Been exposed to any toddlers or teens lately?

If so, you have no doubt encountered their partiality for taking offense.   

“Tommy, quit throwing dirt at your sister!” 

“No,” dependably says Tommy Toddler.

“Tommy, please go brush your teeth.”

“No, brushing my teeth is a waste of time,” silently thinks Teenage Tommy.

“Tommy, you are not yet able to understand the importance of brushing your teeth, so I am not willing to support your making decisions about your gender preferences.”

Depending on which Tommy you are dealing with, the answer will either be “waaaah” or “You are a racist, fascist, sexist idiot and I’m going to become a New Orleans crossdressing transvestite street performer whether you like it or not!”

At such moments you might be wondering why you had children, but your biggest question will likely be, “Why is this happening?”

A mini-course in developmental psychology may help.

The number one source of personal identity growth is found in the word “resistance.” Resistance is an instinctive, natural and useful way to separate yourself from your parents and begin the process of developing your own identity.

Problems being when we get stuck on resistance as a primary and permanent source of identity development. Thus, the rallying motivation of today’s toddler/teenager wannabees and the American Woke Movement – taking offense at challenges to their personal vanities.

Here are a few insights on how and why to offend the offensive:

• Science Isn’t Science — One of the popular myths perpetuated by wokeists is that science is real. Well, it is hopefully real, but how real is dependent on the people doing it being real. Germany’s majority once believed you could measure a person’s intelligence by the color of their eyes or size of their nose. That wasn’t science and it wasn’t real. It was very surely propaganda, political power grabbing, and self-justification of personal bias in the name of science. Our national response to COVID was sold to us by people – wokeists – similarly attached. Give yourself permission to say “no” to their “non-science” approach to science.

• Control Central — Show me a person with woke enthusiasms, and I will show you a person who obsesses about things they can’t control while they ignore things they can. If you’re planning on hiring someone who is concerned that they be spoken to with the ‘proper pronouns,’ you may wish to rethink that move. Amidst the busy, competitive, challenging, work-your-fanny-off realities of today’s world, anybody having the time and energy to put pronouns up high on their list is going to displace energy from other things – like productivity. It’s all about control. Immature people who can’t manage themselves reliably try to manage others. Watch the intensity, anger, and energy that the woke movement puts into ruling the universe. That’s one good reason you need to join Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and Hans in saying “no” to the empire and “yes” to the force.

• Glorified Sympathies — One of my favorite ways to offending the offensive is to dare suggest that their sympathies are their sympathies and just because they pursue them with enthusiasm does not mean those sympathies are realistic, mature, or grounded in love. I know people who would kill for an unopened 1970s package containing an original plastic Luke Skywalker figure. That doesn’t mean I have to share in that glorified enthusiasm. For the same reason, we don’t have to buy into the woke movements infatuations with sexual conversion, reparations, and global warming hysteria. Art is in the eye of the beholder – the same can be said for individual taste and social justice issues.

• What They Don’t Talk about — If you’re a person who believes the use of the word normal is normal and pay much attention to what wokeists say, you will quickly get either (1) lost (2) angry (3) afraid or (4) all of the above. If you wish to keep your connection to normalcy, pay more attention to won’t they don’t say. The woke movement doesn’t talk about personal responsibility; the importance of choice in determining our life script; the crucial role of marriage and intact families; the horrific numbers of black-on-black murders, drug addiction always beginning with foolish, risky, dangerous personal decisions; spending money we do not have to make people dependent on a government that is not dependable; and the crucial difference in preventing new life and ending it. A good way to counter their nonsense is to make sure you do talk about these things.

It should never be the mission of any good person to purposefully offend the offensive. 

But if standing up for what you believe is right, just, normal and truthful is a “trigger” for wokeists on their warpath – so be it.