The right answers in Stuff

Olsen told me that she bought a lady’s razor for Mercer as a joke gift and wanted to put it in his stocking. I asked how that was a joke and she responded it really wasn’t a joke, it was more like a “silly gift.” She said he wanted to shave his legs.

But she actually said it differently. She said, “I know they want to shave their legs.”

I responded the way any normal person would. I said, “Who is they? I thought we were talking about Mercer?”

She said that she was just trying to respect his pronouns, and acknowledged that it was both unusual and that it sounded weird coming out of her mouth. But she said she didn’t want to say “he” if Mercer wasn’t feeling masculine at the time.

At the time? I was confused. I feel like I pay plenty of attention to my kids, but other than overhearing a few conversations lately with Mercer talking about gender ambiguity, all of this was new to me.

I said, “I really don’t understand what you’re saying.”

She paused for almost too long. Then she said, “You really should talk to them about it.”

I was about to question what group of people she was talking about, but then remembered this whole thing with her calling Mercer with these plural pronouns.

What’s the sensitive way to go about this? I was going to walk into his room last night and say, “So I hear I’m supposed to call you ‘they’ now?” But that felt confrontational and awkward. Do I just wait until he brings it up? And what if he doesn’t? I don’t want to have to get all my information from Olsen because Mercer doesn’t say anything.

Is it weird to say that I wish I could ask Megan? I have a feeling she’d know the right answers to this stuff. I do not.