OPINION:
My wife and I are blessed with five grandchildren. They are a special pleasure because, at least in theory, it is very much easier to be a grandparent than a parent.
Today, however, there are uncommon and painful challenges to being a grandparent, as we observe a disheartening assault on the youngest among us being conducted by the very people who are supposed to be the guardians of those little ones. My wife and I are encountering just such a challenge.
The administrators of the nursery school of a reputable and venerable religious institution in suburban Washington where our 3-year-old granddaughter is enrolled recently sent a notice to the parents of the children who attend the school. The notice informed the parents that a 4-year-old boy also enrolled in the nursery school “is in the middle of a social transition and is identifying as a girl.” It further indicated that this child would henceforth appear in school dressed in female attire and should be referred to by a feminine first name and feminine pronouns.
Importantly, the notice emphasized that the child’s mother is fully supportive of the boy’s decision to be considered a girl. The school added to its notice the text of a WhatsApp from the boy’s mother, which stated that her child “has been talking about gender identity for a long time.” The mother’s posting went on to inform the school that “today is the day that she wants to go to school and to introduce herself to everyone as [girl’s name] and identify as a girl.”
The school’s notice concluded, with seeming pride, that it was “thankful” for the community’s “ongoing support” and that it was focused on ensuring that the child — the 4-year-old who is allegedly in transition — would continue “to receive the support she needs as she explores herself.”
As grandparents, this notification struck us as a bridge too far. As preposterous as the notice was and as worrisome as the “support” of the child’s mother is, our focus shifted away from the ludicrous quality of the matter. Instead, we began to focus on our family. We contemplated both the short-term and long-term impact that the boy’s comportment might have on our 3-year-old granddaughter.
A little girl, innocent of the political and social turmoil that seems to buffet us every day, does not need to be forced to encounter the emotional and psychological vagaries of an impressionable child, likely prompted by the political visions of his mother. We determined to take up the defense of our granddaughter’s innocence, in full agreement with our daughter, her mother, who appears at least as disturbed as we are.
My wife wrote a letter to the director of the nursery school, with a copy to the clergy of the institution that houses the nursery school, in protest of the notice and of the purported position of the school. While the director did not respond, one of the members of the institution’s clergy soon called my wife. He was very defensive. He claimed that it was important to be protective of the gender choices of the young and, disappointingly, that the policies of his denomination fully supported this position.
Disregarding literally thousands of years of theological arguments, this clergyman and many others have seemingly been swept away from sacred tradition by the torrent of proto-scientific and unsubstantiated gibberish that is now accepted as a kind of gospel among liberals of all stripes.
By coincidence, as all of this was going on, I was in sub-Saharan Africa and then Paris for client meetings. I could not resist mentioning our granddaughter’s situation to my local interlocutors. The reaction was unanimous. Initially, there was muffled laughter and disbelief. But when I insisted that this was really happening, the reaction became serious and laced with powerful pushback. Most people ascribed the situation I was describing to a kind of mental illness — not of the child, but of his mother and of the proponents of her position. There was universal agreement that a 4-year-old child could not be in a position to make decisions to alter their gender and should, of course, never be encouraged to do so.
The evident conclusion is that while individual parents may be free to allow their children to engage in confusing and possibly self-destructive behavior, there are limits to what should be allowed communally. Attempting to foist this kind of confusion on other children must not be allowed. Parents, grandparents and the school administrators who have been entrusted with the critical task of guiding the young must not allow their charges to be hijacked to promote the left-wing political or social agenda of others.
The potential harm that this nursery school could cause our granddaughter has deeply troubled us. We do not intend to passively allow this to occur. The kind of lunacy that seems to be gripping such a large sector of our society must now be confronted.
The British poet Rudyard Kipling, in a poem intended for his son written more than a century ago, expressed the importance of keeping “your head when all about you are losing theirs.” I take heart from those words. Even if we should be the last to keep our heads, as grandparents of a precious 3-year-old girl, my wife and I will do all that we can to protect her, her sister and her cousins against the growing loss of reason that sadly seems pervasive and which is tragically endangering our young and, now, especially, our very young.
• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. His book, “Lobbying for Equality, Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights During the French Revolution,” was published by HUC Press earlier this year.
