I stared at the two plaques, the bustle of shopping momentarily slipping to the back of my mind. Each held a definition of either a girl or a boy. A girl was defined as “a giggle wrapped in sunshine and glitter” while a boy was a “silly little noisemaker covered in dirt.” My eyes shifted to my eight-year-old son who read alongside me. How did it make him feel? His sister, and other girls, were happiness and light while he was nothing but a grimy noisemaker?

As a mother, I’ve always tried to do what’s best for my children. I trusted our pediatrician implicitly, believing that his advice was rooted in unquestionable medical expertise. However, the events of 2020 forced me to confront some uncomfortable truths about the medical care my children had been receiving.

When my son was 6 or 7, he spent the afternoon at a friend’s house. When he got home, he was raving about the Call of Duty video game they played with his friend’s dad.

If you know anything about video games, you understand why alarm bells went off in my head. I was tempted to exclaim, “You played what?” After all, this series is rated M (for “mature” audiences) because of the brutally realistic combat and harsh profanity.