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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

#681
post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

Beatings. I'm in my 30s and I was beat as a kid. You'd be surprised how legal and still often recommended it is, especially with neurodivergent young boys. One of the founders of the DevOps movement once gave a talk on Dallas where he described striking a young boy who had hit his daughter because he thought especially young white boys need to learn consequences.

Especially in neurodivergent young boys, for sure. Speaking from experience.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#682
post #518
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…

What does it mean to learn to be men?

Dirty, loud, narcissistic, violent, etc...?

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#683
post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 tha…

In the US it's called spanking, and would be carried out manually, via a belt (using the buckle if you're a true sociopath), a "switch" - a small, whiplike sapling or tree branch, or a paddle which looks like a small cricket bat.

When I was in primary school in the 90's, it was technically still allowed by the state, and was threated by teachers, but I don't believe it was ever actually done, and I believe is illegal now.

That said, this entire thread is a shitshow and further convinces me that no one has any idea what they're doing or probably even any coherent idea of why they're raising children in the first place or what they want for those children, and reinforces my decision to opt-out of the whole idea.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#684
post #477

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 ba…

> People aren't having enough children

If anything it's the opposite.

> You can't break cycles of bad parenting

Because you said so?

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#685
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)

>> smack our kid into submission > What does this mean?

It only has one possible meaning: beat your child until they comply. A large percentage of parents have no other response. If they don't use physical violence they may use verbal or psychological violence instead.

People have a biological urge to reproduce which they're happy to indulge but are often unprepared for the challenges of raising children. Exasperation and exhaustion make shouting at or striking your child an attractive strategy. Note that this is different to (effective) discipline in that these responses are often arbitrary and unpredictable, leading to anxious and depressed children.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#686

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 &…

OTOH I was the only male in my daughter's classes whatsapp group for parents. Most fathers seemed to be glad the mother was handling that shit. And I doubt I was the only divorced father with shared custody.

What is a parents' WhatsApp group for?

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#687
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 oth…

[deleted]

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#688
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 oth…

Yep.

Gender differences in automatic in-group bias: why do women like women more than men like men?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15491274/

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#689
post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think in sports we should "call a tomato a fruit" where at work/school/sociallife we should call a tomato a vegetable is the tomato wishes to be called a vegetable. :)

It does not make sense in sports. Otherwise the women's leagues would become trans-leagues.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#690

This sounds like they're not really taking into account boys needs, with the idea that we shouldn't be "gendered" when relating to them. This made me think of Andrew Tate, who is a douchebag, but has a huge following with young men, apparently because he has found a way to appeal to them emotionally. Anyone who is looking at how to push boys in the right direction should look at what appeals to them and meet them whe…

On my reading, the article is explicitly taking into account boys' specific needs. It cites research showing that infant boys are more sensitive. need greater emotional scaffolding, and are more vulnerable to the effects of bullying.

Perhaps you're referring to the line

> Fathers and mothers use far more emotionally rich language with toddler-aged daughters than sons, for instance. Fathers are also more likely to sing to and soothe their toddler daughters at night when they cry.

I interpret this as a call to resist specific gendered parenting behaviours that propagate harmful norms. Not that gender should be excluded from consideration.

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