Hmm. Sounds to me like this story is a non-story, just a retelling of family drama played out in hundreds, maybe thousands, of US households every day, but with the twist of CPS involvement.
The kid sounds like a manipulative git, a bullshit artist. I say that because if a teen wants to kill themselves, then washing down a fist-full of pain pills with drain cleaner is a good way to get 'er done. Bullshitting about it, not so much.
One might ask how a mere 14 year old could become such a consummate bullshit artist, but I submit that we have only to look no further than the step-mom for the educational source. She's spun this tale up into something that the facts of the matter don't seem to be in support of - another bullshit artist in the family, from which the kid could draw inspiration and education in the wiles of bullshitting.
The teen years are years of uncertainty, trying to find one's own place in the world, and testing for limits, then pushing them to see if they are real or imaginary limits. This case looks to me like a dose of rebellion against parents and would-be parents, finding and testing those limits, and the step mom got butt-hurt by that testing, perceived it as flaunting her alleged authority, and over-reacted to it.
She's butt-hurt that the kid won't let her rule the roost in the way that she'd like to become accustomed to. She has no concept of real authority, and covers that deficiency with authoritarianism, which is not at all the same thing. Then, she starts spinning up the bullshit mill in order to cover THAT, and try to lay the blame for her own shortcomings on the State.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Then the MSM gets hold of the story, tweaks it into an epic of Biblical proportions pitting "good" against "evil" in the eyes of a segment of society in order to get them ramped up, too.
Meanwhile, we all are gonna need hip-waders to get through the field of bullshit being laid down.
All because one kid wanted to reject the authority of one non-parent... or, more properly, wanted to reject the authoritarianism of one non-parent.
I harbor serious doubts that "trans therapy" is even an issue here, and am certain that it is not at the root core of the kerfuffle. It's an excuse. Whose excuse is the question,.. but that's a question I don't even care to ask, since it seems pretty peripheral to the problem at the core.
Shit and begorrah! Have none of these people ever raised a teenager? Probably not, or they'd know two things - how to raise a teenager, and not to try to bullshit those who have.
Tempest, meet teapot.
I place the blame here on pseudo-mom, and maybe even to a greater extent on silent-dad, for letting her have her head with authoritarian fantasies regarding his own child. There are times when men should stay quiet. This is not one of them. Next thing you know, he'll be letting her get away with starching his boxer drawers, if he isn't already. Fortune favors the bold, not the Milquetoast.
There are no winners in that scenario.
ETA: That woman has a lot of goddamned nerve calling the biological mother "unfit", given her own spectacular failure at parenting. I guess it's easy to trash the silent folks, but a wise man once said "the meek shall inherit the Earth"... and, in this case, maybe her own kid, too.
.
The kid sounds like a manipulative git, a bullshit artist. I say that because if a teen wants to kill themselves, then washing down a fist-full of pain pills with drain cleaner is a good way to get 'er done. Bullshitting about it, not so much.
One might ask how a mere 14 year old could become such a consummate bullshit artist, but I submit that we have only to look no further than the step-mom for the educational source. She's spun this tale up into something that the facts of the matter don't seem to be in support of - another bullshit artist in the family, from which the kid could draw inspiration and education in the wiles of bullshitting.
The teen years are years of uncertainty, trying to find one's own place in the world, and testing for limits, then pushing them to see if they are real or imaginary limits. This case looks to me like a dose of rebellion against parents and would-be parents, finding and testing those limits, and the step mom got butt-hurt by that testing, perceived it as flaunting her alleged authority, and over-reacted to it.
She's butt-hurt that the kid won't let her rule the roost in the way that she'd like to become accustomed to. She has no concept of real authority, and covers that deficiency with authoritarianism, which is not at all the same thing. Then, she starts spinning up the bullshit mill in order to cover THAT, and try to lay the blame for her own shortcomings on the State.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Then the MSM gets hold of the story, tweaks it into an epic of Biblical proportions pitting "good" against "evil" in the eyes of a segment of society in order to get them ramped up, too.
Meanwhile, we all are gonna need hip-waders to get through the field of bullshit being laid down.
All because one kid wanted to reject the authority of one non-parent... or, more properly, wanted to reject the authoritarianism of one non-parent.
I harbor serious doubts that "trans therapy" is even an issue here, and am certain that it is not at the root core of the kerfuffle. It's an excuse. Whose excuse is the question,.. but that's a question I don't even care to ask, since it seems pretty peripheral to the problem at the core.
Shit and begorrah! Have none of these people ever raised a teenager? Probably not, or they'd know two things - how to raise a teenager, and not to try to bullshit those who have.
Tempest, meet teapot.
I place the blame here on pseudo-mom, and maybe even to a greater extent on silent-dad, for letting her have her head with authoritarian fantasies regarding his own child. There are times when men should stay quiet. This is not one of them. Next thing you know, he'll be letting her get away with starching his boxer drawers, if he isn't already. Fortune favors the bold, not the Milquetoast.
There are no winners in that scenario.
ETA: That woman has a lot of goddamned nerve calling the biological mother "unfit", given her own spectacular failure at parenting. I guess it's easy to trash the silent folks, but a wise man once said "the meek shall inherit the Earth"... and, in this case, maybe her own kid, too.
.