Live data from Hacker News

Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

wbur.org

461–470 of 1001 posts

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#461
post #311

It is not a father's job to be the person a child goes to for emotional support. A father is indeed supposed to pass down masculinity and how to manage it and how to become a socially functional and acceptable man. Mothers on the other hand are supposed to be the primary person that provides emotional support and care. But, the immediate community is supposed to provide that support as well. This is how human society…

Be careful not to confuse nature with nurture. Naturally humans have a high degree of variation. The traditionalist system you refer to is a construction, if a long-standing one. We can critique the success of this system like any other human construct. To argue that stoic fathers tend to produce better sons requires evidence. We might ask, "Better for what?" Better to be a disposable cog in a rich man's machine, per…

That's not what I am saying. I am saying someone has to play the role of a father. As a boy, someone needs to teach that boy how to become a strong man but also a man who lives correctly and fulfills his duties. If it was me, I would teach my son to be honest, honorable, to defend the weak and to understand different types of strengths (including intellectual), to treat his romantaic partner right and to learn how to make male friends and make others be comfortable around him and most importantly to understand his place in society and how to succeed as a man. Only a father can do that because a father understands what it is like to be a man and only a father understands the hardships a male child will encounter specifically because he is male. The same applies to mothers and daughters.

Being stoic is not what I mentioned but being strong and masculine, except in certain modern western societies is not optional. To put it differently, I wouldn't want my child to be violent in any way but I would also want him to be strong enough so that he wouldn't become prey to bullies and anyone trying to take advantage of him. But also to be strong enough to defend the weak and if the time comes, to serve in the military to defend his homeland and people.

Think of it as a job opening. Someone has to be masculine and someone has to be feminine . If your argument is that a boy should not have to be masculine, although horomones and generics disagree, I say that's a different topic because my argument is that both masculinity and femininity are required and for parents who wish to raise a masculine child, unless the mother is masculine and knows what growing up as a boy and becoming a man is like, the father is the only person that can do that.

> There's quite a bit of evidence that men who don't understand their emotions and have not been supported in expressing them safely

I did not suggest that. What I said was that it is not a father's job or rather, if a mother is available then she is best suited for that job. Boys want their mothers to comfort and emotionally support them and their fathers to teach them how to be a man and to be proud of their progress. I did not support toxic masculinity, just masculinity.

> We might ask, "Better for what?" Better to be a disposable cog in a rich man's machine, perhaps

Better equiped to succeed in life and be able to care for themselves and others. To live a long and likely happy life and find their place in society.

America's prisons are filled with men who never had a father model. Mothers, hard as they may try, at some point their inability to understand what their boys are going through makes it impossible for the child to trust them with emotional support.

A well rounded upbringing with all emotional, social and psychilogical needs met is all I advocated.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#462
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wanna ask whoever wrote that if trans men are included

Speaking of which, I felt [1] was a rather interesting article on that. Multiple people are interviewed and their experiences differ, but stuff like this really stands out, and especially that last paragraph is pretty relevant here: Prior to my transition, I was an outspoken radical feminist. I spoke up often, loudly and with confidence. I was encouraged to speak up. I was given awards for my efforts, literally — it…

This isn't even new, what is surprising is how society refuses to listen to Men. In 2006 Norah Vincent a woman, pretended to be a man for 12 months and wrote a book about her experience called Self Made Man, see some interviews about the book[1][2]

The mental strain of maintaining a false identity during the making of Self-Made Man ultimately caused a depressive breakdown, leading Vincent to admit herself to a locked psychiatric facility

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-uv8gT9Kxw

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWkgCEPFmXo

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#463
post #228

The world crushed my spirit, and erased the remnants with SSRIs. I'm frequently told that I have no right to treat my own depression with mushrooms, with my depression and its consequences held as proof that I don't know what I'm talking about and should have no decision making autonomy. The long term destruction of self that resulted from only three months of that is difficult to comprehend if you haven't been there…

> I'm frequently told that I have no right to treat my own depression with mushrooms

What a bizarre thing for them to say. In my experience, psilocybin mushrooms are absolutely amazing for mental health. I think that everyone should take mushrooms at least once a year to clear out the cobwebs.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#464
post #458

Here's a thought and I am writing this as I don my kevlar flame retardant jacket. For most things in life where we could impact the lives of other people materially - driving is a good example - we ensure some minimal amount of training before letting people perform that activity. However with parenting we have nothing and the result it seems is we pay with a ton more resources downstream in the way of therapy, deten…

Would you be surprised to learn that there is something similar in Japan? Though not necessarily required, there are "mama papa" classes done by the government with the basics covered. And there are checkups (1 month, 3 months, 6, 1 year, 2, 3) which have some involvement in checking the child's health, wellbeing, development, as well as that of the parent(s).

Plenty of parents in America have taken classes like that at local hospitals or through their school, but the reality is that a lot of people don't have the means and the desire to take some.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#465

This plays out at all levels. I felt extremely insulted just a few days ago when my youngest’s preschool held a gathering to celebrate their “graduation” to pre-school. At least 4 times mothers were called on to step forward— once to have a song sung to them, another to receive a flower, etc. Fathers were not mentioned at all. This prompted me to look around, get a rough sense of the distribution… Counting the kids &…

[flagged]

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#466
post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This already exists if you wish to adopt in the US - just doesn't apply to the other method

interesting - one way to test the efficacy of something like this might be to compare median outcomes of adopted kids (whose parents went through some parenting education) with that of the non adopted general population (after controlling for other factors). Now which PhD candidate will bite :)

Hard to imagine how to design such study: (close to) 100% of people that adopt kid WANTED to have kid, and planned for them. Some XX% number of people having kid via pregnancy wasn't planning for them, and some even smaller YY% number doesn't want the kid at all.

Not to mention that unless the adoption of kids are done blind by parents, there has to be some biases there. As an example out of my ass, kids with behavioral problems might have way less adoption rate, and potentially those are the one with below median outcome in any case.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#468
This is a huge problem, and I lack the faith that it will ever get fixed. People have talked about it for years, and the amount of investment and research is nonexistent compared to the talk about it.

I have met many people in my life that virtue signaled using this issue. I opened to them assuming it was safe. They used any vulnerable moment to amplify my pain for their own enjoyment.

It sounds insane, but this is a fundamental(could be instinctual) aspect of human societies. Look at prisons. Look at war. Look at how online spaces react to men vs women.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#469

> many young men don’t seek emotional support when they need it because they fear being perceived as weak and ineffective. I would be curious to see a study on what happens to those men who do seek it. As in every last case I anecdotally am aware of, that perception quickly became reality and those men regretted it.

Brene Brown studied it. It does not turn out well for men: > I was not prepared to hear over and over from men how the women — the mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives — in their lives are constantly criticizing them for not being open and vulnerable and intimate, all the while they are standing in front of that cramped wizard closet where their men are huddled inside, adjusting the curtain and making sure no one see…

Yeah, this resonates. The times I have been vulnerable in relationships has always been met with, exactly as you say, recoil and disgust. It's a really shitty feeling to feel clingy and unworthy... in other words, when you actually need someone by your side.

As men, when we need people the most, that is when they are nowhere to be found. A stark contrast with women, who naturally seem to support each other in such times, and aren't hung up on the social stigma that encumber men.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#470
What's interesting is that I recently watched The Red Pill Documentary. I recall when it was released that the director, Cassie Jaye a self professed feminist was pilloried absolutely everywhere for giving a voice to Mens Rights Activists. The actual documentary is quite milquetoast.

What it is, is her engaging with the ideas around how in some ways men are disadvantaged in modern society. It's fascinating to me that the fundamental issue in the red pill is, whenever someone tries to point out where society is failing boys and men no-one listens and they get shouted down.

As pointed out by Corrine Barraclough, of the Australian tabloid newspaper The Daily Telegraph, who said in her review of the film that "the message of The Red Pill is compassion" and the film made her "wonder why feminists tried so hard to silence this crucial conversation."

Post reply on HN