Sunny Vacation, Cold Valley, More Irreversible Damage
With chicken season behind us, we took advantage of the more flexible season and took off to Lake Norman in NC for a long weekend vacation with the George family. It was just what we needed. I don’t really have a longing to travel. There’s no place I’d rather be than Rich Valley, but it was nice to have a change of scenery. To get away, take a break, and just play and relax. Our weekend getaway was certainly more enjoyable and entertaining with the George family.
You never know what kind of weather to expect in October, but we could not have picked a better weekend on the lake. Highs around 80 everyday. Sitting around the campfire every night. Swimming, games, storytelling. According to the kids, the highlight was exploring on the kayaks and paddle boards to a small island a little over a mile away from the rental house. Hasten wore his life jacket almost every waking hour. If we would’ve let him, he probably would’ve slept in it too. Funny kid. We’re around our kids all the time, but this trip allowed us to spend time with them in a different way, outside the monotony of farm life, homeschooling, and the constant pace of staying on the run.
On our drive down to the lake through the mountains, we we’re awed by the color in the leaves. On our way back, most of the leaves had fallen. How fast seasons change. The 80 degree weather did not follow us back to Virginia. We returned to cold. Swim suits put away and out with the long-johns and toboggans. Wednesday’s high was just shy of 40 with the low getting below 20. I hauled and split another load of wood. The freezing cold nights meant draining the hoses and water lines going out to the pigs in the woods.
We filled beef herd shares on Monday. Filling pork herd shares is on the agenda for today, along with getting Amy’s coolers packed and ready for the Abingdon Farmers Market tomorrow. For the reminder of the year, the Abingdon Market is from 10:00-noon on Saturday mornings. Amy is looking forward to sleeping in till 7:00 on Saturdays now.
I finished listening to “Irreversible Damage” by Abigail Shrier. The medical professionals’ affirmative response to this social craze is mind-blowing. The author points out how teenage girls are prone to struggle with identity, referencing back to the anorexic phase a couple decades back. If a girl struggling with anorexia goes to the doctor for help, what kind of doctor would say to the girl, “Well darlin, if you think starving yourself to death will make you happy, then by all means, eat no more.”?? Says no doctor ever. But this is the way (some) doctors are handling the transgender wave. Except the stakes and the $$$ are now much higher. One can fully recover from anorexia. Recovering from the transgender road they encourage these youngsters to go down is another story. Here’s a few quotes concerning the affirmative care given and permanent consequences that come with it:
“But the new affirmative care standard of mental health professionals is a different matter entirely. It surpasses sympathy and leaps straight to demanding that mental health professionals adopt their patients’ beliefs of being in the wrong body. Affirmative therapy compels therapists to a endorse a falsehood…”
“Agreeing with the patient’s self-assessment has never been a mental health expert’s job.. In fact, it still isn’t the mental health professional’s job with regard to any other psychiatric condition. But it is undeniably the current professional mandate of therapists and psychiatrists, and even endocrinologists and pediatricians, to accept and affirm the self-diagnosis of gender dysphoric patients.”
“Once used in the chemical castration of sex offenders, Lupron is the go-to puberty blocker… There are, as yet, no reliable studies that show Lupron as safe for these kids… Nevertheless, endocrinologists have been administering Lupron off label to gender dysphoric minors in ever rising numbers for a decade.”
“When you’ve stopped puberty with puberty blockers and go straight to cross sex hormones, you absolutely guarantee that you will be infertile. When the gender clinicians pushed Kathrine to start her pre-teen child on hormone blockers, they were proposing that she put Maddie on a path toward infertility. Her faith in the gender therapists fell apart. Kathrine could not understand how psychologists would encourage this, how doctors would allow it, or why medical professional standards would permit parents to consent to eliminating such a vital human capacity on behalf of their minor children. And yet, right in front of her, schools were encouraging it, parents were going along with it, the media was celebrating it, and everyone was acting as if this was perfectly kosher.”
There are many things we can point to and blame for this detrimental trend. While smart phones may not be the root cause of the problem, Shrier is certain that iPhones and social media have accelerated and amplified it. What’s her advice?
“Don’t get your kid a smart phone… in terms of obviousness, this one’s not even hard. It practically writes itself. Nearly every novel problem teenagers face traces itself back to 2007 and the introduction of Steve Job’s iPhone. In fact, the explosion in self harm can be so precisely pinpointed to the introduction of this one device that researchers have little doubt that it is the cause.”
“We know that social media makes people anxious and sad. We know that as a group, adolescent girls are the hardest hit by its negative effects.”
“Don’t relinquish your authority as the parent. You’re the parent for a reason. Don’t be afraid to push back. Your adolescent can handle it. You don’t have to go along with everything she comes up with, even claims about sexuality or identity.”
Have a good week.
Will