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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

#791

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 is funny that you mention driving as an example. Driving and cars are not designed for pregnant woman. As a typical man with passion for cars and driving, this never occurred to me until my wife got pregnant.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#792

This comment will probably be lost but hey maybe someone will read it: We inherited a world where for many generations, men were hostile to women. It was unfair and needed rectifying. But increasingly, we fixed it by normalizing hostility to men. Overemphasis on "toxic masculinity", hyper focus on promoting outcomes for girls while doing nothing of the sort for boys. Plenty of various "Women in X" supporting each oth…

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Well, this I think is hard to argue against.

Historically, women had much fewer options in life. Basically, marry someone they don't pick, give them babies and look after the house. Poorer women had to work super hard, wealthier women less so, but were subordinate to the husbands whims, physically if nothing else.

Where voting was a thing, they couldn't vote. They were often not in control of their finances. They were cut off from education, office, "manly" hobbies. Then a very real glass ceiling - certainly a thing in 20th century.

This is focusing on the negatives of course but it would be hard to argue they had equal rights.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The director did a good Tedx talk[0] if anyone would like a tl;dr. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WMuzhQXJoY

Just FYI, TEDx is no guarantee at all about the credentials or worthiness of a talk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_(conference)#TEDx > TEDx are independent events similar to TED in presentation. They can be organized by anyone who obtains a free license from TED, and agrees to follow certain principles. TEDx events are required to be non-profit, but organizers may use an admission fee or commercial sponsorship to…

There's a way to judge the merit of someone's words, it's called listening.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#794

This comment will probably be lost but hey maybe someone will read it: We inherited a world where for many generations, men were hostile to women. It was unfair and needed rectifying. But increasingly, we fixed it by normalizing hostility to men. Overemphasis on "toxic masculinity", hyper focus on promoting outcomes for girls while doing nothing of the sort for boys. Plenty of various "Women in X" supporting each oth…

I dont have data to support this, but I can't help but feel that increasingly America has a habit of "pendulum" swinging around societal issues. That is, we severely overcorrect (often time a little too late) that also has the nasty effect of leading to unintended casualties.

On equality, I find it highly disturbing the current policies have amounted to a zero sum game.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#795

This comment will probably be lost but hey maybe someone will read it: We inherited a world where for many generations, men were hostile to women. It was unfair and needed rectifying. But increasingly, we fixed it by normalizing hostility to men. Overemphasis on "toxic masculinity", hyper focus on promoting outcomes for girls while doing nothing of the sort for boys. Plenty of various "Women in X" supporting each oth…

> We inherited a world where for many generations, men were hostile to women. It was unfair and needed rectifying.

> hyper focus on promoting outcomes for girls while doing nothing of the sort for boys.

I feel this bit of your context inspires some really useful analysis.

My perspective is that we have finished the easy part, having made progress on the most obvious harms. The work that remains is dealing with more deeply embedded issues - and that they are far more subtle and complex. We can see evidence of those issues manifested, when and where there is hostility toward women and for our systems that effectively safeguard them from historical risks.

And as ever, the group with the best insight to puzzle out how to proceed is the group that suffered. I believe this is true, even if they're still working it out (because it is immensely complicated). They will work it out, if we give them enough room and trust to do so.

As far there is an imbalance in fulfilling the needs of children, the most worthwhile solutions should be ones that are loving, inclusive and sow a unanimity that uplifts everyone toward their individual potentials. If girls are in a better place, then bringing boys into into that place seems like what we should try next.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears you and me came to the same conclusion. The only solution I see to this problem is bringing down the value of reproduction through technology. Think artificial wombs. That should hopefully lessen the social pressure of men to compete.

It's not artificial wombs. But you can have children through surrogacy. https://www.thefp.com/p/motherloading-inside-the-surrogacy

It is somewhat similar but it doesn't have big enough of an impact in this regard. Still too expensive/illegal.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 amou…

Also you were a bit lucky. Over the years there has been an insane amount of bad advise from "health specialists". I was born in a time when kids were supposed to sleep with their backs up and mothers were supposed to wash their nipples using antibacterial before breastfeeding...! Sometime before that there was a time (at least around here) were kids were supposed to eat sour cream porridge from early life. Of course…

We're currently undergoing a mass experiment in what happens to children if they are denied sun exposure. I guess we'll discover the outcomes in a few years.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Well, this I think is hard to argue against. Historically, women had much fewer options in life. Basically, marry someone they don't pick, give them babies and look after the house. Poorer women had to work super hard, wealthier women less so, but were subordinate to the husbands whims, physically if nothing else. Where voting was a thing, they couldn't vote. They were often not in control of their finances. They wer…

Historically yes, but that was quite a while ago - none of that has been the case for quite a while. The real push against men started maybe ~10 years ago? Or at least that’s when I noticed women I worked with being openly hostile to “men” online.

Said to say, they have had equal rights for a while now, but the rhetoric keeps amping up anyway.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Well, this I think is hard to argue against. Historically, women had much fewer options in life. Basically, marry someone they don't pick, give them babies and look after the house. Poorer women had to work super hard, wealthier women less so, but were subordinate to the husbands whims, physically if nothing else. Where voting was a thing, they couldn't vote. They were often not in control of their finances. They wer…

You are suborning your current values to an historical assessment.

Did medieval peasants have "freedom"? Did they care?

Men had short, brutal lives historically.

Women were highly valuable.

I think part of the problem of modernity is that men have to adjust to not having short, brutal lives.

Lots get left behind.

Humans still have the cognitive machinery to assign more value to women than men. Fundamental differences in reproductive output (i.e. men are "disposable" in a reproductive sense) make this immutable, even outside of millions of years of psychological evolution.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#800
post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, detention centers, jails etc. I think it’s a situation where we can’t stop people from having babies so we don’t even attempt to limit. There have been attempts to prevent births in “undesirable” populations that people thought weren’t capable of properly raising kids. [0] But unless…

> developing nations have really low birth rates Did you mean to write developed, perhaps? I'm under the impression - and a quick google confirms - that the more economically developed a country is, the lower its birth rate tends to be. (I'm sure I'm oversimplifying. I've not studied in this area, which is why I'm replying)

Thanks. You are right. I meant developed[0]. I like to think I typed “developing” and didn’t check my autocomplete.

There does seem to be a function of the more money and education for women, the lower the birth rate. Some countries are increasing immigration to compensate.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

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