One of the biggest questions we get is about the boys. How did they take it? Do they care? What do they call her now that she’s not daddy? Instead of putting specific questions with their answers, since so many of the questions are intertwined, it’s going to be all mashed together.
Sarah has been feminine at home for about two years or so in front of the kids. The level of femininity had picked up as the time has gone on. This has been done on purpose because those of you who know Toby, know that he needs change to occur slowly. This is the kid who used to freak out when I got my eyebrows done. Well, now I can show up with a new tattoo and he doesn’t even blink an eye. Our house motto has always been “you be you” this was actually adopted for Morgan (a different post later) but it really stands true, even more so for Sarah. We just made sure to always be honest with the boys and talk them through the process along the way. While the decision to transition was primarily on Sarah, we made it a family decision. The boys have been involved the entire time.
We always ask them if they have questions. Sometimes they ask and sometimes they don’t and that’s ok. But no matter what, both are entirely supportive. While they haven’t thought things completely through like we have, kids are so adaptable. Being yourself is just so something engrained in their upbringing that this is no different than daddy doing the same thing.
That brings me into her new parent name. We let the boys choose (with some guidance) what they’d call her. They choose Eema. Eema is Hebrew for mother, so it fit. Well, Morgan chose Eema. Toby has taken a little longer to take to it because, well, CHANGE. Most of the time, Morgan remembers to call her that… I’m talking, 95% of the time… And honestly, he was the one reminding ME towards the beginning. Now, it just comes out naturally by me and Morgan is pretty good too. Toby is just Toby and won’t do it yet, although, this morning, for the first time, he “slipped” and said Eema for the first time. That was pretty exciting!
I’d say, the biggest issue so far with them adapting actually came from Morgan, surprisingly. About two months ago, he got really upset and started crying and wouldn’t tell us what was wrong other than it was about daddy (still daddy at the time). We tried getting it out of him, but didn’t want to play the 20 Questions game for fear of putting other upsetting things in his head that he may not have even thought of yet… Turned out he was just worried she wouldn’t want to play Minecraft anymore, or know about computers, ride bikes and do the other things that “daddy” always did with him. After we both let out a sigh of relief, we assured him that just because her outside will change, her inside will not.
If you’re wondering how to best talk to kids about this, what we found worked the best was, explaining that her brain and body don’t match. She has a female brain but a male body. She wants them BOTH to be female to finally be herself. Kids get that. Kids are resilient. Honestly, it’s a little crazy to think that one day, relatively soon actually, the boys will only know her as female, and they’ll spend far more of their lives with two moms than a mom and dad. Crazy.
The boys have adjusted well. They don’t notice the stares or anything. I’m sure problems will arise, and we’ve planned our approach in case anything anything happens. We know they may lose friends because of parent views and we’ve discussed it. We’ve learned that kids are easy, it’s parents that are trickier. So far, so good.
Feel free to ask questions 😀
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