First, a warning to my dear readers. Please read this article on an empty stomach and when you are in a comparatively calm, placid mood. The subject matter is so nauseating, infuriating, and outrageous, that I do not want to be held liable (here goes that attorney in me!) for the consequences. Having said all this, let me be your Virgil, o dear Dantes, on the trip into the modern Hell that is American parenting.

One of my neighborhood newspapers, the Times Ledger recently published an article called “Queens Family Raises Two Transgender Kids”. Like tens of thousands of other American couples, “Jeff and Mary” (pseudonyms adopted by the newspaper to protect their “privacy”) adopted three kids (two boys and a girl) from Russia and Kazakhstan. 

The younger boy Gabriel suddenly announced, at the mature and cognizant age of four, that he “wanted to be a girl”. And what did his wonderful parents do? They told him to “be what you want to be” and decided to raise him as a girl, “Gabriella”. After all as Papa “Jeff” explained, his son was “a gentle boy” who preferred dolls to toy guns. Later, when their daughter Jamie expressed her desire, at the adult age of six, to become a boy, the parents immediately acceded. At least they did not have to change her name. 

Now, did anyone with half a brain, be it a teacher, a school administrator, a psychologist, or a doctor explain to these so-called parents the consequences of the path they were taking? Nope. You see, the parents claim to have “sought advice from counselors, psychiatrists, and doctors” and were seemingly encouraged in their wretched pursuit. And the school to which their children go was nothing but supportive. 

Now, the proud papa takes his kids to the Queens Pride Parade, where they watch half-naked deviants, psychopaths, and assorted perverts frolic. “We always try to talk to the kids about it and make them proud of who they are”, gushed “Jeff”. One begins to wonder whether the recent Russian laws limiting adoption by American couples have a point? Better to suffer the cold and poverty of a Russian orphanage than to have your very soul destroyed in a comfy, middle class American neighborhood.

The reactions to this wretched story exposed a clear fault line between Americans and former Soviets. American readers gushed over that the parents were “open-minded and supportive” and wished that “all people be like them”. On the other hand, former Soviet readers were horrified and disgusted. “Stupidity, how can a 4 year old child decide anything? [What] if he wants to be or become a rabbit or a kitten?”, commented a man from Kazakhstan.

Another recent article, this one from the charmingly named Huffpost Gay Voices is called “I Know My 9-Year-Old Son’s ‘Type’: Pretty Boys With Dark Hair”, written by another “Jeff” who describes himself as a “Husband, father, and intergalactic being of energy only on this plane of existence for a brief time”. Now this wonderful American dad celebrates the fact that his “gay” nine-year-old son is attracted to handsome dark-haired teenagers. 

“[I]t is so cute to see him when the right kind of boy walks into his life”; “Slim, fit, dark-haired boys with strikingly pretty faces just set his heart all aflutter”; “But luckily, I didn’t have to worry what this high-school boy might think, since I know that my in-laws and nieces have a “no homophobes allowed” policy when it comes to their friends”, are just some of the things the intergalactic being known as “Jeff” celebrates about his son. Will he later celebrate his son’s “attraction” to older men who lure him into their cars and apartments?

There is a provision in the New York state penal code called “endangering the welfare of a child”, which states:

A person is guilty of endangering the welfare of a child when:

1. He or she knowingly acts in a manner likely to be injurious to the

physical, mental or moral welfare of a child less than seventeen years…


Does not this law describe exactly what the “Jeffs” and “Marys” of America are doing to their kids? In a sane society, they would long ago be brought up on charges and their parental rights would be yanked away from them in an instant. Instead, they are being celebrated as heroes and held up as an example to other parents.