All Posts Tagged as 'Choices'

We're all familiar with female-driven wellness brands like Goop — but so far, there hasn't been an equivalent for men. The startup Hims is trying to fill space in the market for male wellness by offering solutions for pretty much every nexus point of masculine insecurity. It sells a suite of shampoos and vitamins to counter receding hairlines, and it's working on a skincare line to clear up any lingering acne. It also offers is a $20-a-month subscription of Sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, an FDA-approved medication that's been used for decades to treat erectile dysfunction.

I need some help gaining perspective on my 15-year-old child’s whiplash approach to gender and sexuality. For the last three years, they have been on a journey with regard to their sexuality, declaring and changing identities one every few weeks or months, even when those identities have been both contradictory (how can one be both asexual and polyamorous?) and hypothetical (my kid isn’t dating and hasn’t dated). They are committed to being anything but cisgender and hetero, and that identity—whatever it turns out to be—appears from their actions and words to be the central part of their sense of self. They spent a lot of time on queer wikis, looking up new possible identities. They avidly “ship” fictional characters into same-sex couples, express anger/disappointment when shows/books have hetero couples, and talk constantly about LGBTQIA issues, representation, etc.

I have been, and want to be, supportive. My kid deserves to be loved and celebrated for who they are, and however their identity settles out is fine with me. But I am also struggling with these rapid changes. In the last two weeks, my kid has changed their name once and pronouns twice, colored their hair, worn exaggeratedly feminine eye makeup, pinned their hair up to look masculine, purchased a bikini and a dress and then asked me to buy them a binder (because they think it would be “fun” to look like a boy sometimes). At this point, it feels like they’re trying on identities like costumes, and that makes me very uncomfortable. None of it feels authentic—it seems more like a bid to stand out in a crowd or perhaps to find the limits of my acceptance.

I have worked so hard to make sure my kids know they are loved unconditionally, but if this kid is looking for a boundary, maybe I should set one? I literally squirmed when I wrote that sentence; setting a random limit on acceptance goes against everything I believe. But at the same time, I am so, so tired of hearing about their identity day after day after day and of trying to keep up with the changes. They’re a great, smart, interesting kid for a dozen different reasons; their gender/sexuality is just one aspect of their personality. Would it be wrong of me to say, in essence, “I love you, and will never not love you. When you figure out your identity let me know, and in the meantime can we maybe stop talking about it all the time?” Also, as the world opens up and my kid spends more time outside of our home, can I/should I ask them to be more thoughtful in how they present themselves? It seems to me that trans and nonbinary people cannot simply change their identities and expression for “fun,” so my kid’s behavior feels a little bit like cosplaying in a way that could be hurtful. Or do I just keep keeping my mouth shut, do my best to remember this week’s identity, and pray that this phase ends soon?

—Tired and Confused

Last summer, 10-year-old Aidan decided he was going to kill the family dog. He lured her behind the sofa with a sausage before putting his hands over her muzzle and around her neck.

"The crazy thing is that he actually loves the dog and me the most out of anyone," says Aidan's mother, Hazel. "But we are the two that he will target and sometimes he will hurt her to get a reaction out of me."

Aidan kicks and hits, and he used to bite. He tells Hazel that he hates her and wants her to die, that he's going to get a gun and shoot her. He's tried to push her down the stairs, and now that he's worked out where her blind spots are - she has a visual impairment - he throws things at her that she can't see coming. Recently it was a kettle, which fortunately hadn't just been boiled - but Aidan didn't know it was cold when he picked it up and launched it.

A California restaurant owner is turning heads with a sign outside his establishment that asks patrons to show "proof of being unvaccinated."

This Massachusetts restaurant has a tip for rude diners – be nice, or don’t eat.

The owners of Brewster-based Apt Cape Cod decided to shut down for a "day of kindness" after a slew of customers apparently mistreated its staff, cursed and demanded take orders before the restaurant even opened for business.

"There were a few incidents that were so horrendous – the cursing and not being understanding of our short staff and limited menu – we had someone call in at 6:30 a.m. before we even open demand take out saying, ‘I’m going to come in, and you're going to serve me," Emilia Povero, a manager at Apt Cade Cod told FOX News. "That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Our staff doesn't need to deal with this."

American Airlines is asking pilots to conserve fuel whenever possible as the US sees a surge in summer travel.

The air carrier released a memo to pilots Monday warning about a nationwide supply crunch and urging them to do everything possible to save fuel.

'Use all available fuel savings strategies when possible,' Managing Director of Flight Operations John Dudley said in the memo. 'Every gallon of jet fuel saved is helpful.'

In a new political low in Texas, the Republican-dominated state Senate has passed a bill to eliminate a requirement that public schools teach that the Ku Klux Klan and its white supremacist campaign of terror are “morally wrong.”

The cut is among some two dozen curriculum requirements dropped in the measure, along with studying Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the works of United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez, Susan B. Anthony’s writings about the women’s suffragist movement, and Native American history.

Critics say the state is promoting an “anti-civics” education.

A 17-year-old can’t believe her sister’s husband refused to take care of his own kids.

“My sister called me saying that her work had an emergency and she needs to get there ASAP and needed me to watch her kids because ‘no one else can.’ I rushed over there just to find her husband locked in his game room playing video games. I asked her why she called me over if he was home, and she said he didn’t want to ‘babysit’ because it was his only day off. [When] I was changing the baby’s diaper and the other kids wanted a snack, I told them to go ask their dad to make them a snack since the baby had a blowout and it was going to take me a while to clean him up. Their dad sent them back upstairs and told them to ask me again. After cleaning the baby up, I made the kids a snack, and their dad came out to eat and told me not to let the kids interrupt him on his day off,”

More than 200 people in 27 states are being monitored for possible exposure to monkeypox after they had contact with an individual who contracted the disease in Nigeria before traveling to the United States this month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To date, no additional cases have been detected.

“It is a lot of people,” McCollum acknowledged.

The efforts stem from the discovery that a U.S. resident infected with monkeypox traveled from Lagos, Nigeria, on an overnight flight to Atlanta that arrived on July 9; the person then traveled the same day to Dallas. On July 15, the individual sought care at a Dallas hospital emergency room, where the diagnosis of monkeypox was made.

The phrase goes, 'no shirt, no shoes, no service,' but perhaps it doesn't apply to movie stars.

Teachers naturally bristle at the idea, which may be the point. But there’s a bigger problem with this particular brand of helicopter parenting: A camera that picks up everything teachers say to their students would also capture what students are saying to their teachers — and to each other.

Full-time monitoring of teachers in the classroom means full-time monitoring of kids — and their not-yet-fully-formed frontal lobes — in all of their unsophisticated glory.

Anyone who’s ever spent a lengthy amount of time with a tween or teen (or been one) knows that they talk first, think later and barely give any consideration to the next hour, let alone the next decade. They often say and do stupid things, and the tendency seems to compound when they’re in groups.

American parents today are also quick to protect their kids from disappointment and failure. We give participation trophies when kids don’t win first place; we fly into the school to deliver kids’ forgotten homework. But these well-meaning interventions backfire because a child with healthy self-esteem is a child who has learned, through experience, that he can overcome obstacles and disappointment. He’s had the opportunity to fail and has discovered that failing doesn’t preclude him from being loved.

A Michigan woman was shocked after accidentally receiving a hurtful message from her prospective employer, in which he described her as “not that cute.” A now-viral video detailing the incendiary application review — posted Thursday on TikTok — has amassed more than 1.3 million views on the streaming platform as of Friday morning.

We all messed up the relationship with our parents at least once. Remember that time when dad didn’t talk to you for weeks? What about mom? Did she try to fix it up with a family dinner?

Well, you might not be that young, but what difference does this make. Most adults have a somewhat challenging relationship with their parents. While parents neglect the fact that you are a responsible grown-up, you are hiding behind their wisdom. How many times have you asked your parents for their advice regardless of their experience level? Hopefully, not too many times. We all make that mistake because we neglect that our parents don’t know it all.

Two out of three (66%) of adolescents age 12–17 live with both parents, 24% with their mother only, 5% with their father only, and 5% with neither parent [1]. The quality of parents’ relationships makes a difference to children in many ways. — Act for Youth

“I don’t like coming out as a word,” Schümann tells PinkNews. “I think ‘coming out’ is a very traditional, old-style word, and in the society I’m living I want ‘coming out’ to be a term that doesn’t exist anymore. I had my ‘coming out’ if you want to see it like that 10 years ago with my parents, my family and my friends, but this was different. I just wanted to show the world who I love and who is the one on my side, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a boy or a girl.”