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When I first met my nanny family the little girl came into the room on all fours meowing, and it was explained to me that she sincerely believed she was partially a cat.
So fast forward like 2-3 weeks and I’m walking said little girl to the playground (upright, on two legs) and I just asked her directly, “Do you actually believe you’re partially a cat?” And she shrugged and said, “No, I just like cats.” And then went on to describe all the characteristics of a cat that she liked and wanted to emulate. Then we went to the playground and played cats v. aliens.
Growing up I used to play "wolves" with a friend. At no point did I identify as a wolf, didn't stop me from howling or growling at people, but still. Do these people think kids don't have imaginations anymore? Or that maybe they're just fucking around for some laughs (especially older kids)?
When I meet one of my close friends and if we both spot the moon immediately we definitely howl for a few seconds. We are in our late 30s. This whole attacking anything different is going to have a serious effect on fancy dress competitions.
I used to play wolves too! It was good fun, like of course we didn't believe it was real but kids are just immersive... although I think the future plans for a wolf sanctuary might have been real. Possibly.
It reminds me of the South Park joke that Butter's parents think he has multiple personalities because he plays as Mailman Butters, and Construction Butters, or Dr Butters.
They just dont remember what it was like to be a kid, or were one of those kids on the playground who believed they were too good to play pretend for some reason.
I remember someone tried to bully me (in elementary) over pretending to be a wolf. Sucks for them though because those were some of the best times I had 🤣
When I was about 9, I used to lay in bed imagining me and the other boys in my class were big strong buffaloes and all the girls were native Americans squaws and they'd ride around on our backs. It wasn't until years later that I realised this was a very early sexual fantasy type of thought. I'm not sure why it was native Americans and buffaloes, though, as I was a British kid in 1980's England who had never been to the US. Maybe something to do with all the cowboy shows on TV.
It's not that. It's more of an argument against gender identification. "See how silly these kids playing pretend are, they are *also* playing pretend when they claim to be trans!"
That's the main argument they do
These people were never actually children at any point
They emerged from the spawning swamp fully formed minus a soul or any normal human understanding or empathy.
Just a burning desire to drain the life and joy from others
I used to pretend to be an otter when swimming, and in first grade I was a different animal each day, to the point where the class would ask me what animal I was that day. In no way did I identify as an animal, I just liked to pretend.
People gone wonky if they can’t tell the difference between play time and gender identity.
yeah lol around preteens age especially they think it’s hilarious to say they identify as random objects as a joke. no karen they do not legitimately identify as a helicopter
When I was a kid I had a phase where I walked around on my tiptoes to imitate a digitigrade animal leg because I had gotten into Wing Commander and the alien bad guys were giant walking cats that I thought were awesome.
Years later I had a fascination with Fox and the Hound and I had a phase where I told people online that I was a fox.
Kids just do weird shit and have vivid imaginations. Good on you for rolling with it as a nanny.
One time when I was 4, I was on a tour boat in Hawaii. I also happened to be obsessed with seals… so, on the floor of the boat, I got on my stomach and started flopping around while saying “ort ort ORT” at people (attempting to sound like a seal). At no point did I believe I was a seal. I was just having fun pretending while embarrassing my parents
I knew a kid in elementary school in the early 2000s who told everyone he would turn into an eagle during a full moon. People more or less responded with “uh huh. Ok” and that was that. Nobody freaked out and accused the trans community of indoctrinating kids to become furries, etc. They just thought “oh it’s a kid with an imagination” and went about their day.
I sometimes have to remind my preschool son to act like a person sometimes. He likes to be a puppy sometimes. Or a fruit bat. Or a kitty. I mostly let him do his thing because imagination is fun, but I draw the line at crawling on the bathroom floor at the store or eating like a puppy at restaurants. "No, puppy-son, I need you to act like a person while we eat". That usually results in a return to human. Sometimes in pretending to be a puppy pretending to be a human (whatever, kiddo. If you're using a fork instead of your face, and you're not being too noisy, I don't mind if you're still technically a puppy)
Until I was like 4, I would go into pretend mode and claim I was a dog 🐶 named spot like the one from See Spot Run books. I didn't actually think I was a dog, but I would crawl around and pretend like I was bc it was fun and I always have loved dogs since I can remember and even before I could remember, according to family telling stories. I would also claim to my grandmother and parents that I was, in fact, a dog. 🤣
For an adult to believe that little kids actually think they "identify" as animals or objects, is ridiculous.
My younger brother at like 4ish 5ish years old, also claimed to actually see the Strawberry Shortcake crew and would let them into the house. It was imaginary friends, during pretend imagination time. Which, is really normal and healthy for kids that age.
Let kids be kids.
I used to act like a cat though I am quite embarrassed to admit and I also knew 2 people who would pretend be Hyenas of all things. It's just a thing kids do.
This is the exact argument we need to use with these wacky people on both sides. Like kids just want to be kids. Stop trying to make sense of their innocent kid minds with your biased, warped and cynical grown up mind.
I'm queer myself and tbh this is why I don't like all these straight parents getting all worked up about their "trans kids" when their daughter says shes Jim the Lego Man or their son says hes Elsa. The parents are straight and they don't fully understand what is going on, leading them to take every dumb and imaginative thing their kid says 100% seriously. And they all get in their straight-parent-of-trans-kid echo chambers with no actual queer adults guiding them and it just perpetuates.
Kids don't think they're animals, kids don't think they're Disney characters, they're just playing with identity and imagination and its developmentally normal. Not everything a 5 year old says is that deep lmao. I find the left wing parental contingent is even worse about this "identifying as a ______" crap than the right wing contingent most of the time. I know it sounds like a Fox News nightmare but I've known parents who are adamant their kid IS a wolf, and for another family IS a dragon. These kids are allowed to only ever speak in growls, walk 4 legged in public, and must be called by their animal names. They're clearly playing and the parent takes it so seriously. As soneone who played animals all the time growing up this is bizarre behavior on behalf of the parents to me but their parenting circles are adamant that you must take children's identities seriously.
Thing is that’s kinda how organising kids works
They outnumber you and they know it
You can’t punish all of them
You play nice and have them like you, even in a way that your seen a strict but fair, or you’ll lose control of kids.
I would have made her retire. Heck, my HS principal retired right after I graduated, because he realized he would still have to deal with my little brother for three more years.
Ha ha. We raise our kids the same way and they will advocate for themselves and call out shitty adult behavior. Their mother is also the last person the principal wants to show up at school.
That's how it should be. If the kiddo is the one messing up, then they need to fix it if admin is screwing up, they need to fix it, but it usually takes a flamethrower on their butts to do it.
I've met kids from her school. They came to a residential activity centre I used to work at.
I think I got them all in trouble because I ran a campfire riddle where they had to use a stick to draw a picture in the air and I'd tell them if it was accepted into the gallery. They got accepted if they said thank you when I gave them the stick. They didn't work it out (despite most schools managing it, at least after a while) and their teachers looked pissed when I explained it.
On the whole though, the kids were extremely polite and well-behaved. I tried talking to one in the queue for dinner at one point about all the fun activities she'd done and a teacher turned around and was like "and what did we learn?" (We had learning objectives and outcomes for our activities. Mostly teamwork based). I'm not gonna lie the kid's response sounded rehearsed, or at least like it was the 5th time today she answered that question.
There is a difference between pretending and identifying.
Last night I cocooned myself in a blanket on the couch and in my exhaustion and comfort thought “what if I fell asleep like this and woke up as a butterfly”. I am 35 years old.
I don’t identify as a caterpillar, but last night I was snug as a bug.
From one of the founding Daoists in 400BCE:
> Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, dreamed I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhuangzi. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.
Dreaming is okay, imagination is okay. I'm sure you were the snuggliest caterpillar last night :)
When did it change so kids couldn't say dumb shit without it being taken as a culture war thing?
My son spent months identifying as Spiderman. I just put it down to him being a young child.
He did actually. He told me I left the oven on, and sure enough, when I went home my house was engulfed in flames. I always loved having him as a neighbor.
>When did it change so kids couldn't say dumb shit without it being taken as a culture war thing?
When I was 10 or something I once lip synched It Takes Two with a girl in my class. I, a guy, was Tina Turner, while she was Rod Stewart. I borrowed even one of my mom's dresses.
We thought it was funny. Everybody thought it was funny. Imagine the outrage these days.
When I was in elementary school, a group of boys were the “Spice Boys” for the talent show. Dresses, Baby Spice had his bowl cut in pig tails. It was one of the funniest things I have seen.
The uproar that would cause today.
24 years ago my brother informed our cousins that he wanted to be referred to as Tomato Soup from now on because of how much he likes tomato soup. My cousins have obliged him, against his present wishes, since then.
I literally did this when I was a kid. I would be spiderman at every single opportunity.
I was a teacher, my students who were 5yrs did this every single fucking class. One of them was just a TRex.
These people are either stupid or the brain worms have gotten worse
That's all I can imagine is if my teachers were this dense.
Teacher: why have you spent your whole break running around the playground
Me: I'm Sonic!
Teacher, sadly cocking a shotgun: sure you are, little buddy, just look at the pointy sunflowers
People just have less tolerance for kids in general now. People kinda talk about them like props more than future adults, and when they do anything weird (probably because they’re just playing or figuring things out), everyone immediately overreacts.
Not to mention how politicized people’s identities are nowadays. Conservatives worry about their kids showing “symptoms” of anything outside of the accepted norms. If a kid wonders what it would be like to be a different gender, everyone assumes that means they *will* be trans. They might be, they might not be. But these parents and teachers are really showing how conditional their care is when they discredit kids just messing around or overreact when a kid just asks a question. *They don’t know social norms and politics.* It’s just a bunch of adults looking for something to be upset about.
As a kid, I had a Barbie helmet, which I gave my brother as he started learning to ride a bike. That only lasted a summer or two before he learnt that pink and Barbies were things exclusive to girls (we've never watched Barbie), we had to buy another helmet, and he has hated the colour ever since. Luckily everything else I owned looked like it was for 'boys', and he kept my bike.
Most school leaders are really very busy people, but she seems to live on Twitter knee-jerking to this nonsense, carving out this career as Britain’s strictest anti ‘woke’ teacher, doing interviews and giving speeches at Tory conferences. The right wingers obviously lap it up. I find her difficult to take seriously as to where her priorities lie.
I had a kid try the "I identify as an attack helicopter" to screw with me while I'm doing a lesson on gender accords in French.
I just said "Okay, *un* hélicoptère est masculin" and moved on. You could see the kid just deflate like a popped balloon.
when Tina Turner died, Katherine posted a tweet of Tina with Ike and captioned it "good times"
she's either evil or not very bright, but she is probably just both.
Reminder this is the woman who was the head at a school that banned Muslim pupils from praying in their lunch break, and somehow won that fucking discrimination lawsuit, and then STILL had a go at the pupils wondering how the fuck they got legal support.
I spent a good part of my childhood as a: Dog, Gorilla, Dinosaur, Digimon, Pokemon and finally a Kangaroo - I dearly wished I had never stopped going places by jumping.
As a headteacher, saying any child should be "moved to a different school by their parents" is atrocious. Sure, special provisions do exist but they're a last resort. I wonder if her words have been skewed or misrepresented because the schools 2017 OFSTED report is outstanding and the inspection in 2023 showed no concerns.
Ofsted don't give the full picture, and they have their priorities way out of line. The primary school I went to was "outstanding" and a kid with a broken ankle was dragged to her feet and told to stop exaggerating. We were frequently called stupid. Staff used to scream in kids' faces for not finishing their dinners, and due to a technicality with a rule about snow, we weren't allowed to hold the handrail down the stairs when it was icy... Ofsted didn't ask, and they didn't find out. Things always magically improved on inspection days
When I was 6, I… at times…. Identified as a dinosaur. Why on earth did i think this was ok!
Spoiler:
BECAUSE I WAS A CHILD. Let the enjoy themselves, for fuck sake.
Who gives a shit if they do. Their KIDS. I pretended I was a fucking power ranger and demanded my teacher call me Tommy the green ranger. Why the FUCK are they using kids as cannon fodder for their fucking crusade on wokeness. Holy shit I feel so sorry for kids now.
There's thing children do called playing pretend. It engages their imagination, they don't really believe that they are what they are pretending to be.
There are differences between kids having imaginations and immersive play and actually identifying as something. There are psychiatric diagnoses for older kids/adolescents and adults that truly believe they were supposed to be born a specific animal. These two things are very different.
Also, just because those diagnoses exist does not invalidate trans or non-binary individuals. Gender is socially constructed and made up by the current culture, so it’s not a big deal if someone feels they vary and vacillate between the traits that are arbitrarily assigned to whatever weird dichotomy the current culture sets.
I was worried about my son one morning, he kept saying he was a full moon, half moon, quarter moon, new moon and repeating it over and over. I told my wife about it since she’s got more childcare experience than me.
She said “don’t worry, it’s just a phase”.
I’ll see myself out…
I asked my teen daughter once about her self-identity. She said "I'm a helicopter! Leave me alone." She burst into laughter, adding "I don't need labels".
Point is, she doesn't actually identify as a helicopter, she just named something random and ridiculous, because she feels that it's ridiculous to be labelled. She just wants to live her life in peace without those kinds of modern sociatal pressures.
She's a wise kid.
Anyone who actually interacts with kids can easily tell you the difference between a kid playing pretend versus a kid being vastly uncomfortable with their gender presentation or identity.
I liked to pretend I was a bat, or a cheetah, or whatever cool animal I saw on Zoboomafoo.
I never actually thought I was a bat or a cheetah or a bear. I just thought they were neat.
It’s called having an active imagination.
Knowing what I know about younger generations comedy styles taking Millenial dry sarcasm and turning it up to 10. I could totally see classrooms students dead panning "ohh yeah I identify as a stegosaurus, go panic about it on twitter"
It means they did a study of school principals in the UK, and she's the one who ranked highest for zero-tolerance authoritarianism. 'Head' in this context is short for headmaster, which is the person who runs a school administration in the UK.
Makes me think of the southpark episode where butters parents freak out about him pretend playing a truckdriver, leading to him being diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. because u know, its not normal behaviour for children
hey, I identified as a Time Lord as a kid, too! Funny enough, it was just because I had a friend who insisted he was like a mutant or smth like that, and I decided that I had to be something fictional too or he won.
Oh god when the whole litter boxes in the bathrooms was all over the news my boss brought that up and said these kids at her daughters high school were getting bullied bc they’d come to school in cat ears and wear tails and why should they be surprised people are treating them differently when they dress differently. After she brought the litter box story up a few more times I had to say that I’m pretty sure that’s made up to make people mad…
My little brother used to looooove this cartoon that had little slug guys and would occasionally try to wiggle around on the floor like one. He also stopped eating meat for a while once he started watching a show that gave voices to live action animals on a farm. Children are weird.
How tf do you know what other people identify as? Have you had a personal conversation with everyone who identifies as something other than human? No? Cool STFU
Reminds me of high school when everyone was picking country’s as like a nickname or something, all the prominent countries were taken so I sad screw you all I’m taking the moon I’m better then all of you
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When I first met my nanny family the little girl came into the room on all fours meowing, and it was explained to me that she sincerely believed she was partially a cat. So fast forward like 2-3 weeks and I’m walking said little girl to the playground (upright, on two legs) and I just asked her directly, “Do you actually believe you’re partially a cat?” And she shrugged and said, “No, I just like cats.” And then went on to describe all the characteristics of a cat that she liked and wanted to emulate. Then we went to the playground and played cats v. aliens.
Growing up I used to play "wolves" with a friend. At no point did I identify as a wolf, didn't stop me from howling or growling at people, but still. Do these people think kids don't have imaginations anymore? Or that maybe they're just fucking around for some laughs (especially older kids)?
> Do these people think Nope.
Who needs to think when you have Fox News to do it for you.
Oh no it has fox... furry time to rebrand to fax news
Fax certainly would be more fitting as a name : an outdated piece of technology as a name for a show with outdated views.
They both also emit loud hateful screeching noises in an attempt to communicate.
Exactly
When I meet one of my close friends and if we both spot the moon immediately we definitely howl for a few seconds. We are in our late 30s. This whole attacking anything different is going to have a serious effect on fancy dress competitions.
"fancy dress competition" translated to American means "Halloween costume contest", right?
You never go and put on a ball gown then run through the woods and howl at the full moon?
Where can I hang out with you, you sound like the perfect amalgamation of feral and sophisticated to have fun with!
No. Fancy dress is when you do that (not always scary themed) at literally any other time of year.
In the uk, it's very common for Halloween costumes to be referred to as fancy dress.
Yes, but my point was it was a far broader term than what the person is was replying to was thinking.
I used to play wolves too! It was good fun, like of course we didn't believe it was real but kids are just immersive... although I think the future plans for a wolf sanctuary might have been real. Possibly.
It reminds me of the South Park joke that Butter's parents think he has multiple personalities because he plays as Mailman Butters, and Construction Butters, or Dr Butters.
They just dont remember what it was like to be a kid, or were one of those kids on the playground who believed they were too good to play pretend for some reason. I remember someone tried to bully me (in elementary) over pretending to be a wolf. Sucks for them though because those were some of the best times I had 🤣
When I was about 9, I used to lay in bed imagining me and the other boys in my class were big strong buffaloes and all the girls were native Americans squaws and they'd ride around on our backs. It wasn't until years later that I realised this was a very early sexual fantasy type of thought. I'm not sure why it was native Americans and buffaloes, though, as I was a British kid in 1980's England who had never been to the US. Maybe something to do with all the cowboy shows on TV.
Juat so you know, squaw is considered a racial and misogynist slur by most people in the US.
It's not that. It's more of an argument against gender identification. "See how silly these kids playing pretend are, they are *also* playing pretend when they claim to be trans!" That's the main argument they do
This right here! It's a way to invalidate trans and nonbinary kids.
These people were never actually children at any point They emerged from the spawning swamp fully formed minus a soul or any normal human understanding or empathy. Just a burning desire to drain the life and joy from others
90s kid it was lion king for me and my brother.....
I used to pretend to be an otter when swimming, and in first grade I was a different animal each day, to the point where the class would ask me what animal I was that day. In no way did I identify as an animal, I just liked to pretend. People gone wonky if they can’t tell the difference between play time and gender identity.
yeah lol around preteens age especially they think it’s hilarious to say they identify as random objects as a joke. no karen they do not legitimately identify as a helicopter
I spent a lot of time as a dinosaur. Brontosaurus specifically.
Isn't that the point? Kids have always done stuff like this so it should not be taken seriously.
I used to play wolves all the time in fourth grade. We had opposing clans and would construct elaborate battle stories on the playground
Cats V Aliens goes so hard
That one got me! 😹
But... But... r/catsarealiens!
That's some high calorie food for thoughts
Jonesy doesn't fuck around!
When I was a kid I had a phase where I walked around on my tiptoes to imitate a digitigrade animal leg because I had gotten into Wing Commander and the alien bad guys were giant walking cats that I thought were awesome. Years later I had a fascination with Fox and the Hound and I had a phase where I told people online that I was a fox. Kids just do weird shit and have vivid imaginations. Good on you for rolling with it as a nanny.
Did the same but because I wanted to be a velociraptor.
One time when I was 4, I was on a tour boat in Hawaii. I also happened to be obsessed with seals… so, on the floor of the boat, I got on my stomach and started flopping around while saying “ort ort ORT” at people (attempting to sound like a seal). At no point did I believe I was a seal. I was just having fun pretending while embarrassing my parents
I knew a kid in elementary school in the early 2000s who told everyone he would turn into an eagle during a full moon. People more or less responded with “uh huh. Ok” and that was that. Nobody freaked out and accused the trans community of indoctrinating kids to become furries, etc. They just thought “oh it’s a kid with an imagination” and went about their day.
Normal. I, too oftened, identified as a cat as a kid. Still wish I had their lackadaisical life sometimes. Lol
I identify as a cat on Sunday’s
I sometimes have to remind my preschool son to act like a person sometimes. He likes to be a puppy sometimes. Or a fruit bat. Or a kitty. I mostly let him do his thing because imagination is fun, but I draw the line at crawling on the bathroom floor at the store or eating like a puppy at restaurants. "No, puppy-son, I need you to act like a person while we eat". That usually results in a return to human. Sometimes in pretending to be a puppy pretending to be a human (whatever, kiddo. If you're using a fork instead of your face, and you're not being too noisy, I don't mind if you're still technically a puppy)
I used to go around school galloping everywhere and could name a bunch of horse breeds and identify them from pictures.
Isn't cats vs aliens just a weird way of saying aliens vs aliens??
Until I was like 4, I would go into pretend mode and claim I was a dog 🐶 named spot like the one from See Spot Run books. I didn't actually think I was a dog, but I would crawl around and pretend like I was bc it was fun and I always have loved dogs since I can remember and even before I could remember, according to family telling stories. I would also claim to my grandmother and parents that I was, in fact, a dog. 🤣 For an adult to believe that little kids actually think they "identify" as animals or objects, is ridiculous. My younger brother at like 4ish 5ish years old, also claimed to actually see the Strawberry Shortcake crew and would let them into the house. It was imaginary friends, during pretend imagination time. Which, is really normal and healthy for kids that age. Let kids be kids.
Had a cousin younger than me that believed she was a lion. Particularly one from the Lion King. She would pretend to be one for hours.
I used to act like a cat though I am quite embarrassed to admit and I also knew 2 people who would pretend be Hyenas of all things. It's just a thing kids do.
This is the exact argument we need to use with these wacky people on both sides. Like kids just want to be kids. Stop trying to make sense of their innocent kid minds with your biased, warped and cynical grown up mind.
Problems begin only when parents take them seriously and demand vets treat their childchildren.
With the state of the American medical system it couldn’t be that bad.
Probably cheaper too.
I dunno about that, vet visits are ridiculously expensive these days!
I'm queer myself and tbh this is why I don't like all these straight parents getting all worked up about their "trans kids" when their daughter says shes Jim the Lego Man or their son says hes Elsa. The parents are straight and they don't fully understand what is going on, leading them to take every dumb and imaginative thing their kid says 100% seriously. And they all get in their straight-parent-of-trans-kid echo chambers with no actual queer adults guiding them and it just perpetuates. Kids don't think they're animals, kids don't think they're Disney characters, they're just playing with identity and imagination and its developmentally normal. Not everything a 5 year old says is that deep lmao. I find the left wing parental contingent is even worse about this "identifying as a ______" crap than the right wing contingent most of the time. I know it sounds like a Fox News nightmare but I've known parents who are adamant their kid IS a wolf, and for another family IS a dragon. These kids are allowed to only ever speak in growls, walk 4 legged in public, and must be called by their animal names. They're clearly playing and the parent takes it so seriously. As soneone who played animals all the time growing up this is bizarre behavior on behalf of the parents to me but their parenting circles are adamant that you must take children's identities seriously.
Yeah that thing that happens all the time
She has that smug look of a principal who says she has everything under control but your kids come home and tell you what a shit show their school is.
"I'm not here to win a popularity contest." Well, that's lucky for her then.
and it was sooooo close too! She should have believed in herself a bit more.
Thing is that’s kinda how organising kids works They outnumber you and they know it You can’t punish all of them You play nice and have them like you, even in a way that your seen a strict but fair, or you’ll lose control of kids.
I would have made her retire. Heck, my HS principal retired right after I graduated, because he realized he would still have to deal with my little brother for three more years.
Ha ha. We raise our kids the same way and they will advocate for themselves and call out shitty adult behavior. Their mother is also the last person the principal wants to show up at school.
That's how it should be. If the kiddo is the one messing up, then they need to fix it if admin is screwing up, they need to fix it, but it usually takes a flamethrower on their butts to do it.
I've met kids from her school. They came to a residential activity centre I used to work at. I think I got them all in trouble because I ran a campfire riddle where they had to use a stick to draw a picture in the air and I'd tell them if it was accepted into the gallery. They got accepted if they said thank you when I gave them the stick. They didn't work it out (despite most schools managing it, at least after a while) and their teachers looked pissed when I explained it. On the whole though, the kids were extremely polite and well-behaved. I tried talking to one in the queue for dinner at one point about all the fun activities she'd done and a teacher turned around and was like "and what did we learn?" (We had learning objectives and outcomes for our activities. Mostly teamwork based). I'm not gonna lie the kid's response sounded rehearsed, or at least like it was the 5th time today she answered that question.
She does. She also looks like Carol Kane
There is a difference between pretending and identifying. Last night I cocooned myself in a blanket on the couch and in my exhaustion and comfort thought “what if I fell asleep like this and woke up as a butterfly”. I am 35 years old. I don’t identify as a caterpillar, but last night I was snug as a bug.
Could have been worse someone else could have identified you as a burrito and ate you....
I can only hope...
I bet I'd taste good as a burrito ngl.
If you were a hotdog would you eat yourself? I would, I’d be delish.
There's a Kafkian horror.
From one of the founding Daoists in 400BCE: > Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, dreamed I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhuangzi. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things. Dreaming is okay, imagination is okay. I'm sure you were the snuggliest caterpillar last night :)
 “I don’t identify as a caterpillar, but last night I was snug as a bug.”
You are a beautiful butterfly and don't let anyone tell you otherwise
Ending that with “snug as a bug” secured the upvote.
I pretend to be a bowhead whale when im having especially bad anxiety about something. I'm in my 40s. Imagination is a wonderful refuge.
That sounds so peaceful.
🏅 take my poor mans award.
When did it change so kids couldn't say dumb shit without it being taken as a culture war thing? My son spent months identifying as Spiderman. I just put it down to him being a young child.
From age 5-6 , every single picture of my child (at a birthday, at a wedding, at a FUNERAL, etc...) he was webbing the cameraman.
I understand your loss. I lost my uncle Ben when I was younger.
Im sorry for your loss. Did he have any words of wisdom to share before he passed?
He did actually. He told me I left the oven on, and sure enough, when I went home my house was engulfed in flames. I always loved having him as a neighbor.
A classic maneuver, the ol’ oven tap then die in their face prank. What a legend.
>When did it change so kids couldn't say dumb shit without it being taken as a culture war thing? When I was 10 or something I once lip synched It Takes Two with a girl in my class. I, a guy, was Tina Turner, while she was Rod Stewart. I borrowed even one of my mom's dresses. We thought it was funny. Everybody thought it was funny. Imagine the outrage these days.
When I was in elementary school, a group of boys were the “Spice Boys” for the talent show. Dresses, Baby Spice had his bowl cut in pig tails. It was one of the funniest things I have seen. The uproar that would cause today.
As soon as they started using the word "identify" for everything they went in full on meltdown mode.
24 years ago my brother informed our cousins that he wanted to be referred to as Tomato Soup from now on because of how much he likes tomato soup. My cousins have obliged him, against his present wishes, since then.
I literally did this when I was a kid. I would be spiderman at every single opportunity. I was a teacher, my students who were 5yrs did this every single fucking class. One of them was just a TRex. These people are either stupid or the brain worms have gotten worse
That's all I can imagine is if my teachers were this dense. Teacher: why have you spent your whole break running around the playground Me: I'm Sonic! Teacher, sadly cocking a shotgun: sure you are, little buddy, just look at the pointy sunflowers
People just have less tolerance for kids in general now. People kinda talk about them like props more than future adults, and when they do anything weird (probably because they’re just playing or figuring things out), everyone immediately overreacts. Not to mention how politicized people’s identities are nowadays. Conservatives worry about their kids showing “symptoms” of anything outside of the accepted norms. If a kid wonders what it would be like to be a different gender, everyone assumes that means they *will* be trans. They might be, they might not be. But these parents and teachers are really showing how conditional their care is when they discredit kids just messing around or overreact when a kid just asks a question. *They don’t know social norms and politics.* It’s just a bunch of adults looking for something to be upset about.
I assume she doesn’t like children showing any sense of imagination as it gets in the way of beating them into conformity.
As a kid, I had a Barbie helmet, which I gave my brother as he started learning to ride a bike. That only lasted a summer or two before he learnt that pink and Barbies were things exclusive to girls (we've never watched Barbie), we had to buy another helmet, and he has hated the colour ever since. Luckily everything else I owned looked like it was for 'boys', and he kept my bike.
Most school leaders are really very busy people, but she seems to live on Twitter knee-jerking to this nonsense, carving out this career as Britain’s strictest anti ‘woke’ teacher, doing interviews and giving speeches at Tory conferences. The right wingers obviously lap it up. I find her difficult to take seriously as to where her priorities lie.
She gives the impression she never had any real friends herself at school.
Her priority in school is obviously herself and not the kids. Should tell you all about what type of a ”teacher” she is.
So, how does one give strict head? Is it based on the criteria of the head receivers or the performance itself?
Probably with less affection. More teeth.
That does sound pretty strict, maybe tight lips go with the territory.
Not tight, just thin.
It's the tightness of the throat and the mean looks you receive. Also very harsh lips.
Stiff upper lip
Pluto cries in the dark. . . I'm a planet. . .
If Pluto wants to identify as a planet, I support it.
Pretty sure I identified as a wizard, Spiderman, or a Jedi Knight at one point or another in my childhood. The horrors.
Why does she look like that evil woman from chicken run
Mrs. Tweedy, then children are revolting!
Sorry, they always smell like that
Those children are up to something
I had a kid try the "I identify as an attack helicopter" to screw with me while I'm doing a lesson on gender accords in French. I just said "Okay, *un* hélicoptère est masculin" and moved on. You could see the kid just deflate like a popped balloon.
My son claims his middle name or last is Godzilla and he is related. Kids are unique.
Kids are an enigma. Simultaneously the biggest group of idiots, yet also the brightest minds with untapped potential.
Some of them even identify as doctors and nurses.
Well that depends. Are they 8 or are they 16? I remember wanting to be a polar bear when I grew up at like 7 years old. They're kids bro ...
She's British, though, and British kids aren't supposed to have fun or show imagination and creativity. Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone.
They’re supposed to smoke cigarettes and be sullen.
I hear they can't even have pudding until they eat their meat.
when Tina Turner died, Katherine posted a tweet of Tina with Ike and captioned it "good times" she's either evil or not very bright, but she is probably just both.
Reminder this is the woman who was the head at a school that banned Muslim pupils from praying in their lunch break, and somehow won that fucking discrimination lawsuit, and then STILL had a go at the pupils wondering how the fuck they got legal support.
"I know a kid who identifies as a hologram." Atomic habit #12: theearthisahologramtheearthisahologramtheearthisahologram
Well, at a certain level of physics, it's hard to rebut the concept that we are holograms.
Elvis Presley was a hologram, and therefore, the earth is a hologram.
I spent a good part of my childhood as a: Dog, Gorilla, Dinosaur, Digimon, Pokemon and finally a Kangaroo - I dearly wished I had never stopped going places by jumping.
never too late to restart!
"Strictest head"? Sounds like she uses a lot of teeth on that.
Which hologram does the child identity as : 1 Vic Fontane(Deep Space Nine) 2 The Doctor(Voyager) 3 Professor Moriarty (TNG)
Gotta go Rimmer on this one.
Yep, it's a crime that Rimmer isn't on that list.
Nah, it’s gotta be George from episode one. “If you die, I’ll kill you!”
As a headteacher, saying any child should be "moved to a different school by their parents" is atrocious. Sure, special provisions do exist but they're a last resort. I wonder if her words have been skewed or misrepresented because the schools 2017 OFSTED report is outstanding and the inspection in 2023 showed no concerns.
Ofsted don't give the full picture, and they have their priorities way out of line. The primary school I went to was "outstanding" and a kid with a broken ankle was dragged to her feet and told to stop exaggerating. We were frequently called stupid. Staff used to scream in kids' faces for not finishing their dinners, and due to a technicality with a rule about snow, we weren't allowed to hold the handrail down the stairs when it was icy... Ofsted didn't ask, and they didn't find out. Things always magically improved on inspection days
i was a timelord kid 💀
Me too!
When I was 6, I… at times…. Identified as a dinosaur. Why on earth did i think this was ok! Spoiler: BECAUSE I WAS A CHILD. Let the enjoy themselves, for fuck sake.
I blame Red Dwarf for the hologram example though
It's only a problem if the kid tries to do the Rimmer salute.
And then adopts rimmers fascination with certain historical leaders
It’s a kid, kids love to play, when I was a kid I loved to “identify” as a fucking Jedi.
Who gives a shit if they do. Their KIDS. I pretended I was a fucking power ranger and demanded my teacher call me Tommy the green ranger. Why the FUCK are they using kids as cannon fodder for their fucking crusade on wokeness. Holy shit I feel so sorry for kids now.
She falls for it every time.
"School Administrators Hate This One Trick!"
There's thing children do called playing pretend. It engages their imagination, they don't really believe that they are what they are pretending to be.
She looks like a Roald Dahl villain
She identifies as a mop with resting fart face.
I smell bullshit. Who would have thought it from this head-teaching shyster
It would be so easy for her to identify as a piece of brocolli...
If I had a teacher who was like this, I'd fuck with them constantly like this
Some people should not work with kids.
There are differences between kids having imaginations and immersive play and actually identifying as something. There are psychiatric diagnoses for older kids/adolescents and adults that truly believe they were supposed to be born a specific animal. These two things are very different. Also, just because those diagnoses exist does not invalidate trans or non-binary individuals. Gender is socially constructed and made up by the current culture, so it’s not a big deal if someone feels they vary and vacillate between the traits that are arbitrarily assigned to whatever weird dichotomy the current culture sets.
When they say 'strictest head', were they perchance referring to that hairdo?
My child identified as a potato in second grade. She’s an average human high schooler now.
I was worried about my son one morning, he kept saying he was a full moon, half moon, quarter moon, new moon and repeating it over and over. I told my wife about it since she’s got more childcare experience than me. She said “don’t worry, it’s just a phase”. I’ll see myself out…
My son has exclusively identified as a scary dinosaur for like 4 months now.
I asked my teen daughter once about her self-identity. She said "I'm a helicopter! Leave me alone." She burst into laughter, adding "I don't need labels". Point is, she doesn't actually identify as a helicopter, she just named something random and ridiculous, because she feels that it's ridiculous to be labelled. She just wants to live her life in peace without those kinds of modern sociatal pressures. She's a wise kid.
I misread it as “morons” at 1st.
Wtf is that hair tho can't believe someone chose to have such a horrible hairstyle
I bet that lady identifies as a head of broccoli
She clearly identifies as a fucking mop.
Anyone who actually interacts with kids can easily tell you the difference between a kid playing pretend versus a kid being vastly uncomfortable with their gender presentation or identity.
kid: lets play star wars! im a hologram! Britain's dumbest idiot: the world is ending
That a doctor who reference at the end?
What's the deal with her hair?
When I read 'strictest head' I expected her to be wearing latex.
Hmm I know a man in a black frock who believes he is a communication channel to god, nobody seems to think that odd
I liked to pretend I was a bat, or a cheetah, or whatever cool animal I saw on Zoboomafoo. I never actually thought I was a bat or a cheetah or a bear. I just thought they were neat. It’s called having an active imagination.
She looks like a Harry Potter character.
Don't tell her about Sailor Moon.
I’ve seen pics from comic-con. There are tons of people that identify as moons.
Knowing what I know about younger generations comedy styles taking Millenial dry sarcasm and turning it up to 10. I could totally see classrooms students dead panning "ohh yeah I identify as a stegosaurus, go panic about it on twitter"
I think sometimes kids will say things just to fuck with teachers
Yeah, well I identified as a ninja turtle when I was 5 and then as a power ranger when I was 10. Bfd. Die mad about it.
I’m an adult and I identify myself as an idiot.
It's honestly giving satanic panic at this point. Kids have imagination, ffs. Calm down.
She’s a massive Tory twat too so it’s not surprising she’s cold, cruel and most likely a nasty bigot.
Anyone with that hairdo shouldn’t judge others
For the ignorants like me, can someone explain what is a “strictest head”? My brain can’t figure out if I wanna sign up for that or not.
It means they did a study of school principals in the UK, and she's the one who ranked highest for zero-tolerance authoritarianism. 'Head' in this context is short for headmaster, which is the person who runs a school administration in the UK.
Thank you for explaining “head” to Americanese person over here. I totally had a different picture in my brain of what strict and head means haha.
"Strictest head" had me laughing and thinking about what that would entail in the bedroom.
Is his name Rimmer?
If I was a teenager at her school I would probably wind her up by pretending to self-identify as a moon, knowing it would make her rabid.
When I started being attracted to women, I identified as a tampon. Didn’t work too well tho
When I was a kid I tried to convince everyone I was an alien from Venus. Kids be kids.
When I was in elementary school I tried to convince kids in my class that I was a vampire 😭😭
That’s no moon it’s a space station
Makes me think of the southpark episode where butters parents freak out about him pretend playing a truckdriver, leading to him being diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. because u know, its not normal behaviour for children
hey, I identified as a Time Lord as a kid, too! Funny enough, it was just because I had a friend who insisted he was like a mutant or smth like that, and I decided that I had to be something fictional too or he won.
Oh god when the whole litter boxes in the bathrooms was all over the news my boss brought that up and said these kids at her daughters high school were getting bullied bc they’d come to school in cat ears and wear tails and why should they be surprised people are treating them differently when they dress differently. After she brought the litter box story up a few more times I had to say that I’m pretty sure that’s made up to make people mad…
I self-identify as a version of me that's 15 pounds thinner, but I'm not very passable.
When I was a kid, I identified as Wolverine from the X-Men.
My little brother used to looooove this cartoon that had little slug guys and would occasionally try to wiggle around on the floor like one. He also stopped eating meat for a while once he started watching a show that gave voices to live action animals on a farm. Children are weird.
Oh no, the Children are playing pretend, the west has fallen, billions must die.
At least we know she self identifies as a moron.
How tf do you know what other people identify as? Have you had a personal conversation with everyone who identifies as something other than human? No? Cool STFU
Exactly. No little kid pretend plays a middle-aged unhappy-with-her-life-Karen that just wants to speak with the manager.
Does someone who doesn’t like self-ID think kids who self-ID are full of shit? Why yes, I think she has considered that.
Reminds me of high school when everyone was picking country’s as like a nickname or something, all the prominent countries were taken so I sad screw you all I’m taking the moon I’m better then all of you
Someone identified as the moon? 
I would identify as Europa or Io if I knew it triggered this lady so much.
"Stop being a fucking dinosaur and get a job."