Look At My Shiny Identity
Via Mr Muldoon, a tale of what sounds like mid-life contrivance:
Imagine the fun.
The contriver in question is Amanda Elend, a scrupulously progressive woman whose list of causes is extensive, if somewhat predictable. She tells us,
Ah, the basis of any sound marriage.
Coinciding, oddly enough, with the big four-oh:
The idea of having an identity – one with boutique status and complications that have to be danced around in an affirming manner – is terribly important to Ms Elend. And as we’ve seen, self-definition is very in right now, and quite competitive. Plus, there’s so much potential for chiding and rituals of atonement:
Ms Elend’s children, aged six and nine, were also informed of their mother’s elevation to the role of Fascinating Being:
The word husband is used intermittently. Sometimes it’s partner.
“Can we still call you mom?” my 9-year-old asked.
You see, every small child wants a mom whose new pronouns have to be memorised, and who reveals that their family is suddenly conditional, one option among many. A mom who, in middle-age, is still on a journey of self-absorption – sorry, self-discovery – and who could at any moment become a radically different, and altogether more fashionable, kind of entity. Quite what a six-year-old is supposed to do with such information, beyond feeling confused or insecure, is unclear.
But children, being children, are at least easy to manipulate:
It’s a niche pleasure, an acquired taste. And any project of self-preoccupation must have its little accomplices – in supporting roles, of course. Even if the star of the drama sometimes fluffs her lines:
Hold that thought, madam.
And it’s so much easier to shift the focus of any interaction towards oneself if there are complications to mention and pronouns to stipulate.
Update, via the comments:
Nikw211 questions Ms Elend’s honesty, and adds,
Well, it’s hard to be sure exactly how much embellishment is in play. But as with other articles in much the same genre, these things are presumably intended to present the author or subject in a fairly flattering light – as sympathetic, resilient or long-suffering, even heroic. Stunning and brave, as they say. Which, again, suggests obliviousness and insufferable self-involvement. I mean, if this is the idealised, airbrushed version of the author…
It’s also worth bearing in mind the extent to which so many of these ‘progressive’ ladies seem to have ideals that are actually quite twisted and dysfunctional. Ms Honor Jones, for instance, our supposedly oppressed – and supposedly heroic – senior editor at The Atlantic:
Whatever the author’s embellishment in any instance above, the ideal itself is worth noting. As is the weirdly unanimous approval from equally woke and statusful peers. Because apparently there’s a moral universe in which such behaviour is considered boastworthy, a basis for applause.
…
20 years from now what’s the betting one of the kids will write a book called My Mother Was A Narcissist….?
The day these new pronouns were announced would have been the day I filed for divorce and sole custody, so this guy is a better man than I am.
What, what am I saying? Of course he’s not! He’s enabling this mindless, narcisssistic lunacy and screwing up his kids.
Somewhat related.
Been married for 30 years and never felt like that. Is it a progressive thing?
My friend had his wife of 10 yrs (and 2 kids) leave him for a woman. He was much more devastated than if she just left him or left for another man. It called his whole identity into question.
How do you find out you are bisexual except by cheating on your spouse? And a second kind of infidelity is writing an essay like hers. Too common in the internet age.
It does, I think, belong to a genre of articles in which ostentatiously ‘progressive’ ladies boast of their bewildering approaches to marriage.
And we mustn’t forget this jolly compilation.
Odd that they refer to themselves as “I”.
Islam and BRICS (I still don’t see what on earth South Africa has achieved to justify inclusion therein) must be shaking their heads in disbelief at how easy their respective goals are becoming.
“Can we still call you mom?” my 9-year-old asked.
Reading that, I swore. Loud enough to startle the cats.
She not only just terrorized her child into feeling imminent abandonment, she doesn’t even realize it.
Where did the notion that people controlled the pronouns used by others? You have no right to “your pronouns” madam. I and I alone determine with which pronouns to use when I refer to you. You are allowed a proper name and I will be happy to defer to that but the pronouns are mine. I’m thinking they may be dip and sh*t.
Maoists, radfems, and the clinically insane. But I repeat myself.
David, I admire your resilience. Seriously, I do. I find reading the original articles to be oppressive and anxiety producing. I far prefer reading your interpretation, keeping it at an arm’s length so to speak. I know this makes me weak and pathetic, and the kind of person who hides within his echo chamber. But still, I would rather not spend my time trolling through Scary Mommy, and attempting to keep my head out of the oven. I don’t know how you do it.
The kid reveals a major flaw in the whole pronoun charade. You don’t use pronouns when talking *to* a person, only when you’re talking *about* a person. Someone who complains that you have misgendered them should be reminded that you weren’t talking to them, so butt out.
Tiresome narcissist tiringly narcissizes.
I also get a snort out of their new obsession with pronouns. A grammatical term I bet they could not have defined 5 years ago. Quick, “Them Elend”, explain to us other grammatical terms.
How about a dangling participle ? No, it’s not that thing you no longer like between your “partners” legs.
Monty Python couldn’t have written it any better…
“I now identify as a bisexual, nonbinary person,”…while my husband thinks he’s a kumquat.
[ Glances at tip jar, resumes wiping bar in a stoical fashion. ]
I find reading the original articles to be oppressive and anxiety producing.
Credit note only, no refunds.
I actually kind of hope my wife does this to me.. give me the excuse I need. Needless to say, I’d have nothing to do with her after that. For one thing, by coming out as bisexual, she’s openly admitting to adultery. And for another, I’d consider my kids mental health in serious jeopardy.
Why is she using “me” and not “us”?
Pronouns: the commies use “comrade” for everyone. Much cleaner…but lacking in bullying power and narcissism.
A mother declaring her sudden-onset bisexuality (real or imagined) to her six-year-old child strikes me as a little odd. Ms Elend is, after all, married, to a man – supposedly happily – and so any lesbianism would be entirely theoretical, would it not? Unless of course she intends to break her marriage vows and have an affair, thereby jeopardising her marriage and inflicting serious, possibly life-denting distress on her own children.
And that’s before we get to the whole “Mommy suddenly feels a bit dysmorphic, or at least feels she ought to be” thing.
They/them is plural. So is her husband guilty of bigamy?
Her husband should find a good family law attorney that specializes in defending men. He’s going to need it.
If it happened to me, I’d say I didn’t marry them, I married her, so if she isn’t her, they aren’t my wife.
A mother declaring her sudden-onset bisexuality (real or imagined) to her six-year-old child strikes me as a little odd.
Some people rise to the responsibility of being a parent, some people have kids as accessories or a captive audience to their *lived* lives.
All I see is an aging 40 year old women with a massive ego and no wisdom screeching “PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!!”
“If it wasn’t for your dad and you kids, I could be off shagging other women!”
That.
Well, small children generally appreciate, and very much benefit from, family stability. it’s hard to see how a six-year-old is expected to process this information, from their mother, without at least entertaining some distressing thoughts. For a parent to have not considered this rather obvious detail, as seems to be the case, suggests a level of self-involvement one might regard as pathological.
So, the mental illness didn’t fully manifest itself until she realized SHE is getting older, and less attractive. So she decides to make herself more interesting; at least to herself.
What’s struck me most is that I don’t think there’s a single word in that piece that’s true.
Her resume on her website here tells us she completed a Double Major in Creative Writing, American Studies and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults and that she’s also worked as a “Creative writing mentor for teen girls”.
So what I think we’re actually reading here is basically autobiographical fan fiction.
A bit like when one of those postmodern novelists writes themselves a walk-on part in their own novels – but shittier.
And I think I might genuinely find that prospect even more disturbing than if she really had done all the things she says she’s done in that piece.
Because very real fractures have emerged in almost every corner of society – in government, in education, in the workplace, even in the military – the military for God’s sake!
And these fractures are having very painful real world consequences.
They’re causing girls to do irreparable harm to their bodies before they’ve even turned 21.
They’re causing people to be bullied, threatened, and even sacked for thinking women are women and men aren’t.
They’re causing others to be intimidated into humiliating silence.
And here’s this witless imbecile making this shit up just so that she can crow about how she’s a writer, a real one, at high school reunions.
That’s an understatement!
I stand by my original judgement. It’s either a “shitpost”, or she’s a sociopath. Or both.
This is not “The Women’s Room” wife finding herself.
It’s hard to see how a six-year-old is expected to process this information, from their mother, without at least entertaining some distressing thoughts.
At the very least, would it have killed her to call a family gathering where she could explain it to the kids, rather than dumping it on them out of the blue?
I refuse to believe that The scene in the car with the kids actually happened. Never mind HER, what kind of father would tolerate that?
I must say that I read these gems you find, David, and after a while I strongly think these women are just trolling us. There’s no way they keep this crap up day-in, day-out. Perfectly exhausting.
But I can certainly see the likes of that squirrel-looking Elend woman cranking out clickbait like this article for a living.
…what kind of father would tolerate that…
Ahem. Her ‘partner’ was driving. No information on the chromosonal arrangement of said ‘partner’.
Video or it never happened.
“All I see is an aging 40 year old women with”
Without a large bottle of cheap Aussie wine in which she could find herself…
I blame 60s pop psych for all this “finding myself” crap, this navel gazing. If you are a vacuous twit and gaze inward you will find…nothing. You find yourself by building yourself, by testing yourself against reality and finding out what you can accomplish and what you can do. Can you camp in the wild, catch a fish, pass the bar exam, change a tire, make stir-fry, write software, write a poem, shoot a gun accurately, make people laugh? Your feelings come and go and are not a stable basis for your personality.
These people, lesbians mostly, aren’t as interested in “shagging other women”. At some level, I could at least understand or (barely) respect that. In a biological, evolutionary sense it would make some degree of sense. No, people like this are 100% about “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!…ETC. ETC. ETC!!!! TO 11!!!!!” This is obvious to those who have done the analysis. Their egos override 1,000,000,000 years of evolutionary sense.
Guiltily places small amount in the tip jar to part cover a longstanding, overdrawn bar tab.
cheese and crackers. retarded is what I read. What a shame. Poor father and kids. Divorce will ensure documentation. Unless.. the dad is as retarded as the mom.. kids thrown to the wind. sad sad sad.
Forgetting that the courts are as retarded, if not more so, than the parties involved. It’s a 🤡 🤡 🌎
This is the definition of unstable. Literally.
“I was giving a speech at a grad-school reunion. I nervously introduced myself as the former student known as “that girl who sings.” My horror set in quickly. How could I misgender myself after making sure everyone in my life referred to me properly? I worried that maybe I was not really nonbinary.”
Is it wrong that I want to beat this woman severely? You know what I’ve never wondered in all my decades? Whether I was “binary” or whether I was male. Only crazy people wonder things like that.
I haven’t read all of the original article, but I bet she views the 6 yo’s “can I still call you mum?” with pride (“Look at how right-on my kids are. I raised them, you know.”). I doubt she realises that most people don’t read that and think ‘what progressive and socially conscious young people”, rather it just seems terribly sad.
And also, unless you are planning on having an affair/leaving your husband why would you tell your kids who you could be off with, were it not for them?” If a ‘cis’ mother turned to her kids and said, “if it wasn’t for you and your father, I could be off boning the entire Brisbane Broncos” we’d rightly think that was pretty deranged.
Narcissism much?
It’s hard to be sure exactly how much embellishment is in play. But as with the other articles linked in the thread, these things are presumably intended to present the author or subject in a fairly flattering light, as sympathetic, resilient or long-suffering, even heroic. Stunning and brave, as they say. Which, again, suggests obliviousness and insufferable self-involvement. I mean, if this is the idealised, airbrushed version of the author…
Bless you. May all your things be fully charged.
It’s also worth bearing in mind the extent to which so many of these ‘progressive’ ladies seem to have ideals that are actually quite twisted and dysfunctional. Ms Honor Jones, for instance, our supposedly oppressed – and supposedly heroic – senior editor at The Atlantic:
Whatever the author’s embellishment in any instance above, the ideal itself is worth noting. As is the weirdly unanimous approval from equally woke and statusful peers. Because apparently there’s a moral universe in which such behaviour is considered boastworthy, a basis for applause.
“I now identify as a BIsexual, NONBINARY person,”
I am guessing that means “I consider my sexual identity to be across a broad and vast spectrum but I only shag two points along it, you know, the REAL ones . . .”
[ Slides badly sellotaped bag of crisps to Stephanie. ]
On the house.