411–420 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who grew up on shitty side of that research, I make it a point in my life to be the exact opposite for my son.
My father attempted to be the opposite of my grandfather and yet still remained very similar to him. Thankfully still an improvement over my grandfather. Not implying this is you too. Just thought the observation was interesting.
> 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.
As someone who grew up on shitty side of that research, I make it a point in my life to be the exact opposite for my son.
Was your dad mostly absent, over-working, or what? Or emotionally invisible?
I'm mid 30s now and my childhood is full of instances of me being treated with contempt for being a boy by my teachers and female peers. Like, outright mocking in ways by teachers that in retrospect I would consider nearly traumatic and abusive. Maybe public, unashamed contempt is more recent?
Can you give some examples?
I spent a summer teaching at a high school with separate gender classrooms. One thing that stuck out was that the women were motivated from hearing them out and how they felt first and men were motivated by giving them a challenge. To some extent, society is becoming more effeminate. This is a good thing in giving more opportunity for women, but there seems to be less space for men to grow or learn to be men. The mai…
> 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.
Maybe, as a culture, we should emphasize MORE the health of the family, of the duty and honor it brings to raise kids and less on the "perfect" romantic relationships of the parents? Shouldn't we promote a less Hollywood-like picture of long lasting relationships? I have the feeling that we are trained too much to think that our "romance" and sex life should last forever. When - in reality - a good relationship trans…
That ship has sailed. We live in a culture that not only has doubled down on the idea that the happiness/romance of the marriage is far more important than children, but even tells us that the marriage itself must dissolve when unhappy or this will do damage to those kids.
Imagine going to work and telling a coworker that your marriage is a disaster, but that you and your wife are considering staying together for the sake of your kids. What would your coworkers say? Do any of us know anyone that we believe might tell us "hey, that's a good idea, and I hope it works out that way for you"?
It shows us where our priorities as a society and culture lie.
Even if someone could intellectually admit that this assertion of mine was correct, it has inconvenient implications. The larger culture war around us relies on the idea that children simply aren't important to a marriage.
> 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.
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would require women to choose better mates
Then:
How many women are out there with three kids by three different fathers?
How many men are out there with three kids by three different mothers?
Custody laws typically place all the power in the hands of the mother
most mothers are fine with the father having minimal contact
> 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.
Without evidence, I'll suggest that this is an oversimplification. In a model where boys require masculine modeling from older, adult figures, "absent fathers" are most an issue when a boy's regularly-accessible social unit has been whittled down to the nuclear family. That seems to be a crisis in-and-of-itself. When I look at socially-successful men, they often have had multiple older men in their lives to model the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Misandry is normalized in society. Whenever you encounter a baseless attack on men just reverse the roles and you'll realize that there'd be pitchforks for treating women as anything other than paragons of virtue. Entire entertainment genres are built around portraying men as inept fools who can be looked down upon by the opposite sex. Seinfeld is one of the few sitcoms where a female character is as flawed as the me…
As a man I've never understood this complaint. Sure, it's a sitcom cliche to always have the bumbling dad and the competent mom who is usually also wildly out of his league, but the reasons why that's the more common case don't strike me as something to get upset about (it is boring writing, but that's a different problem). Humor at the expense of traditionally more powerful groups works better because it can be seen…
Yes, men are more privileged than women in many ways. But men are also disadvantaged in many ways -- many individual men are actual quite vulnerable! -- and negative stereotypes about men cause real harm. Yes, society is sometimes quite shitty to women; but that doesn't somehow make it okay to be shitty to men.
Feminism at its best treats both women and men with respect and dignity. Feminism at its worst uses "gender equality" to justify hurting men. Right now you're doing the latter. Please stop.
> Fathers are also more likely to sing to and soothe their toddler daughters at night when they cry. 100 years ago father’s wouldn’t even talk to their kids. I don’t think dads even went into the delivery room Dad’s didn’t get time off from work to be with their wives when the baby was born or get bonding time Things are definitely getting better on this front
By comparison in my wife's "backwards" country, the female relatives of the woman in labor are traditionally not allowed to attend labor. Sure, the men weren't allowed to see the baby for forty days, but thats to protect the newborn from dirty ruffians who'd spent all day wrestling hogs and ploughing fields. All the men of this society - regressively conservative to a tee - Ive met are far more involved with kids than your average modern day phone addicted westerner.
Nor are fathers, generally, cold and uncaring for their children in classical literature outside very militaristic societies. Curiously enough, you mention "100 years ago". Those fathers were literally shell shocked.