As the State House crawls with controversy over parental rights, I, a state representative, am going to be faced with a vote that you might help me with: Which mom goes to jail for egregious child abuse? Here are two real-time scenarios going on in this country, with details slightly altered to protect the innocent. One mother decides that her two sons, ages 4 and 1, are actually daughters and begins to display them as daughters. As she’s a lawyer, and as the young men grow to adapt to the role the mother assigned and to become the best young women they can be, she forces the district to acknowledge her choice as “current science and mandated practice.” The other mother is told by her concerned neighbor that her fourteen-year-old daughter “identifies” as a boy. When asked, the daughter says she’s gone confused to counselors and health teachers at school who taught her that this was normal and that she could be whatever she chose. The mother called the school to complain that her daughter had been “groomed” and to ask why no one had called her. She prepared to find a lawyer to pursue a lawsuit. The lawyer whose two sons were daughters refused to take the case. Is either mom in this scenario an abuser worthy of loss of custody and imprisonment? You decide. Thank you in advance. And, if it really matters anymore, predict each child’s future. This is the 21st century.

Peter Mehegan

Pembroke