He'll be "Confused"

[AnamethatstartswithE]

I'm a bit over 3 months into HRT. Over thanksgiving I was talking with my mother over how things would start changing for me in the next few months. Her first impression is that I should not be in my 5 year old nephew's life. Her thinking is that he will be "very confused." He's 5, shoelaces confuse him. I really don't get this whole line of argument. If he's confused, just explain it until he isn't.

My mother has been very supportive of this whole thing for me, so I don't want to criticize her. But I get the impression that at best she thinks this is something I'm "deciding" to do. I also think that deep down she may be questioning my sanity. She's also concerned that my sister's ex-husband might try some sort of legal action based on me being transgender. I don't think that's actually a thing anymore, so while she's in "protect the family" mode, which I do respect. I am a little hurt by it.

This is less a request for information than it is a rant. Any Words of wisdom?

[Taylorcaudle]

I can tottally see where this is going. It sounds like she just went along with it at first and now shes like "well little johnny wont get it." Which isnt true i told my niece and let me tell you she was so understanding. Even more so then adults. She calls me rose now. Thats important to me. And no what legal action could he take? Lets be honest here the only reason someone would win a lawsuit would be if they experienced a loss. Which there is none. I would just start distancing yourself a little bit. Just to be safe and theres little they can say.

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[Taylorcaudle]

And if comes up in conversation just normalize it. Thats important as well. Constantly keep correcting the misused pronouns. Tell them the new name you picked out and dress the way you want to. They will come around its just going to take some time. Rome wasnt built in a day.

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[Denise]

I'll play conspiracy theory....  It's not little Johnny it's your sister who talked to mom about being uncomfortable and the two decided to blame it on her son.

Just a possibility.  We had a similar situation (totally different) where one family blamed a situation on the daughter when in fact, we found out later, it was not.

[Taylorcaudle]

I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT! Seriously yo thats messed up. :/

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[Faith]

I concur with the 'it's probably the sister' sentiment. My granddaughter didn't get confused, just wanted to know why I was wearing girls clothes. No big deal.

[AnamethatstartswithE]

My sister doesn't know anything about this yet.

[Floof]

Kids are amazing at this stuff.. It took my sisters two young daughters only a single slightly awkward visit before it was all hugs, fun and games again. They do not care unless its made very clear to them that they SHOULD by parents or other adults. You should express this to your mother, I hope she will understand and come around.

[sf_erika]

My sister doesn't know anything about this yet.

It sounds like the conspiracy theory is out then, but it could still be somewhat related.  My father almost always asks people to do things (or refrain from doing them) by pointing to someone else. 
Ex: hostess seating the whole family at a restaurant... father will say, "can we not get an outside table.  Grandma will get cold."  That really means that he wants to sit inside. 

That's just one example, but he does that for everything.  It's kind of a running family joke.

Anyway, my point is that, in your case,  maybe she has her own reason(s) for not wanting your nephew to know at the moment, and she just uses the "confused" excuse to mask her own feelings. 

Of course, the other possibility is that she just genuinely thinks he'll be confused.  If she hasn't dealt with trans issues before, she may not understand that younger kids don't get confused, but just adapt their evolving understanding of the universe accordingly.  If that's the issue, you may just need to help educate her. 



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[sarah1972]

Kids in general are way more accepting than most people believe. If there is any rejection it is usually induced by their parents, especially at that age. Especially at 5 years they are aware of boys and girls but the entire difference between genders has not really hit them yet.

I have a 20 month old daughter and about 10 neighbor kids, 7 nieces and nephews and all of them had absolutely no problem about me becoming Sarah. My nieces and nephews have fully switched to "aunt Sarah". Neighbor kids just shrugged over it and one of them offered to swap ear rings with me (she liked mine). All of my experiences are in line with what I hear from other trans parents I have talked about this subject.

Are there funny moments? Yes. One of my nephews recently commented on something I did not want to do with the remark: Well, then <deadname> could do it. May be related to me not having seen them in almost two years (the only reason being distance). Still thought it was really funny. Kids are curious and as many I also had these moments where kids stare at you and wonder if I am a boy or a girl. But in reality they don not care.

In a nutshell: Kids are way more accepting and there is only an issue if their parents have an issue.

[Daisy Jane]

My sister has two kids; a boy who is 9 and a girl who is 5. She said her daughter would be like "Oh, okay!" but her boy has a bit of an anxiety disorder, so my sister was worried he would have a million questions she couldn't answer. There was a 9 month gap between last Thanksgiving and the next time I saw them. She was totally dragging her feet on telling them. When I finally saw them, my nephew didn't have much to say, but my niece ran up to me and exclaimed "Uncle Charlie! You look like girl!" I said yeah I do. "And you have girl hair!" Yup! Then she ran off to go do something else. Later on, I heard her again with some of the other kids go "Uncle Charlie looks like a girl!"  My sister came up to me later to let me know she just told them recently.

The next time I saw my sister, she told me that her mom asked the grand kids "How was the family gathering?" My niece responded, "Charlie looks like a girl!" Yeah we talked about that, remember? "But he has girl hair!" You never know how kids are going to interpret what you're telling them. Haha! Next time I saw her it was no longer shocking to her.

My sister asked her son if he had any questions and he said he didn't. "There was a boy in my class that sometimes wore girl clothes."

[Bari Jo]

This reaction worries me the most with family, it's like supporting, but not supporting.  I really think they want to support, but have some other influence telling them to not.  It's kinda like when we all suppressed our true selves.  We wanted to let her out, but something was causes us not to.  Until that other influence is dealt with, we couldn't let her come out.  I think there is another influence working your mom.  Talk it out.  It probably can be cleared, or at least more defined to attack later.

Bari Jo

[Artesia]

Kids are amazing at this stuff.. It took my sisters two young daughters only a single slightly awkward visit before it was all hugs, fun and games again. They do not care unless its made very clear to them that they SHOULD by parents or other adults. You should express this to your mother, I hope she will understand and come around.

This, so much this.  My sister in law and brother had reservations about how my niece would handle it.  They talked to her about it one day.  My brother said that she yelled no, but then he told me that she doesn't like change in general.  I guess she gets mad if they take a different route to a place she is familiar with, than the one she is use to.  She didn't have a single problem meeting me the other day as Claire for the first time.