[collingreen]

I think this is a very important post; thank you for writing it. In general, if your kids don't trust you then fixing that should be your first priority before you start pointing fingers everywhere but inward.

Parenting looks very very hard and I'm not implying this is easy - being worthy of trust is one of the hardest things in all our relationships. I do, however, think people need to reckon with the fact that a lot of the time the bad thing teachers are protecting kids from (or at least trying to) is their home life.

This is a bad solution to a bad problem. I dont think teachers are qualified to do this nor do I think they are in a position to do it safely but I do think it is important to help kids get out from under abuse.

I think more community would be a better general solution so it isn't just an underpaid, overworked, and opinionated government employee vs an underpaid, overworked, and opinionated parent with the kid crushed in the middle with no outside help they can turn to.

[JumpCrisscross]

> if your kids don't trust you then fixing that should be your first priority before you start pointing fingers everywhere but inward

While the present state of Musk and his daughter's relationship is detestable, I don't think we can conclude they didn't try--in private--to mend the relationship before she concluded it was a lost cause.

[beaglesss]

There's some interesting behavioral evolutionary calculus that might be interesting here though. If you find out your kid is trans there is a much lower chance they pass on your genes, could it be natural for the relationship to be more likely to break down after that?

I would think evolution would tend to more or less force the most parental resources to go to the most likely propagation of those genes. Especially if there are lots of other children to vie for attention and resources.

[JumpCrisscross]

> If you find out your kid is trans there is a much lower chance they pass on your genes, could it be natural for the relationship to be more likely to break down after that?

While we know transexuality—people having gender identities or conforming to gender norms other than those corresponding to their assigned sex—is preserved across millennia and disparate cultures [1], it’s unclear if it generalises beyond humans [2].

We do, however, see homosexuality across both time and cultures in humans and in animals [3]. That preservation strongly implies evolutionary benefits, whether as a side effect or—more likely, given its strong presentation in social animals—group selection.

So no, I don’t think there is evolutionary pressure for parents to reject trans (or gay) kids. Especially when they’re in a resource rich state.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexual#Historical_under...

[2] https://daily.jstor.org/transgender-proclivities-in-animals/

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_anima...

[beaglesss]

I'm not sure history shows parents have on average been comparatively kind to gay children either.

Instinct is definitely one possible explanation for a behavior spanning so much geography and cultures.

[JumpCrisscross]

> not sure history shows parents have on average been comparatively kind to gay children

Historically parents weren’t kind to any children because they were costly and died a lot. (Almost no ancient culture condemned—as we do today—a parent exposing an unwanted baby, for instance, for reasons ranging from birth defect to family rivalry [1]. This behaviour, too, in conserved in animals [2].)

There was a good thread on this a few days ago [3], but TL;DR gay stigmatisation is more recent than homosexuality (or trans sexuality). The behaviour that is older and better conserved across geography and cultures is the underlying one, not the negative backlash. (Also conserved: bad parents.)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide_(zoology)

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40977331

[beaglesss]

Using absolute across the board lesser investment to dismiss comparative investment is a bit sloppy and a red herring.

The thread you reference is criminality and infanticide, not parental prioritization of kids old enough to be known as gay/trans. I suspect most people don't know if their infant is gay/trans. I also assert there is a difference between prioritizing relationships and resources on a parent to child level and views on what should be illegal.

A gay or trans person probably has as much evolutionary value to society as anyone else, the fallacy you've fallen into from your prior post is to confuse that population level dynamic with the parents drive to pass on their particular genes.

It seems absolutely insane to me that it isn't even possible to consider the parent has an instinct to prioritize relationships and resources with children most likely to reproduce. It seems some want to work hard to make sure it isn't seen as a reasonable hypothesis, because if it were those feelings would be as valid and baked in as homosexual feelings.

[etblg]

The motherfucker has 11 kids _that we know about_, maybe he should stop being so worried about passing on his genes Nick Cannon-style, and more worried about being a father to the ones he has.