Live data from Hacker News

Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

wbur.org

601–610 of 1001 posts

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#601
post #260

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?

I didn’t experience this in my childhood in the 80s (I’m 47) in Los Angeles. The only shocking moment I had was taking a Women Studies course in my sophomore year of college… as I felt my childhood lacked this tension, it would be helpful to uncover blind spots. In particular I remember we had a 2 day discussion on the harmful impact of the Cosby Show on society (both race and gender relations) and the other male mem…

>the harmful impact of the Cosby Show

Could you expand on this?

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People aren't having enough children. By what metric? Economics? Economics, ironically, is the reason I don't have more kids. My family is doing, what I would consider, "quite well", but we'd still be pretty fucked with one more mouth to feed, the need for a larger car and possibly larger house. I truly don't know how people that aren't that far below us on the resources / income scale have any hope of comfortable…

> I truly don't know how people that aren't that far below us on the resources / income scale have any hope of comfortable retirement prior to actual death. "Comfortable retirement" is a luxury of the recent past. It wasn't a concept for most of human history and will stop being one for most people fairly soon. If anything, for most of human history, having someone to take care of you when you're old has been a prima…

A formalized retirement age is a recent invention but human biology alone has always required people to transition through various stages in life. I think the idea of retirement = doing nothing is quite new when applied to broad sections of society. But going back millennia, older people would transition from often hard physical/dangerous occupations to tasks focused more on maintaining social networks, helping to raise kids, supervising, etc.

I think that societies should return to supporting this approach to life (but through valuing an individual's contribution, not sanctions). Growing older will always come with changes in one's abilities (not always to the worse) and personal priorities. This should be embraced and encouraged basically up to the point of death. I.e. my village has an organization called "Rentnerbande" (="gang of pensioners") where older guys help local schools, kindergartens and people with beautification and handicraft stuff for free.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> When you're able to produce a 3rd kind of gamete, or a human that can produce the other kind too or in sequence, then you can change my mind and claim your Nobel prize Many people result a null in this category in this without any medical intervention. Unless you intend to imply that someone is genderless if they produce no gametes? > FYI, intersex is a misnomer because it gives those who don't seem to understand t…

> Many people result a null in this category in this without any medical intervention. Unless you intend to imply that someone is genderless if they produce no gametes?

Humans only have the potential to produce one type of gamete. Whether they actually are able to produce that at any given moment is a different matter.

> Humans can be born with both, or neither, sets of genitals

Again, unless they are able to produce gametes of both types from them then it doesn't matter, and we have no recorded instances of this occurring.

> and chimerism…

is irrelevant unless it leads to the production of both types of gamete at the same time or in sequence, which it does not. There are only 2 sexes because there are only 2 types of sex cell. Each sex produces one type, that is why they are of that sex. There is no 3rd, there are no humans that produce both. Hence, humans are sexually dimorphic.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#604
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…

I have a similar experience. I went to some counselling in my early 40s and we talked a lot about my childhood and family dynamics. It was one of the best things I've ever done in terms of my capacity for happiness (and the happiness of those around me).

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#605
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've never understood why there is a dichotomy presented in relationships like that - sure, 10 years into your marriage you might not be going at it like rabbits as you were in the first year, but there isn't any reason why parents can't provide stable environments for children _and_ have strong romantic relationships still. It takes very little to carve off some time for one another, and that continued investment in…

I guess you don't have kids yet, emphasis on plural. They chip away bit by bit everything that makes a relationship a good one, sand in the fine gears that made people fall for each other in the first place. By far the biggest stressor in marriages (unless somebody else is actually raising your kids, be it grandparents or nannies).

Sure, you can, and should, keep working on repairs and rebuilding, but that's additional work on top of all additional work on top of actual work of living in modern society. Not everybody, always, has energy for that, and you need 2 for that or it just doesn't work. Hence the difference of what looks nice on paper and how things should be, and how they actually are.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#606

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…

You don’t learn how to parent, you learn how to live, in a wholehearted way, and you model that for your children.

Good parenting is foremost about growing up before your kids do.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was recently wondering about who was typically in the delivery room 50+ years ago. So when I saw my elderly grandmother last week, I asked her whether my grandfather was there when my father was born in the late 50s. She was a little offended by the question (itself interesting), but said it was just her and the medical staff. No other support people. She thought my grandfather was at the hospital, but wasn’t sure.

The concept of the delivery room is a historical aberration. For most of history women would give birth at home accompanied by female friends and family.

And for most of history, maternal mortality was double of what it is today

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#608

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 &…

My daughter's teacher this year just straight blanks me at the parent consultations. Like, it's uncomfortable. Speaking to some other fathers it's not just me. But I am still undecided over whether it's worth complaining as her holding her hands up and saying mea culpa seems somewhat unlikely and I feel I would quickly become the bad guy.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#609
post #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 director did a good Tedx talk[0] if anyone would like a tl;dr.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WMuzhQXJoY

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#610
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…

I have near 0 emotional intelligence because of that. Only small part I have it is due to my wife efforts on teaching me how to feel about others and my own feelings.
Post reply on HN