This story normally would be every parent's nightmare, and why teenagers are such a pain in the asterisk in general.

I read a story in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning that was frightening for what had happened.

Mint Butterfield, the teenage child of Slack co-founder and former CEO Stewart Butterfield, was reported missing Tuesday, according to Marin County officials. 

She's only 16 years old and has run away from home. Authorities believe her to be hiding out in the "Tenderloin" District of San Francisco.

Her father is a billionaire.

Teenagers run away - or threaten to - all the time.

Their little bodies are overdeveloping right at the time their little brains are still underdeveloped rationally and emotionally. But those immature brains are being flooded with all the hormones that the body is producing as it ramps up for that last growth spurt into young adulthood.

It can really suck being a teenager, trying to come to grips with your internal selves - literally - as they begin to mesh whilst navigating the perilous world you inhabit with other teenagers, especially these days. Holy smokes.

That goes doubly for the parents who actively have tried to keep their kids' lives on an even keel in the face of the insanity swirling around their children at school, at play, and on the social media airwaves. It has to be terrifying, because the consequences can be so devastating with one false step or wrong move that you probably had no idea you made. You were only trying to be the safe place, the voice of reason, the rock in the raging sea.

In this day and age, though, I have seen so many parents be enablers - indulging the freaks and squeaks of whatever wild hair a child chooses as his cause celebre of the moment. Witness the constant parade of Munchausen-By-Proxy mothers shepherding young children for transgender therapies. I don't know why. If it's too much trouble to argue, perhaps parents are too busy. Perhaps they're more invested in being the "cool" parents instead of the "parent" parents. 

Maybe they wish their own parents had let them live like little wild animals, running amok and unrestrained. Maybe they wished they'd been permitted to be rampaging feral creatures across the juvenile landscape until they, somehow, miraculously matured in an overnight miracle. Do these parents perhaps live vicariously through the sturm und drang inherent in every hysterical twist in an overwrought child's life? 

I don't understand them.

Do they not know that learning a modicum of self-control also teaches children how to deal with disappointments and setbacks? Or do some parents work to deliver a frustration-free life, both to make Junior happy and to establish as little resistance for themselves as possible?

I have no idea. So many possibilities, and probably, sadly, I'm right about a lot of it.

Life can quickly ratchet up to unbearably volatile with a teenager in the house...or a couple. 

Sometimes, in spite of everyone's best efforts, the raging sea wins.

This missing young lady seems to have had her issues.

I recently visited the Tenderloin. There are drugs and other temptations on every street corner. pic.twitter.com/5N6FumSnmO

— Jonathan Choe (@choeshow) April 24, 2024

Mint lives with her mother, who co-founded the photo website Flickr with ex-husband Butterfield, and was reported missing three days ago.

...Mint’s mother reported her missing, Schermerhorn said. The girl lived with her mother in San Francisco and had been a student at a private boarding school in the Napa area, according to the sheriff’s office. 

Supervisor Matt Dorsey shared a flyer reporting the teen missing on social media and said she is believed “to be in or around the Tenderloin neighborhood here in San Francisco.” Schermerhorn confirmed that Mint’s mother shared that her daughter could be in the Tenderloin; San Francisco police officers have been looking in this area.

The added element of danger for this troubled young girl is, without question, her parents' prominence and extreme wealth. They have to be frantic with worry, as any parent would be, going absolutely mad looking for their child. 

Who is a daughter, as I found out by digging into this a bit more, because you couldn't tell WTF she was according to the article in the SF Chronicle.

If appearance changes even a tad, how does one locate a 16-year-old "THEY?

...Mint, 16, is “believed to be in the Tenderloin” of San Francisco, a neighborhood they were known to frequent before running away from home, said Adam Schermerhorn, a sergeant with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. The teen was last seen late Sunday night in Bolinas and was discovered missing Monday morning. 

At this first "they," I assumed the Sgt was referring to her family's being "known to frequent" the neighborhood. But a paragraph down, I realized the fools at the paper were talking about the missing runaway.

...Mint has curly, brown-red hair and pierced eyebrows. They are about 5 feet tall and weigh 100 pounds. Mint was last seen wearing a black sweatshirt, flannel pajama pants and black boots, sheriff’s officials said. They were also possibly carrying a gray suitcase.

Nowhere is gender mentioned. It's "Mint," "child," or "they" - that's it, and the woke ludicrosity bell is clanging SO hard.

A really messed up teenager who also happens to be the heiress to a $1.6B tech fortune is wandering alone through Fentanyl Central, and the Chronicle issues a BOLO for "THEY." 

This also begs the question about how the Chronicle got the pronouns to begin with.

We fervently wish Butterfield and Fake a swift and safe reunion with their daughter and happier times in the future for her.

But damn.

Just DAMN.