Seriously, y'all, the struggle is real. Parenting a trans teenager is not for the faint of heart. My husband and I find ourselves teetering on this tightrope daily, struggling to keep the balance just right. How much to we rein her in and stick with our original parenting plan with regards to phone time, electronics in general, manners, hygiene, etc. and how much slack do we give, knowing that she needs to process, has issues with dysphoria, needs to connect with her network. Sometimes my husband and I don't agree on the best course of action, but generally we come to a middle ground and make decisions that feel good to both of us.

Yesterday our middle child, E, came to us and told us quietly that he saw C watching anime in the middle of the night - he saw her as he passed by on his way to the loo. C's use of electronics has always been a tricky situation for us. We haven't wanted to outright ban her phone in her room because she has generally shown us that she is responsible with it. She's an A student, involved in several extra curricular activities and a pleasant, good kid. With the revelation that C is trans and the subsequent knowledge that she needs to research, reach out to her support network and decompress in the same ways we need to, we have become more lax with our rules. She has had some flexibility to use her phone in her room pasted our usual 8:30pm, but this is a piss take. Anime at 2:00am is a very clear violation of our trust.

Not wanting to involve our middle kiddo, we decided we would just tell C we are having a family reboot of the rules. Both my husband and I could do with more boundaries, ourselves. We told C and her brothers that we were going back to no electronics after 8:30 and that phones will now be turned in to us to avoid temptation. Cue raging teenager.

C predictably lost the plot and yelled and screamed much as we expected her to. "We just want to help you avoid temptation so we'll be collecting all the phones at 8:30."

"WHAT?! WHY?! YOU DON'T TRUST ME! I'VE GIVEN YOU NO REASON NOT TO TRUST ME AND I NEEEEEEED MY PHONE."

"Why do you need your phone after 8:30?"

"I USE IT FOR MY ALARM AND STUFF." "Your alarm is never set. I wake you up three times every morning and then set your alarm for you so you actually get up while I take T to the bus stop."

"THAT'S NOT TRUE! I ALWAYS HAVE MY ALARM SET! AND I READ ON MY PHONE."

"Well, now you can go back to books. I think you'll survive."

You get the gist. This went on for awhile. But here's what got us - like a knife to the heart.

"YOU NEVER SUPPORT ME!"

Whoa! Hold up there, buddy! We never support you?! Are you $#@*& kidding me? We have done nothing but support you!

I know she didn't mean it, and to be fair, she retracted it straight away, knowing she had gone too far. But it hurt. We don't want C ever to feel that our support comes with strings. That she's not allowed to disagree with us or be angry with us or that she owes us anything because we support her. We support her because we love her and because we do trust her. But trusting a 14 year old to make choices that will effect her whole life, and the lives of everyone in the family, is tricky. I'm not going to lie, there are times we wonder if we should just say "No, you can't do it that way." So far, we haven't. We have talked through various issues and made suggestions, but we have really trusted her to lead us on the journey.

Before this transition began, we always trusted C but we had a much bigger hand in every decision. Now we are so far outside of our experiences that we are truly following her lead - a strange turn for us as parents. How do you trust this child, whose brain is not fully formed, to guide an entire family through this process? Yes, we have a therapist and, believe me, we have consulted every possible research study, support group, online resource, etc to help us along the way, but ultimately it has to be her. So to hear those words -- You never support me -- felt like it was all for nothing. Like we should just pack our bags, say "stuff it" and give up.

The thing is, sometimes we're looking for more concrete information than she can give. And being mindful that she doesn't even know exactly what she wants is so important. That, even though she is guiding us, sometimes it's ok to say to her, "Hey, do you know which way you're going here or should we maybe stop and take a break for a few minutes; have a granola bar and a swig from the old canteen before we decide which path to take?" It's our job to support her enough to help her realize when she doesn't have the answers and that it's okay not to have the answers. It's our job to bite our tongues and sit on our hands and shut the hell up when she does or says something stupid unless there are real consequences. At the end of the day, she's still a teenager trying to figure out the world. Albeit, a very twisty turny, topsy turvey, wibbly wobbly (dare I say "Timey Wimey"?) world. So, on this occasion when she said we never support her, we reminded her that we love her no matter what and will be with her every single step of this journey. But we also reminded her that sometimes words hurt and unfortunately she will soon be on the receiving end of hurtful words so she needs to be particularly mindful of her own.

So far I don't think it's helped. Today she has communicated mostly in grunts but hey, that's a step up somehow, isn't it? Isn't it?!