For the Creative-Anxious Parent™ the world is a veritable junkyard of nightmare futures just begging to be collected– what if my child is bullied ferociously? What if my child makes some disgusting sex party urban legend indisputably real? What if my child keeps large, seemingly-immortal snakes as pets? In developing one’s irrational, ultimately pointless parental anxiety, it’s important to integrate less obvious, more esoteric fears into one’s 2:30 am worrying practice. Here, some very specific fears for my children, to get you started! Happy unwarranted anxiety, everybody!
My Son Hates Musical Theater.
One night, as we settle in for Fosse Friday (All That Jazz and Liza with a Z!), my son turns to me. His face– once a model of the overwrought, sell-it-with-the-face expressiveness necessary for the cheap seats– is now unreadable. “I just can’t pretend anymore,” he says, looking away from a tapping Roy Scheider. “People don’t just break into song. This is all so incredibly stupid.” He looks intently into my eyes, like a soulful young Mandy Patinkin. “I HATE musicals, mom.” My mind is all confusion and disgust, like I’m watching a straightforward production of Flower Drum Song. Maybe it’s just isolation-based choreography he doesn’t like?! Did I undersell Jerome Robbins?!?! No one’s defending Starlight Express here! He couldn’t be including a genius like…it explodes from me, like a Mama Rose howl delivered by the master, Patti LuPone: “even SONDHEIM?” “ESPECIALLY Sondheim,” he replies, not even bothering to deliver this devastation in a growly vibrato. He leaves, probably for some sports match, and I am left weeping, googling the best renditions of “Send In The Clowns” (FWIW, tie for #1 is Judi Dench & Bernadette Peters.)
My Children Become Straightedge.
I am initially thrilled that my children show none of my interest in experimentation, as I don’t need them to be as cool as I was (cool kids drink and do drugs, duh). But soon they begin to sneer at my super negligible and not at all problematic wine habit (I’m Italian! It’s ingrained, like my irrational affection for city states and futurist architecture!) They actually chortle at my vivid, transfixing accounts of mind expansions I have known. “I can face reality, mom. I don’t need a crutch!” (their reality– living in my house without jobs– seems pretty livable, tbh.) They go to high school parties just to berate the kids who are drinking, and pick fights with “weak” stoners who “poison” themselves (“leave the poor dumb hippies alone!” I beg them.) They listen to terrible hardcore bands, adopt proto-fascist language about their own “purity” and “strength,” and in their holier-than-thou self-righteousness, make an excellent case for the idea that alcohol and drugs just make you funnier. One night they come home with huge X’s tattooed on the backs of their calves. Like 98% of straightedge kids, they go completely off the rails in college, binge drinking and completely failing to keep their shit together, all because they ignored their mother’s many attempts to school them in the art of proper drug and alcohol use.
My Daughter Becomes the #2 in a Mean Girl Trio.
A mother might find some solace in knowing that her #1 Mean Girl has the power, charisma and confidence necessary to someday command a multinational corporation, or military junta, or lobbyist firm– prodigious despotism can be channeled into lucrative positions of authority with the proper business school education. The #2 though? My Gollum-with-a-blowout daughter does whatever the #1 says (so she’s got no innate leadership qualities) but quietly seethes with resentment and jealousy. She is the most sadistic (bossing the hapless #3, torturing the masses), but lacks the certain je ne sais qua necessary to inflict truly creative trauma. She is a terrifying bully to her mother, whom she publicly mocks when taken for special ‘heart-to-heart cupcake outings,’ because cupcakes are ridiculous and who even eats cupcakes anymore and oh my god mom you are so pathetic. She makes me weep, regularly, at cupcake shops citywide, and I come to believe that her personality’s only hope lies in radical religious conversion or traumatic brain injury.
My Son Becomes an MRA.
It starts with little eye rolls whenever I say privilege (which is, admittedly, a lot.) He is rejected by a series of girls, which I suggest would be helped by letting up on the “I’m a nice guy and girls all hate nice guys” tactic. “What about MEN’S RIGHTS?” becomes his go-to response when learning about any movement in which he is not positioned at the exact center (when he begins to talk about men’s rights re: consent and abortion, I develop a painkiller addiction.) He liberally peppers his conversations with “typical feminist crap,” especially when his sister begins to outachieve him in every respect (“I could get an Olympic gold medal in archery too, if I had tits,” he says on his sister’s birthday. I start doing horse tranquilizers.) I encourage him to actually read some feminist texts, but he refuses, because “those chicks just need a good lay” (my virgin son has yet to meet his longtime gf, who I’m sure is a bot.) One night, I come down to the basement and find him doxxing a feminist writer online. “WHO ARE YOU?” I scream, hurling the laptop across the room. “Who taught you to be this way?” He replies, “You mom! I learned it from watching you!” which I have no response for, because it makes no sense, and also it’s a reference from way before he was even born.
My Children Become Committed, But Utterly Talentless, Folk Singers/Poets.
I initially support their artistic endeavors, because I am a staunch advocate/life model for completely impractical, unprofitable careers. After years of watching their inspiring dedication and an unflappable work ethic, it becomes clear that they are, in fact, very, very, very bad at their chosen art forms. My son earnestly strums his guitar with his eyes closed, a monstrous O-face distorting his once-angelic features while he mutilates completely imbecilic songs about “rain” and “pain.” He makes Jack Johnson sound like Leonard Cohen. My daughter uses her advanced education to pen laborious poems about her “hungry peach,” which she sees as loaded with deeply subtle meaning (“Fruit-Vagina Dentata” is a title I suggest; she is not amused.) I am often the lone audience member for their painful shows and readings, where I maintain a rictus face of elation and pride while dying inside. They are unshakably confident in their ability to “make it” and harbor zero doubts about their abilities. I am incapable of telling them the truth, and take to making passive-aggressive suggestions about grad school and jobs in marketing, which is, I’ve heard, “really creative these days!!!”
My Children Become Neanderthals.
“Do the Dew!” they scream at each other as encouragement (generally before jumping off of something.) “We are all Redsk*n Nation,” they intone in complete seriousness before football games. “Spring Break!” screeches my daughter, cropping her “Kiss Me I’m Irish” T-shirt and sticking out her Surge! Energy-Drinked tongue. They choose schools based on party rankings, and become uber-Greek upon admission. My son communicates in variously-toned “brahs” and owns more white caps than pants, and the longest writing my daughter ever does is of her sorority’s multi-chapter appearance guide for rush. Politically, they “don’t really give a shit as long as I get to keep the mon-ay.” They both find huge financial success in jobs I don’t understand, marry attractive dullards, and come to own more cars than books. They are happy in a straightforward, unquestioning way that is deeply unsettling.
My Children Become Conspiracy Theorists.
“I’m not doing homework,” they announce in 8th grade, “the Mayans predicted the world will end in 2022, so what’s the point?” They talk knowingly about chemtrails, and ruin perfectly nice spritzers with long lectures on what the lamestream media isn’t telling you about fluoridation in the water. When I try to answer their theories with books, or science, or enraged “are you telling me your father and I didn’t live in New York on 9/11 and see it with our own eyes?” they sigh smugly and say something nonsensical about Big Brother, which is especially infuriating since their no-homework policy renders them borderline illiterate and means they haven’t even read 1984. When they somehow manage to find partners as delusional as they are (through their campaign work for Lyndon LaRouche), they announce that they will not be poisoning their children with vaccinations. I begin to plot my grandchildrens’ abductions, using all the dark-ops CIA-trickery my kids have shared through the years.
Misc. Fears, in Alphabetical Order:
A capella Singer
Brony
Confederate Reenactor
Doll Collector
EDM DJ
Fundamentalist
Gamer
Hacky-Sacker
Image Consultant
Jugglalo/ette
Krusty Punk
Loonie Tunes Tattooee
Maroon 5 Groupie
Native American Appropriator
Orc Cosplayer
Peruvian Pan Musician
Quentin Tarantino Mansplainer
Rich Dick
Self-described Shaman
Tinkerbell Superfan
Unicyclist
Venture Capitalist
Waldorf Schooler
Xanadu-Hater
Young Republican
“Zen” Misuser
Tags: children, dreams, family, jessica roake, moms, parenting
This is incredible and I thank you. My only addition is Roots for a Sports Team that Breaks His Family’s Hearts. Cuz in my family we shit shiva for Yankees fans.
My wee darling lives in a house divided between the Steelers and the Raiders. She better not grow up to be a Patriots fan.
Oh G-d, no, anything but the Patriots!
(Well, the Ravens. Or the Seahawks. Or the Browns.)
Stillers forever, n’at.
I know a couple where the husband is a Steelers fan while the wife is a Browns fan. Both are serious football fans, and they’re now expecting their first baby in Baltimore. They don’t seem to be big on waging war over the NFL soul of their child; I think they’re just hoping that their child doesn’t end up being a Ravens fan.
As a Ravens fan, all I have to say is: muahahahaha.
Also an Orioles fan?? I too am from Baltimore.
My boyfriend roots for my preferred NFL team and in turn I support his preferred college basketball team, which is only fair. Our future children had better follow suit.
This is all perfect and exactly what the inside of my head is like (except I have two daughters and no sons, so I can avoid the MRA worry, but the Mean Girl concerns are double).
No, the MRA worry should morph into worrying that they become “Red Pill Women”, ladies who espouse the MRA talking points and look for an “alpha” to be the “captain” to their “first mate”
Oh God I was just thinking this morning, “What if my son joins an Improv Troupe. How will I cope with such Darkness.”
Also, this is hurts in the way only the Truth can: “They are happy in a straightforward, unquestioning way that is deeply unsettling.”
The anxiety of what my kids might turn out to be is totally one of the reasons on my (long) list of why I never want to have kids. (Although tbf my biggest reason besides ‘I just don’t want to’ is more ‘I do not feel capable of teaching my kids properly so that they do NOT turn into awful people like some of the above-mentioned’.)
Oh … wow. I hadn’t really got beyond “UKIP candidate”.
Assemble a long, disgusting list of compromising yet hilarious facts which, if leaked to the Future Daily Mail, will render them utterly ineligible.
Manufacture a couple of situations, if you have to. And document, document, document.
There, fear allayed.
Also a good way to always get the Mother’s Day gifts you want.
But the things that UKIP candidates get de-selected for are so genuinely AWFUL that I don’t think I’d want her if she did any of them! I mean, merely claiming thousands of euros in expenses and not turning up to the European Parliament is fine. You have to actually do all that whilst wearing actual blackface to be too awful for UKIP.
Secret ‘I <3 the EU’ tattoo? Proof of multilingualism? Pictures of a fun weekend at the Atomium?
The stuff only needs to be repulsive to UKIP voters, see.
Dear Dad: I know I don’t yet have a PhD. I know I didn’t go to the Iowa Writers Workshop. I know you are more than a little uncomfortable with many of the things I talk about in public (having been raped, not being straight). But, trust me, I could have turned out SO MUCH WORSE.
this is literally how I’ve lived my life. Except I am the child and these are fears for myself
I’m ok with a Venture Capitalist, but I DRAW THE LINE at Young Republican
These are too real.
I would also add:
-Anti-abortion activist
-Person who posts too much on Facebook
-Fan of rival soccer team
– Juggalo
– Compulsive brunch Instagrammer
– One of those people who hastags everything “#blessed”
N.B.: However, preceding every #blessed with #brian is the mark of an awesome kid. Or adult.
-the non-South Asian person who says “namaste” unnecessarily
I will never, never raise a culé.
Multi-level marketer
Person who posts too much on Facebook
Oh no, it’s me. (I suspect I use Facebook like Tumblr/Twitter, as a result of not having a Tumblr or Twitter account. I should probably rectify that.)
I have a Tumblr and consequently use Facebook and Twitter as if they are Tumblr :/ it me as well
In high school I was a person who did not drink or do drugs but who also did not identify as straightedge, because even then, those kids were THE WORST. Praying for yr children.
lol same. One of my best friends was and still is straightedge (she is now 28) and got tattoos on her legs that say “poison free” and stuff. I love her dearly, but whhyyyyyy????
This one is by far the scariest, “My Children Become Committed, But Utterly Talentless, Folk Singers/Poets.” Way way too real. Especially if they make sure to get jobs that support their art, but still (reasonably) expect me to go to their shows/ read their work. Other ones I could accept or be angry at them about, but that one! Wow.
I just don’t want my kids going on a reality TV show. How do you convince them to care about bringing great sorrow and pain to the family once they’re legally allowed to drink?
I live in Maryland, and my baby is already large and strong, with a naturally occurring “short long” hairdo. I must remain constantly vigilant against the creeping threat of lacrosse.
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be LAX bros
ok, but out here in the midwest, lacrosse is the alternative sport. it took me so long to understand it was what the football guys did on the off-season. But I figure, then they REALLY need a feminist coach, right? So I’m not totally evil?
I graduated from a private school in Baltimore, and I think if the child hits age 6 without showing symptoms of lacrosse, they’re usually immune. Chronic laxism starts in the Youth Leagues, when they start buying the god-awful shorts and wearing those stupid socks.
I could totally see myself cry-asking, “Even SONDHEIM?”
Also, I don’t know if I could deal with a Xanadu-hater. I feel like I have to draw the line somewhere.
Confession: I love ’30s and ’40s tap-dancing musicals, but hate all other varieties of musicals. (Especially Sondheim).
I am so glad there’s at least one other Sondheim-hater around here. I completely understand why people like him. I just…don’t.
I used to feel that way about Sondheim. Then I went to our local opera company’s production of Sweeney Todd and was BLOWN AWAY. And kicking myself for not auditioning for the chorus that year.
It’s okay… I can get along with Sondheim haters. Just don’t tell me you hate Xanadu. Roller skates! ONJ! Everything!
Krusty Punk
As in the Simpsons clown? Please say yes. I refuse to Google it and learn otherwise.
Also, if it helps, the orc cosplayers I’ve met were very nice. Though technically they were LARPers, which I guess is not quite the same thing as cosplayers.
Should I be the one to burst your bubble? This has nothing to do with Krusty the clown, but everything to do with: leather, denim, self-applied studs and/or spikes, docs, dog-collars, patches (back patch for obscure band a _must_, or you can write a witty slogan on the back of your leather with white-out – “wham bam thank you ma’am/more chicks in the pit” being my personal favourite – , or if denim jacket sharpies can be employed), weird hair,a refusal to wash (married to an equal refusal to mask your body-scent with patchouli, like dirty hippies do), and an absolute affinity for getting drunk-as-f*ck and wrecking shit. O, and punk rock, of course. Preferably of the Crust subset (I have yet to determine what makes something crust, as I cannot really tolerate the music…)
My favourite line about krusty punks ever? “They like to sh*t where they eat” (local record store owner/scenester); these are the punks who complain about not ever being able to rent a venue for their shows, but then immediately destroy any venue they have shows at, or are so disrespectful about the rules (even if their buddies own the venue) that the owners _cannot_ have their shows anymore, or risk losing their licences.
It may not seem like it, but I have genuine affection for this particular subset of punks. I just never ever want to party with them. But now I have an image in my brain of Krusty the Clown as a crusty punk, and that is a _beautiful thing_. So thanks for that!
O, and the punks that look like clowns? That’s on the list, too: “Juggalo”.
*sticks fingers in ears* la la la I can’t hear you definitely they are Krusty the Clown punks
I have seen pictures of Juggalos, and compared to Krusty they seem to be rather short on giant red shoes, bowties, cynical half-hearted attempts to entertain children, and lazily selling out at every opportunity. Some of them do appear to have barely-clothed sidekicks, so I guess that’s one point in their favor, but it’s not clear if the sidekicks are villainous.
Once I went to a gutter punk potluck! I said, “Oh, cool, I’ll bring a cake” and was the only person who brought food. I was definitely told it was a potluck, yet there were no plates or utensils so the vegan chocolate rum cake (even I knew enough to add booze to a cake for this party) was eaten with dirty, dirty hands. I had decorated the top with berries and mint leaves! It was a pretty weird night.
We call them “oogles” around these parts and they’re 100% The Worst. Also, frequently “white kid dreadlocks” offenders and will tell you you’re rude for bringing up cultural appropriation. Complain about the cops but never show up for protests, and are often the reason that illegal but awesome bars and shows get shut down – because they get too drunk and fight each other loudly until even the cool neighbors have had enough and call the pigs. Their giant nasty backpacks take up tons of space at any cramped venue and will definitely give you bed bugs if said venue happens to be your basement. I recently rescued a pet rat from a punk house – she had been adopted and then ditched a month later when her oogle owner fucked off to the gross North Dakota rainbow gathering. This person had the gall to call themselves a vegan after abandoning an animal! Oogles are the reason that i call myself communist instead of anarchist now, because I’d rather be associated with Lenin than with those stinky assholes, even though I’m as far from a tankie as you can get.
I really hate oogles you guys. But I also really love folk-punk. What to do.
Yeah, I think this entire list was perfect but orcs and cosplayers are both awesome. Or is there some particular breed of “Tru Pure Tolkeins Only” jerkfaces that I don’t know about?
My fear that my sons will become men’s rights activists, or even just manspreaders, is so real that I may not even have children just to not have the risk of having sons. :O
Tried real hard to find a gif of Willow’s mom saying “I believe you, dear. Now all I can do is let you go
with love.” from “Gingerbread” right before she and Joyce try to burn them at the stake. Alas, the internet is sometimes a disappointing place.
That would be a great gif, why is that not a gif? Also, once I searched unsuccessfully for about an hour for a gif of that one scene of Dawn melodramatically screaming “get out get out GET OUT!!!!” in the most teenagery of fashions.
How can that possibly not already be a gif everywhere? That is one of the top three feelings people have on the internet.
This was a few years ago–current googling reveals that it is indeed a thing, although I wish it also had text superimposed on it.
I neither have nor want children, and I’m already disappointed in my children.
tbh if your kid becomes a Waldorf schooler it’s your own damn fault, those come with a steep price tag! (I saw this as a Waldorf grad and now teacher, so I’m allowed. =P)
OMG this is something I worry about constantly. You hit all mine, religious, MRA, conservative. My other fear is that he will attend Stanford (instead of UC Berkeley, where both his parents and his aunt and uncle went) and he walks around shirtless strumming a guitar while wearing a puka-shell necklace.
Any child of mine who aimlessly strums an acoustic guitar (no songs, just chords) is NO CHILD OF MINE. Oh my Lord. That is a fear.
“Anyway, here’s Wonderwall”
(I go into the next room and quietly change my will)
In some ways, I’m excited for my children to be different from me–a kid with athletic ability, or a kid who ends up a scientist, would be fantastic. But a kid who hates musicals? That would be really tough.
Oh god I think my brother has been all of those miscellaneous fears at one point. We don’t talk much.
“Mommy, I don’t want to watch Brave! I want to watch the Bee Movie!”
Well, at least the Straight Edge kids might take the Henry Rollins option, where they eventually mellow out somewhat and turn out to be surprisingly engaging conversationalists, albeit still somewhat intimidating. (They get circles around the Xes on their calves and boom, they’re X-Men fans.)
The MRA/Mean Girls/Neanderthal fears are too real for me.
Ditto. Those ones gave me chills.
This is too real. Except about Orc cosplay. That would actually be pretty awesome.
I totally want an orc cosplay kid!
I’ve always been terrified that, if I have kids, they’ll somehow defy my uncoordinated nerd genes and will be super into sports, forcing me to go to games and feign interest. (shudders)
Is there any way to ensure that my offspring are opera-loving, Niles Crane-esque dweebs? Get on it, science!
You can always push the coordinated ones into more interesting-for-you activities, like fencing or aerial or quidditch.
I’ve feared giving birth to a Republican since I became a Democrat at 15.
“My Children Become Straightedge”
I think my parents (who grew up in the ’70s) are kind of in this camp– “Why are you kids so well-behaved? Why aren’t you drinking more and getting into more trouble?”
I was a goody-two-shoes until college, and I gotta say it’s a legitimate concern. Once I learned how to let loose when I got to college, it was a ride and a half for my parents, poor things.
My siblings and I are all grown now, and we’re all still exactly the same way.
Even more bewildering: both my siblings are jazz musicians .
i am the parent of a 17 and 21 year old and I concur with your parents. Why are they so good? Why are they not shrieking at us with adolescent rage? We have been waiting for the other shoe to drop for years now, and it is exhausting.
Same. “But why don’t you go to parties? Here, have a beer!” I stayed in my room all the time doing homework, reading and going on the internet. It concerned them.
My biggest fear about adoption was, What if our kid is tone-deaf? Because, my god, 2 of 5 living grandparents are professional musicians, moms got off that track to buy you new shoes *every* year whether you need them or not (see above re raised by professional musicians), all the relatives are in local and regional theater productions like the all-Methodist cast of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’…she would have felt so excluded.
Happily, she is deaf-deaf (technically ‘hard of hearing’, but whatevs) and has perfect pitch. If she can hear it, she can match it. So, most worry is wasted.
My best friend likes to tell me that all my children will be highly religious polo players who enjoy camping and wearing paisley- because apparently that’s the only room I’ve left for rebellion.
My children like paisley. *shudder*
Ultimate Frisbee Player. Ugh. It’s similar to hacky-sacker but even worse. They just call the game “ultimate” as if it was a new level of transcendent experience.
Worse: disc golfers.
My father loves us heroically even though we both turned out super liberal. I would totally end up spawning little conservatives.
I would be all vegan hippie carrying kids on bicycles from infancy, and they’d rebel by driving Hummers through McDonald’s drive-thrus and working for oil companies or something.
OH GOD THE TINKERBELL WOMEN. WHO ARE THEY AND WHY? This is a good list, and all of these outcomes are worrisome.
I would add:
-really into crystal healing and homeopathy and similar genres of woo, but refuses to take ACTUAL MEDICINES INVENTED BY SCIENTISTS
-thinks ironic racism is the height of humor
-goes on rants about how we shouldn’t be giving the poors welfare money because bootstraps
-bad tipper
-personality of Dwight Schrute
-doesn’t read anything*
*My teenage brother recently cleaned out his room and got rid of 99% of the books because “I’m not gonna be an English major or anything, so why would I ever need to read stuff?” My mom is not pleased.
OMG, a child who doesn’t read. I think that would be a nightmare for me and my husband.
good thing he is not my son that shit gets you KICKED OUT OF THE HOUSE.
There is hope. My bro never read as a kid or teen. As a nearly 40 yo he’s always got a book in hand.
>People don’t just break into song.
They have the wrong friends *and* their home life is deficient if they say this.
The Toast: a place where it’s totally ok* to admit that you frequently and extemporaneously narrate your life via song, especially when there is an audience of cats/dogs/people-in-adjacent-rooms.
*I hope.
I have been known to spontaneously sing opera in the break room.
Someone has to, might as well be me.
“My Daughter Becomes the #2 in a Mean Girl Trio.”
C’mon, Heather #2 (Green-With-Envy, aka Shannen Doherty) turned out pretty well.
Heather Duke was #3 until Heather Chandler took the swan dive through the table.
Did I undersell Jerome Robbins?!?!
I worry about this every dang day, you guys. It’s always a distinct possibility.
“Native American Appropriator”
This, and:
Golf Enthusiast
Country Club Member
One of those boys who complains that he’s been put in the ‘friendzone’ when a woman who enjoys his company platonically doesn’t want to take it to the next level
My 3.5 year old son is already a golf enthusiast. I don’t understand what I did wrong.
“Prefers lagers to ales”
Orc cosplayer would be amazing.
Spellcheck kept changing this to Orca, which would also be amazing.
I would be 100% more into orca cosplay, to be honest.
I, for one, would be soundly disappointed if my children ended up Sondheim fans. That’s one of my biggest fears…
Okay.
Every one of these fears is reasonable and defensible.
Except for the musical theatre thing.
Show tunes are despised by many incredibly fabulous human beings (by which I mean me).
OMG some of these seriously keep me up at night.
The MRA one FREAKS ME OUT.
He’d better not, after being a pink-loving, light-up shoe wearing boy, I tells you!
Having a child that views Erik In The Phantom Of The Opera with waaaaaay too much sympathy.
Alternatively having a child who’s an Andrew Lloyd Webber fan.
I think #1 is an MRA? So that’s covered.
It’s okay to have a child that’s into ALW, when they are a child. Some of my dearest (*gulp*) memories involve dancing around a friend’s basement plotting our own production of Cats. During fifth grade, my weird human skill the sixth graders would test me on during recess was “reciting those TS Eliot poems we read in English class from memory”. But around the teen years, they need to grow out of that.
My boyfriend is an Andrew Lloyd Webber fan. I love him anyway; I just strongly encourage the use of headphones.
This list perfectly describes why I have yet to procreate. I’m too scared.
My daughter said the same thing, and then she horrified me by saying, “but if I do have children, I want boys, cuz girls are too hard. Just look at me.”
Great, I don’t even HAVE kids yet and I already need like 12 Xanax.
“What about MEN’S RIGHTS?”
YOU ARE NOT MY SON! You are a foul changeling left by the Unseelie court and I will boil water in egg-shells and pelt you with holy wafers until my true child is returned to me.
A few birds with one stone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=138&v=ngZvBQs…
My 8 year old is a brony and it is AWESOME. With the exception of some problematic race stuff in the first season (that have proved good fodder for discussions on “othering” and not stealing land from natives), My Little Pony is excellent feminist material. Bronies are like the polar opposite of MRA. We should aspire that our sons become bronies!