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Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

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Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#81

Post by mock-possum »

dauertewigkeit wrote: post #51
ravenstine wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the material world didn't require this, it's required by a substantial portion of women, romantically speaking. Many women express their concern that "he never shares his emotions", but when he finally does express his emotions and what truly bothers him she finds herself unusually dry and loses respect for him. Some men never have to learn this the hard way, and they're fortunate. It's common enough that it'…

My experience is that they do not mean it. What they want is for the man to make her feel loved. What they do not want is for the man to express his deepest insecurities and make her feel insecure by proxy because she depends on him.

I mean turning dependency into codependency isn’t exactly a step in the right direction is it

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#82

Post by KptMarchewa »

michaelt wrote: post #66
rich_sasha wrote: post #12

My impression is, men are stuck in a world where they are told not to be men. Toxic masculinity is perhaps a thing, but boys are told endlessly how they shouldn't behave and how their nature is flawed. Girls on the other hand, all is well.

> Girls on the other hand, all is well. Girls, on the other hand, get told their body is flawed. Gotta constantly be on a diet, and spend like an hour a day on beauty stuff. We are all victims of society.

Do you think millions of gym rats are thinking something different? I think it's weird that you present this as feminine problem when it's men who on average participate in more sports.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#83

Post by corinroyal »

throwanem wrote: post #77
corinroyal wrote: post #57

In the nineties I joined a men's group retreat where we circled up and listened to each other's struggles, gave lots of support, and lots of hugs. Then we did some consciousness raising around circumcision and it's barbarity. We took our cue from the Feminist movement. They were getting their shit together and so could we. Gary Snyder read his gorgeous nature poetry, Peter Berg sold us on a green cities concept that…

Before this comment gets downvoted to hell by the shitshow that invariably characterizes HN discussion of men's issues, just to say I appreciate the historical context here in particular, and the confirmation that just because the fascist right owns the topic today doesn't mean it was ever thus - or that it needs to stay that way.

Thank you. The history of the feminist men's movement was the first target of the MRM. They are very good propagandists. Even the name Men's Rights Movement sets up the opposition with feminism perfectly. But let's never forget that we were and can be allies.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#84

Post by GolfPopper »

red_admiral wrote: post #34
908B64B197 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With shrinking recess time and PE disappearing from some schools, boys with normal needs for physical activities are increasingly labelled as "sick" and medicalized for completely normal behavior by the taxpayer funded school system. Energy has to go somewhere so it ends up manifesting itself in behaviors that are deemed "disruptive" (really, not sitting still and being unable to concentrate on tasks). That's the beg…

Baden-Powell famously said "A boy is not a sitting-down animal." One might dislike a lot of other things about the man, but he got this one right.

I am not a behavioral psychologist, but both the above posters' comments seem more appropriate as a general critique of America's factory schooling model than how it treats young males specifically.

I have a niece and nephew who are being home-schooled (both testing in the top 10% of their respective peer before and after moving to home schooling). While their home schooling encompasses quite a bit more, they cover the traditional material for their age (everything covered by standardized testing), including drills, practice worksheets, and other typical "homework" in about 10% of the time they were previously spending in school.

While there are obviously other aspects to school, including social interaction (which their parents are making certain they do get), watching the whole process as an extended family member has really driven home how much of current American schooling is just kid-warehousing.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#85

Post by klik99 »

caditinpiscinam wrote: post #29

As a black guy I don't remember a friend ever saying "black people suck" to my face. But I've heard people I'm close with, both women and men, say that "men suck" countless times. I think a lot of people who don't see themselves as "biased" still carry a lot of bias when it comes to gender, and it has an impact.

Yeah exactly. I let this kind of thing slide because obviously the problems facing minorities/women as groups are far worse than the problems facing men as a group, but just shifting the conversation from "I think group A of people is the problem" to "I think group B of people is the problem" is creating downstream problems. And there are very real issues facing men - suicide rates are dramatic enough to indicate that. I think the goal should be reduce social/economic/criminal expectations based on what group(s) a particular individual is lumped in, because we are all simultaneously part of, victims of, and perpetrators of a system that damages people, though obviously some groups are hurt way more than others.

Public opinion oversimplifies things to good vs bad and works like a pendulum, and I just hope it doesn't swing too much in the opposite direction. If people saying "men suck" is a temporary by-product of addressing systemic gender inequality then that's a price I'm willing to pay. I've benefited plenty from the power of average white male mediocrity.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#86

Post by j-bos »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #9
dauertewigkeit wrote: post #4

Can somebody define what "emotional support" even is? I have no clue what they are talking about. From reading the article I would say men might need mentors who give them good advice and wisdom. That is what I felt I needed at times, anyway.

Emotion support is showing loving, care and/or empathy. Mentorship and emotional support can have significant overlap.

Is that how it was defined in the article?

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#87

Post by Viliam1234 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #19
jl6 wrote: post #11

> New research shows that when fathers are present and emotionally invested in children’s lives, they are more likely to develop a stronger sense of self-worth and excel in everything from school to relationships. Regardless of the debate on how tough (or not) love should be, the absent fathers issue seems like something concrete and impactful that we should be trying to address.

How do you even address something like that? Even if you paid each father $10k to stick around to age 18, that doesn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t become domestic abusers, suicide victims, or would even be good role models. It’s possible that father presence for kids is only so valuable because the only fathers that stick around are the ones that care.

> It’s possible that father presence for kids is only so valuable because the only fathers that stick around are the ones that care.

Even if this would be the case, we should allow those fathers to spend more time with their kids. For example, it is very difficult for a man to find a part-time job. Most companies take "I also want to spend some time with my kids" as "I don't really care about the work I do". You can care about the work without wanting to devote your entire life to it.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#88

Post by smileysteve »

jimbob45 wrote: post #19
jl6 wrote: post #11

> New research shows that when fathers are present and emotionally invested in children’s lives, they are more likely to develop a stronger sense of self-worth and excel in everything from school to relationships. Regardless of the debate on how tough (or not) love should be, the absent fathers issue seems like something concrete and impactful that we should be trying to address.

How do you even address something like that? Even if you paid each father $10k to stick around to age 18, that doesn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t become domestic abusers, suicide victims, or would even be good role models. It’s possible that father presence for kids is only so valuable because the only fathers that stick around are the ones that care.

You're looking myopically at the issue; absent fathers is less likely to be a choice, but an economic consequences of income inequality, along with the other economies that arise because of this.

You're looking at the drug war, high school graduation rates, ability to find a job, attached to teenage pregnancy, lack of commute options, and below living wage - likely connected to public health issues including water treatment, sewage, inneficient or unsafe homes (hook worms, sceptic, HVAC)

So instead of a 1 time $10k (which is delusional) think marijuana being legal, healthcare and childcare being affordable, public transport - or at least not a food desert in a walkable community, and $15+/hr 30+ hour weeks at a single employer.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#89

Post by NeoTar »

red_admiral wrote: post #34
908B64B197 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With shrinking recess time and PE disappearing from some schools, boys with normal needs for physical activities are increasingly labelled as "sick" and medicalized for completely normal behavior by the taxpayer funded school system. Energy has to go somewhere so it ends up manifesting itself in behaviors that are deemed "disruptive" (really, not sitting still and being unable to concentrate on tasks). That's the beg…

Baden-Powell famously said "A boy is not a sitting-down animal." One might dislike a lot of other things about the man, but he got this one right.

Perhaps 90% of my acting out in childhood was people trying to stop me doing 'sitting down' activities. All generalisations hurt someone.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#90

Post by akomtu »

caditinpiscinam wrote: post #29

As a black guy I don't remember a friend ever saying "black people suck" to my face. But I've heard people I'm close with, both women and men, say that "men suck" countless times. I think a lot of people who don't see themselves as "biased" still carry a lot of bias when it comes to gender, and it has an impact.

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