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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

#671
post #650
post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is terrible "magic thinking" advice. Kids are VERY counterintuitive (mine at least). Our kid has had behavioral problems at school and at home. And it's extremely difficult to understand the root of the issues (it turns out that the pandemic, moving houses, starting school and having a baby brother all at once can be a bit much for a 3 year old). Literally EVERYONE who is not a professional told us to smack our…

> Literally EVERYONE who is not a professional told us to smack our kid

Respectfully, if that's true I urge you to find a new social circle.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#672
post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is terrible "magic thinking" advice. Kids are VERY counterintuitive (mine at least). Our kid has had behavioral problems at school and at home. And it's extremely difficult to understand the root of the issues (it turns out that the pandemic, moving houses, starting school and having a baby brother all at once can be a bit much for a 3 year old). Literally EVERYONE who is not a professional told us to smack our…

> smack our kid into submission What does this mean? I never talk child care in any significant way on the net, so I feel there are way to many ways too misinterpret this. Even the nice interpretation of this would border on illegal here. (FWIW I think I agree with you on all accounts and I have had it easy)

I am in France, where hitting kids has become illegal only in 2019. There is a practice we call fessee which consists of slapping the butt of your kid, which sort of hurts but fades quickly. It’s been around forever here and when I was a kid in the 80s was the ultimate threat (our fathers got the “martinet” which is small whip).

Anyways, although illegal, hurting your kid is a very common practice around here.

On that subject: humiliation in school by teachers has been prohibited since 1953, and is still common here too. In the first school my kid went to, there was a board on the wall in the hallway where they would write the name of bad boys to public-shame them.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#673

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…

There’s a saying: “it takes a village to raise a child.”

Historically, the role of the “parentin school” you’re proposing has been played by the family, most importantly grandparents. As we move away as a society from relying on family structures, we need to recognise their utility and find equivalents.

We moved away successfully from family structures in many areas of society: succession of rulers, for example. So this doesn’t need to be a bad thing. But I think the role that grandparents played should be studied carefully when proposing certain types of schooling for parents.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#674
post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as an extended family unless there are strong nuclear families to begin with. this concept is lost on so many people... But it's simply easier to raise your kids with their grandparents aunts and uncles if grandma and grandpa had a good relationship and aren't divorce to begin with. Divorce is ultimately at the root of so many social ills but it's verboten to even mention

> but it's verboten to even mention You just did. I find it curious, though, that a number of commenters seem to focus almost entirely on the "present" aspect and not on the crucial emotional investment aspect discussed in the article: "when fathers are present and emotionally invested in children’s lives", the title of which says "what boys really need is emotional support from their dads". Presence alone is not nec…

>>but it's verboten to even mention

>You just did.

And now his comment is grey.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#675
post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that disqualify their problems? I don't get your sentiment.

MensLib is overflowing with the kind of male feminist who will sling around "incel" as an insult for even the most milquetoast of takes. And since the Red Pill documentary (bad name, middling content) was mentioned, I'll also point out that one of the feminists who featured in it was later outed as a sex pest, despite desperately trying to position himself as One of the Good Ones™: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha…

> outed as a sex pest

Accused. Last I checked these were different things.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#676
post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, any mention of "biological essentialism" is explicitly banned there. Unfortunately, a lot of biology is indeed objective essentialist. It's a terrible subreddit made for people who think that the solution to every problem that men face is to simply go read "Come as You Are" or some other shit from Bell Hooks.

So biology says tomato is a fruit. In the kitchen we consider it a vegetable. Could the same be true for the whole gender discussion? That biology gets side-stepped in the name of common sense (that does not answer questions regarding toilets, sports competitions and mis-pronouning; but it would give us some space without totally invalidating biology)

But the whole tension is over sports:

Do we base sports on the biological reality of sex or mute our awareness of that objective fact[1] to preference “identity” — even if the outcome is females[2] no longer having a space to compete?

[1] - Humans like other apes (and mammals) are sexually dimorphic.

[2] - Female is the scientific term referring to the sex.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#677

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…

By failing to maintain the population. The richer people get, the fewer children they have. This is the same in countries all over the world. Your intuition is wrong on this one.

And why should we maintain the population ? Have we reached the perfect amount of people on earth ?

We could be a lot less humans on earth, it would be amazing for the environment, and I think we'd be as happy.

The only downside I see is economic (in the sense that everything is built with the expectation of growth). But it is to me an economic problem, and not a reproduction problem.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#678
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…

I don't know if this was considered in the film (I haven't seen it), but the difference between how men's and women's issues are treated is quite obvious to me. It's due to an imbalance in the care matrix.

If we think broadly about who cares about whom, it goes like this:

* Men care about women because they want to mate with them,

* Women care about women because it's in their own best interest to look after each other (men only care about them for selfish reasons),

* Men don't care about men because it's not in their own best interest to do so, in fact it's advantageous to defeat other men,

* Women don't care about men because it's not in their own best interest to do so.

Essentially, women support each other, men compete with each other.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#679
post #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.

My parents were married in 1966 ages 22 and 23, two children the next two years, a house three years after married. Dad was a high school dropout although his Dad my grandfather had a painting business. But my grandfather died aged 52 just as my Dad was beginning his life with Mom. So yes he did some growing up fast I really forget how hard it must have been for him and Mom with all that happening all at the same time.

My grandfather was married to my grandmother and had nine kids and then even a few grandchildren all before the age of 52 when he died.

So here I am now no children, not married, I'm past at the age my grandfather died. Staggering to my mind how mature the previous generation was or had to be.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#680

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…

There’s a saying: “it takes a village to raise a child.” Historically, the role of the “parentin school” you’re proposing has been played by the family, most importantly grandparents. As we move away as a society from relying on family structures, we need to recognise their utility and find equivalents. We moved away successfully from family structures in many areas of society: succession of rulers, for example. So t…

Not necessarily family structures but tribes. Could be a small group of families helping each other. Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the values imparted on the youth come from a position of trust (from the youth) and not a forced daytime prison run by folks whose dreams died when they found out how much they owe for their PhD without deferment.

Seriously though, those tribes or large familial structures that keep the youth accountable because their authority is established and trusted is what all children need. Sometimes that trust comes from teachers but rarely.

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