Compassion for Modern-Day Parents: "For many parents, the world is a terrifying place of shape-shifting relativism, where even trusted authorities may be the enemy, and friends may turn on you in a flash if you seem to be on the wrong side of some issue.".

• Author: Puterbaugh, Dolores T.
• Position: LIFE IN AMERICA

I TEND TO BE critical of much modem parenting. I flatter myself that this comes from a ferocious protectiveness of children. Perhaps I am just old enough to say cranky things about "young people these days." No doubt a future tirade will strike again at irresponsible parenting, but today I am responding to a very clear, spiritual message to have more compassion for parents.

There are things that are harder about parenting in this era, and they are not the things so many people grumble about as "adulting," like folding laundry. The threats to children often are harder to see. They could be, and generally are, just about everywhere.

The "experts" you are supposed to trust could be on your side, or not. Our local newspaper is hysterical that parents want to "ban books" when they just really would prefer their young teenagers not read graphic sexual content in school. They are not suggesting the books be banned. We discussed this editorial trend over breakfast. "Fourteen-year-olds don't need to read A Clockwork Orange" my husband remarked, to which I replied, "I don't need to read A Clockwork Orange." Aversion to sexual violence does not make one a Nazi.

With increasing numbers of parents apparently book-restricting extremists, experts deduce they must protect children from parents. Thus, many parents learn long after the fact that a child is using a new name, or is experimenting with gender identity, or using birth control, all with the tacit, or overt, approval of school and health professionals.

Perhaps you youngish moms remember trying to get your bangs to stick straight up from your forehead one day and wearing a splash of pastels, and begging to be allowed to dye your hair black and wear black leather with a dash of purple the next day. Times have changed. Your child, bored and feeling bad about herself, dives into the online universe. There, suggestions may be as benign as dyeing her hair black and dressing like the princess of darkness. More likely, she will be encouraged to cut herself, starve herself, kill herself, or to doubt biology.

So, if, for example, your little Alicia decided to experiment with being Alex, odds are the school personnel shrugged and went along with it. You might not know until you came to the regular parent-teacher conferences and tried to clarify you were here for Alicia, not whomever Alex is. "Oh, 'they' decided to be called Alex months ago," a nonchalant school employee will reply. "Of course, we assumed you...