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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

#471

Post by bergerjac »

93po wrote: post #282

It's become clear to me in my mid 30s that I was very emotionally neglected as a child. I had literally no idea because I had nothing to compare it to, and the behavior of my parents feels relatively normal for when I was growing up. It's my belief that this neglect has had a big role in the insecurity, lack of vulnerability, lack of self-esteem, and lack of honesty throughout my entire life. I don't blame my parents…

My childhood conditioning was also something which recently unraveled for me.

The first time I had a heart-to-heart with my father, the center of my chest felt viscerally tender.

Mother stole a car and sold it to pay for a cocaine addiction. Father was such a workaholic that he simply marked her behaviors as "strange"... like her taking phone calls into a closet.

After the divorce my father had custody and remarried to continue his absence. (Normally left before I awoke, and I went to bed before he returned. He was even normally late for family dinners on holidays. When he was home, he was sleeping or watching TV)

Sometimes stepmother would return from work and vomit anger onto me and my stepsister. (Only about 2 years ago I realized it was Verbal Abuse)

Re-encoding memories was crucial for my awareness, and mental-emotional progress.

It's challenging at first, but after processing a few traumas, now when a deeper layer surfaces, I know I can immediately bring it to a therapeutic resolution.

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood."

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#472

Post by Shared404 »

brigandish wrote: post #453
noname2021 wrote: post #444

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…

[flagged]

> (that humans are sexually dimorphic and ramifications of that)

We're actual a bimodal distribution. Even not accounting for intersex folk it's a lot less binary than most people assume or was covered in 8th grade bio.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#473

Post by afpx »

noname2021 wrote: post #444

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…

It could be that parenting isn’t as much of a factor as growing up poor.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#474

Post by throwaway_45321 »

dumpsterdiver wrote: post #415
dayvid wrote: post #394

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…

While I agree with your take about society, I disagree that boys have less space to be boys. Boys will be boys, no matter what the world does. There will never be a shortage of boys who want to throw rocks and jump in mud until their feet get stuck.

> Boys will be boys, no matter what the world does.

You are saying this based based off of.. what exactly?

I disagree with this entirely. The world has a huge effect on what boys do. In a social media world driven by likes, clicks and endless consumption, you have to be very careful about what is said or done as it is easy for something to be take out of context, and magnified for the whole world to see.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#475

Post by iamacyborg »

worrycue wrote: post #449
at_a_remove wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholly agree with "second fathers." I am Gen X, and I think one of the social institutions which has quietly vanished before I could quite get to it was the old Roman concept of "patronage." Without understanding I was doing it until embarrassingly late, I spent a lot of time looking for those second fathers, the mentors, the patrons. What broke it for me was someone who was clearly suited for the role, and had ben…

> If the "wrong" groups have something to offer in the way of second fathers, maybe their values aren't as bad as expected. Nobody wants to even consider that. If only The Bad Guys are making sense about some issues, what else might they be correct on? Some of those “wrong groups” are just flat out scammers and charlatans though - see those “alpha male” influencers hawking their courses or whatever. They are taking a…

Two examples immediately spring to mind, Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson.

I’m sure both have had some moderately useful things to say at some stage of their life for some folks, but a quick look at their Twitter profile tells you everything you really need to know now.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#476

Post by radicalriddler »

I'll never forget the night that I was crying for some reason or another, and my Dad came in and said I was nothing like himself or my big brother, and was more akin to my depressed alcoholic mother (obviously he didn't say this, but he said I was more like my mum and that's how I perceive her to a point).

Unfortunately I was raised by two people so opposite on the emotional scale that I still have no idea how to regulate my emotions so I just don't show any.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#477

Post by screye »

noname2021 wrote: post #444

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…

People aren't having enough children. Every extra hurdle is going to reduce the number of people who end up parents.

> Potentially break the cycles of bad parenting

You can't break cycles of bad parenting, because they are 2nd order effects of cycles of trauma. And cycles of trauma have been a fundamental part of human civilization since we've existed. We absolutely should teach compassion, good parenting 101s and basic logistical upskilling as a part of high school for both men and women.

But, expecting humans as a whole to suddenly start acting with decency is not going to happen.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#478

Post by tacocataco »

radicalriddler wrote: post #476

I'll never forget the night that I was crying for some reason or another, and my Dad came in and said I was nothing like himself or my big brother, and was more akin to my depressed alcoholic mother (obviously he didn't say this, but he said I was more like my mum and that's how I perceive her to a point). Unfortunately I was raised by two people so opposite on the emotional scale that I still have no idea how to reg…

The thing that helped me was accepting that we live in a damaged world. It's okay to be damaged yourself.

To expect otherwise is to expect a fish not to be wet.

Take care.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#479

Post by antigonemerlin »

noname2021 wrote: post #444

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…

It's exactly what my father did. He took parenting classes at the library, because he wanted to learn more and didn't think that just because he considered himself successful in business and life, he would necessarily understand pedagogy. To that, I am eternally grateful to him.

It's very hard for people to swallow their pride and admit humility, to say "I don't know" and listen to the experts. I have an immense amount of respect for anybody who does, and it is an example I try to live by (though not always successfully).

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#480

Post by lelanthran »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #275
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.

[flagged]

> It hits different because "men suck" is equivalent to "white people suck". It's punching up.

I disagree that normalizing violence and hate against a large and non-homogenous group is okay.

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