as my new home, moved across a continent on six-days notice, and fell in love.

Not with a man — but with this city lodged between two mountain ranges, on the cusp of a tech boom and the cultural coattails of grunge. Seattle was edgy and strange like I’d always hoped a city could be, liveable and affordable and fun in ways that resonated with 20-something me.

I relocated and never looked back.

Finding the right place made things fall into place.

In Seattle, I found lifelong friendships. I launched a music website, built a career in tech, and came into my creative power as a writer. I married, bought a house, had two kids, divorced, and have lived in that little brick Tudor for nearly 20 years. I’ve raised my kids with my ex across two homes, but as one family. In Seattle, I thought I’d picked my forever home, and hoped it was a place my children would want to live as adults.

Seattle is deeply imperfect but as a blue liberal dot — some might say, bubble — it’s a haven for the freedoms I cherish.

I love Seattle.

But Seattle is still in the United States.

And the United States is a tough and disorienting land these days.

Helping our babies launch into adulthood is a timeless challenge parents face. Trying to guide them at this moment in time, during a time of such political, economic, and social uncertainty? It’s destabilizing. I feel my core equilibrium, my True North, faltering — just as my daughters need me as their compass.

How can I prepare my children for a world I no longer trust?

It’s hard to know which way to point them.

Unlike me, my eldest has an innate sense of direction. She races ahead of us, bold as she traverses the city, confident in her ability to find her way back home to the hotel. Not long ago, I had to plan every step of our trips. Now she trailblazes, and I trail behind with snacks. I know she’ll get us where we need to be.

When it comes to her life direction, she has a similar fire. “I can’t wait for college,” she told me ahead of the trip. And I believe her. She was the first of her friends to wear makeup, to have a boyfriend, to drive a car. Yet when it comes to the logistics of where, how, and which college to pick, she’s more unsure. She’s hung back, leaning on me to guide her and handle logistics in spite of my encouragement to take the lead.

Helping her select a college will be my final act as the mom of a child. For all subsequent decisions, I’ll consider myself lucky if my adult daughter asks for my input.

I always vowed not to tether my fledgling adult kids to my home, and I still feel that way now as I face the reality of my eldest growing up and out of it.

She’s almost ready for the world.

I’m almost ready to let her go.

The big question is: to where?

I should feel disoriented.

But so much in Dublin makes sense to me as a Seattleite. The grey days interspersed with sun breaks. The warm beverages. The English language, of course.

Dublin also has the perfect landmark to orient me: The River Liffey, which bifurcates Dublin into north and south. The Liffey has 24 mismatched walking bridges across Dublin, with ducks and swans scattered about the tranquil river.

Wherever we roam, I can always make my way back to the Liffey and know exactly where I am. It’s reassuring, like a steadfast guide in a new city.

Every time I see the Liffey makes Dublin feel — dare I say — a bit familiar, already.

“Where are you guys?” I text.

My children have returned to Grafton Street to gawk at the selection of Adidas sneakers they saw yesterday. I have no idea how to get back there. My eldest does, of course, and she and her sister have raced ahead of me. Now I’m at a cobblestone crossroads and am unsure which way to turn.

“Go left,” my eldest responds. I find them outside the OFFICE store, and we head inside.

“The sneaker game here is strong,” sighs my eldest.

She’s not wrong. Adidas line the walls, their signature three-line sneakers in a dazzling assortment of colors, a rainbow of footwear fashion.

“Shall we try some on?” I ask.

My kids’ faces light up, surprised and delighted. I’ve surprised myself. This trip is costing a fortune, and the stock market is in free-fall. I have no business buying three new pairs of sneakers. But we try them on.

They’re comfortable. They’re far more stylish than the Hokas I brought.

They’re more… European.

“Should we get these as our big Irish souvenirs?” I ask.

“Yay for new sneakers!” my youngest cries.

“I think they’re called trainers here,” I smile.

“Yes!!” agrees my eldest.

We’re starting to blend in already.

We arrive to Trinity College as tourists, not as a prospective student family.

It’s my fault. In the flurry of booking this trip, I somehow scheduled our student tour at the Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. I steered us wrong, yet again. I’m angry with myself. We can’t leave our college tour of Ireland without seeing Trinity.

So I book the next best thing — tours of the grounds and the Book of Kells.

Trinity is gorgeous and historic. Considered the “Harvard of Ireland,” it was founded in 1592 and boasts alums like Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Jonathan Swift, and apparently, Courtney Love, who studied theology there for two semesters.

Our tour guide is Liam, an older Irish gentleman who worked in The Long Room of the old library until retiring, and then returned to Trinity to major in history.

Make a note: history majors make the very best tour guides.

Liam is patient, knowledgeable, and funny, and I find myself rapt, taking in the university’s — and in turn, the country’s — storied history. From the fraught journey of the Book of Kells to the sorrow of the “Gorta Mór” to the country’s violent fight for independence, only earned in 1921, I realize how little I know.

Ireland may feel familiar, but I’m a stranger to this land. It isn’t my heritage.

But it is my children’s.

Yet my eldest seems a bit checked out, not her usual engaged self. “I don’t think I can get in here,” she mutters. I’m grateful she’s opened up to me.

“I think it’s a reach school for you,” I assure her. “But that also means it’s within reach.”

I believe this is true. But I realize she may be right. Trinity only accepts about a third of its applicants. Their requirements are rigorous. And they don’t have an art or design major, so her portfolio won’t likely help with admissions.

I’m not certain she wants to go to school so far from home.

I’m not certain I want her to, either.

It’s one thing to contemplate your child flying the nest.

It’s another for them to soar all the way to the other side of the ocean.

I’m also unsure I can get in — not to college, but to the country.

And even if I do, I worry Dublin may never feel like home.

It worked when I was 25. But at 54, with a whole life already built, I’m not sure any new city could feel like home. I’ve grown up alongside my Seattle peers, from my 20s to my 50s. When we see each other, we appreciate the entirety of who we’ve been for three decades. I would mourn that sense of shared history elsewhere.

I fear I’d always be looking in on a culture and community I could never fully grasp.

It may be late for me. But for my children? They could adapt. They could grow roots. Ireland is their heritage. Is it worth it to lose my home so my daughters can gain a second one?

I don’t claim to know where the US is heading. But I fear for the decisions being made at the highest level of our government. I suspect we’re heading for dark years ahead.

My eldest may have an excellent sense of direction. She can find her way to Sephora in any city. But she can’t fathom the magnitude of her college decision against the backdrop of our current political situation, let alone navigate it.

She can’t see how having two “home” countries could open doors for her.

How can I best usher her through this decision? I wish I could consult Apple Maps, or find a tour guide to point her in the right direction.

But I can’t.

Only we can help start her on this journey, and the roads blur and intersect in incomprehensible ways, leading to paths unknown.

It may be touristy, but my kids and I love Dublin’s Temple Bar neighbo(u)rhood.

The cobblestone streets are flanked by graffitied and muraled walls, with doorways leading into some of the coolest thrift shops I’ve ever seen. We explore pubs, record stores, galleries, and outdoor crafts. Late afternoon on our final day in Dublin, my eldest and I approach Temple Bar itself.

“Can we go look inside?” she asks.

She loves that teens can go to pubs here. So do I.

We enter the darkened bar, already full of revelers, and make our way to the band in back. Two men onstage play a rousing Irish rendition of John Denver’s “Country Roads,” the singer on acoustic guitar accompanied by an extraordinary flautist carrying the melody. The bridge greets us:

“I hear her voice in the mornin’ hour, she calls me.
The radio reminds me of my home far away.
Drivin’ down the road, I get a feelin’
That I should’ve been home yesterday, yesterday.”

Except I don’t “get a feelin’” we should be home. Not yesterday, not tomorrow.

Instead my daughter and I belt the chorus along with the rest of the crowd.

“Country roads, take me home,
To the place, I belong.
West Virginia, mountain mama,
Take me home, country roads.”

We return to Seattle tomorrow. For now, it’s our home. I suspect it always will be.

But that place we belong? That country road — whether it leads to the US or Ireland or elsewhere — remains to be seen.

The best this “mountain mama” can do is trust my kids will find their way.

We leave Temple Bar and walk a block north to the River Liffey, following its bank west across the city. “Country roads, take me home,” my daughter sings softly, more to herself than to me, as we head toward our hotel to join her dad and sister.

Country roads. City streets.

Whatever direction they lead us, they all take us home in the end.

Greetings!

I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and pop culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.

If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)

Just yesterday, I checked the “Live” functionality and determined I could go live to any of my publications. I indended this one to go to the audience. But instead it went to .

Clearly I still have much to learn in the ways of how Live functions.

It was still a lovely way to spend a Sunday late-afternoon, reading one of my favorite stories to the kind Substackers who showed up to listen. Huge thanks to all of you.

The story is called My Genderfluid Tween Tried to Explain Their Gender Identity to My Dad, and I published it to on Substack a couple weeks back, and on Medium last year.

It’s one of my favorites.

I hope you enjoy!

I’m gonna try again with reading a Pink Hair & Pronouns story later this week, hopefully to the correct audience next time…

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It’s late 1988, and I’m home from my freshman year in college for holiday break. I’ve landed a retail gig working at Contempo Casuals in our local mall, peak fashion for the era. As a natural born extrovert with a good eye for outfits, I’m excellent at this job.

Today I’m helping a girl who’s probably not much younger than I am, but now that I’m in college, a 3–5 year age gap is a maturity chasm. She’s still got a bit of what we’d call baby fat — she’s not obese by any stretch, but also not skinny enough to fit into the clothes she wants to buy.

It’s clear that while the girl is frustrated by her lack of height-of-mall-fashion options, her shopping companions are horrified, making her disappointment spike to mortification.

This poor child is in the fitting room with her mother and grandmother. Overly made-up and tanned, and less than 1,200 calories per day eaters by the look of them, they’re tsking and clucking, shaking their heads at the shame of her extra 5–10 pounds as if it’s a moral failure.

To them, I’m sure it is.

I can see on her face how it feels that way to her, too.

I’m not skinny — I haven’t been since I hit puberty — but at 18 years old, I’ve lost my baby fat. But I haven’t lost how it feels, to know ones progenitors are judging your body and you’re coming up short — or rather, fat.

I come from a line of “diet tomorrow” women, and in 1988 I have no idea women can have alternate views about their appearance. I thought my weight, my appetite, my body were the problems. Sure, I’d slimmed down a bit by late high school, but I still wasn’t anything ideal in terms of my appearance. I’ve never been the beauty my grandmother was or mother is, and I think I always knew it, even as a child.

When her family leaves her in the room to change, I pop back in to collect her unwanted try-ons. I can see she’s teary.

“Don’t worry,” I tell her, “I couldn’t fit into clothes like this at your age either. But then my body slimmed down on its own during my senior year in high school. It’ll be okay.”

She smiles at me, grateful for some compassion.

At the time, it felt good to help this girl in her moment of shame. I hadn’t thought about this memory in many years. But when I sat down to write about my own path of dieting and weight, her teary eyes — and the judgments of her female elders — came forward first. Maybe it softened the blow, to think of her plight before considering my own?

Either way, I felt a wave of compassion for that troubled girl in the fitting room — actually, for both of us.

It was hard coming of age as the baby fat girl.

I was skinny as could be as a little kid. “Skinny Minnie,” my Grandfather used to call me, and he’d prove me worthy of the moniker by demonstrating how he could touch his thumb and middle finger around my thigh. Yep, I sure was skinny, and I guess I smiled at this weird nickname for “Dana” and assumed it was a compliment? Girls want to be skinny, right?

Then I hit puberty.

I went to sleep-away camp, a rustic spot called Three Pines in the mountains of Maine where we tweens ran feral for four weeks. I loved it. I had no awareness of how much my body changed (which itself is kind of a revelation), but my mom describes feeling stunned upon my return by how my body had bloomed. I was curvy, a C-cup by seventh grade. What can I say, I’ve always had amazing boobs.

Wait, I can say more than that.

I can say: back then, no one called me curvy. I was chubby.

My familial nickname changed from “Skinny Minnie” to “Crisco,” because I was “fat in the can.” I didn’t even get that joke till adulthood, but I do recall my Mom telling me my Grandfather had called her the same at my age.

No one seemed to think this was strange, or demoralizing, or required adult intervention — not for my Mom in the 60s, nor for me in the 80s.

Back then, it was normal. Fat in any way, shape, or form (literally) was bad, something worthy of ridicule. So we took it.

When I slimmed down during in high school, I don’t recall changing my diet or exercise; it was just nature doing its thing. Now as an adult, I know this is common for female puberty. The development from girl-body to woman-body can vary in how one grows up versus out.

I happened to first grow “out” a bit more than societal — and my family of origin — norms liked.

“Diet tomorrow.” This was the droning mantra of my childhood, the women’s lament for the caloric excess of our family dinners. Every visit with my Grandparents — which always involved a delicious dinner at the Rascal House, some of the fondest memories of my childhood— would be followed by my Grandmother and Mom bemoaning their meals, confessing for their gustatory excesses, and committing to atone the next day with denial.

“Ooh, I was so bad,” they’d say.

I marvel that I escaped my upbringing with a robust appetite, and without an eating disorder.

The women in my family valued denial over indulgence, famine over feast.

I don’t mean literally. We’ve never wanted for food, and they never starved themselves. But for the women who raised me, staying in control — and staying thin, always thin — has always been the moral high-ground over indulgence.

Yet intuitively, I’ve always known I’m more of a feast than famine sort. It must be built into my DNA to have sustained through the upbringing I had, in the culture we all live in.

I hold it as a mark of pride, not shame. Mostly.

And so I endured the nicknames, I empathized with that kid in the fitting room, and I grew up. In typical Gen X fashion, I had to eye-roll the expectations and persevere, an unstated “whatever” filling the gap between me and the skinny beauty standards I could never attain. I knew my brains, writing skills, taste in music, and passably cute looks were going to have to suffice.

I had no idea that a couple decades later the culture would shift away from skinny as the only option. It was Millennials who would grow up and insist we challenge our fat-phobic culture, but as I came of age they were still in grade school — probably already cognizant of their own body issues but unaware of the seismic changes they’d collectively make to move public opinion, as well as fashion industry and beauty norms.

Plus-size wasn’t part of fashion in the 80s, and anyone who couldn’t fit in the clothes just quietly resigned themselves to fewer, less stylish options.

In hindsight, I don’t see the advice I gave the girl in the fitting room as wise, even if it may have provided temporary comfort. I wish I could go back now and tell her — and myself — how your self-worth shouldn’t be wrapped up in a pair of size 4 designer jeans.

Bodies can be beautiful and strong at any size, I should have said, and your appetites exist for pleasure and should be explored and indulged, as they give life joy and meaning. Relish them.

But I also don’t harsh my younger self too much. From my 1988 vantage and upbringing, how could I have known how my own views — and the broader zeitgeist — would expand?

I wish I’d known.

I wish all of us who grew up in a one-size-doesn’t-fit-all body could have glimpsed a world where Lizzo and Lindy West and Christina Hendricks and Lena Dunham and Rebel Wilson and all other bodies of different shapes, sizes, and colors weren’t hidden, but were flaunted, celebrated even.

I love that many fashion brands now carry clothes — super cute clothes! — from size 0 to 40, that women don’t simply fall off a fashion cliff once they shoot past a size 12. It’s not just a nicety either, it’s an expectation. I’ve seen many brands eviscerated in their social media advertising if they don’t feature inclusive sizing, both in their warehouses and in their marketing campaigns.

So many things are so hard for women right now. But looking back at 1988, I’m pleased with how this particular issue has evolved.

Mostly.

Now I’m raising two amazing teen girls. They’re the benefactors of generations of work done by women before them, especially about body acceptance.

As their mother, I know they’re learning about their relationships with food from me. I’ve tried to model the best, most nonjudgmental behavior I can. I never lament the size or shape of my body. I wear swimsuits with abandon. When I do change my diet, I talk about the health benefits, not aesthetic ones. If my Mom starts her “diet tomorrow” talk, I ask her to not use that language in front of my kids.

I encourage my kids to enjoy food, to indulge in treats but also make healthy choices. I’ve raised them to see food as both a fuel and a source of joy. I don’t restrict portion sizes, nor do I force them to clean their plates.

I’m doing everything I can to break a multi-generational cycle of body shame.

And they get it. They don’t use “fat” as a pejorative. These Gen Z children of mine, like so many of their peers, are inclusive nearly to a fault. They exude body positivity and consider themselves anti-racist, allies, and feminists. They’re anti-bullying. They know beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. They’re aware of fast-fashion and the harm it came do.

And yet.

Where do my kids and all their Gen Z peers all want to shop?

Brandy Melville.

For the unindoctrinated, Brandy Melville is a clothing store for young women. To my eyes, their clothes are aggressively uninteresting, a messy pile of neutral nothingness…

Know what makes the store so appealing, and also so controversial?

Brandy Melville is one size fits all.

Which is to say, they have no sizing options. Just size Brandy.

To me, Brandy Melville may look like a blur of boring cloth. But to these kids, they see details and nuances that signal to all of their peers: I am wearing Brandy Melville.

Or framed slightly differently: I can fit into Brandy Melville.

This means even now we have a new generation of kids coming of age while crying in fitting rooms because they’re not skinny enough to fit into the clothes they want to buy. It’s confounding. It’s disheartening. And yet, it’s what the kids want to wear.

My children are built like their father, not me. They’re ectomorphs, long and slender.

They have no baby fat.

They fit into size Brandy just perfectly.

I’m grateful, but conflicted. In spite of so many hard-won victories, the paradox of their Brandy-obsession makes the fight for body acceptance feel like a cyclical process of generational fat-shaming, an ouroboros of a serpent curving in on itself and eating its other end, and somehow returning to that mall fitting room in south Florida in 1988.

Perhaps it’s even more unkind now. Even Contempo Casuals clothes had a size range.

From my Gen X perspective, I can see both the progress and the regressions. Sure, now we’ve got Brandy Melville — but we also have Torrid. I know that’s a false equivalency but hey, it beats crying the fitting room of Contempo Casuals.

Now we have options.

I’m a Gen X mama of Gen Z girls. I’m weary, but I also can’t view these decades of advocacy as futile. So I will take the incremental progress as a win, and I will also buy my kids the Brandy outfits they want.

Oh well, whatever.

The generational cycle carries on…