All: obviously this topic brings up strong feelings (it does for me too), but if you're posting under the influence of someone's comment provoking you, please wait until that activation subsides before posting. We want curious conversation here, and this thread is veering too much into flamewar.
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, detention centers, jails etc.
How about some minimal coaching so that all parents are aware of the state of the art in child psychology and techniques to do better as parents. Potentially break the cycles of bad parenting that have been running in families for a long time (I write this as one such person).
I expect it will be hard (nay impossible) to institute a parenting license (like a driving license) in a democratic society. So instead have a strong incentive in the way of a financial grant for every parent who clears a parenting curriculum sometime before their child turns 1 (or some appropriate marker). Keep the freebees /incentives piling on during the kids childhood so parents are motivated to undertake "continuing education"
Parenting is truly important stuff - for many parents it is the most important responsibility we'll ever have in our lives- but we seem to leave it to chance to get the right outcomes.
A simple question for you, what exact measurable and quantifiable differences would you expect to see in, for instance, the children of psychologists of the sort this article appeals to, and those of e.g. Joe [demographically equivalent] Normal's children? And this naturally somewhat leads into, and what factors, as a society, should we prioritize?
To me it seems quite trivial to create unfalsifiable arguments, for near anything, using extremely nebulous terms like "reducing public health risks." It's not like anybody's ever going to say, "No way man - I really think we should work to increase public health risks!" But what separates science from pseudoscience is falsifiability. So it's only once you break things down into actual, specific, and measurable goals that the conversation can even begin.
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As but one example, the most fundamental component for a society to perpetuate itself is fertility. And so, in my mind, a child's upbringing should absolutely be focused on ensuring this person will be able to both raise and support their own healthy family in the future. Yet of course even this simple goal is going to prove controversial because there's some conflict between it and certain cultural norms. And you'd need to reconcile this in some way that people, independent of worldview, can be generally happy with. I'm not sure this is possible.
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).
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 kids died left and right, but the logic was, if so many died following the best practices, how many wouldn't have died if babies were left drinking only milk! (Retold as best I can describe it from what an older person in the family told me.)
All this is before we start talking about parenting fads like "no rules parenting" (not sure about the exact English term) which must have caused untold harm.
So creds to your dad for finding the correct advice and sticking with it.
As a new parents we got tons of books as gifts on pregnancy and baby's first year or two. But then it ended. I continue to buy books on parenting, child psychology, etc. But sadly it seems once baby turns toddler, most parents are done with learning.
One of the most common toxic phrase I keep hearing from these parents is I was raised this way, look I turned out to be fine. Of course, later in the same conversations they will admit they are not fine.
Maybe it is us geeks who love to learn and feel proud to deep dive into whatever we get into.
I've read somewhere that just buying a parenting book, even without reading it, can make some people better parents or have a positive influence. Simply thinking about how to be a better parent and showing an interest in improving can lead to self-reflection and conscious consideration of parenting approaches.
While reading the book (attending the course) would likely provide more benefits, just the intention to be a better parent and the willingness to reflect on one's parenting practices may still be valuable step leading to an improvement in parenting abilities.
Yes! The old refrain, "they don't come with a manual!" is such a load of ignorant self-serving garbage. There are plenty of resources to learn from. Ideally, not mommy-bloggers who misrepresent parenting techniques.
At the other end, modern parents have so many restrictions and expectations put on them.
> How about some minimal coaching so that all parents are aware of the state of the art in child psychology and techniques to do better as parents.
1. We don't know as much as people think we do about what constitutes "good parenting". At best, we know some behaviours which are typically harmful (molestation, violence), but everyone already knows that, and the people exhibiting those behaviours need therapy themselves, so a parenting course won't fix that.
2. You're basically turning what is normally considered an innate human right into a privilege for which you need to earn a license. This invites all kinds of abuse (only the right kinds of people get this license!).
>we know some behaviours which are typically harmful (molestation, violence), but everyone already knows that
Horse crap, a huge amount of parents genuinely believe violence is a necessity for child rearing (including frequent repetitions of "spare the rod, spoil the child") to the point that they've even pushed to bring it back into public schools!
Even the very basics are not accepted as fact by many.
2 is tricky because we live in a society where the group is responsible for an individuals bad parenting decisions.
Our options are to keep creating support programs to cover for bad parenting (not nearly as effective as good parents) or to stop “bad” parents from having kids (not super moral).
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 kid into submission. But by reading stuff and talking to professionals, you learn that some kids do have weird ways of expressing their emotions, and that acknowledging that and supporting them works. You have to completely turn the way you speak to them around. It's really hard to do cause nobody wants to confort a kid who's annoying, but it works.
None of the stuff I do with my kids would have been possible had I not learnt it as an adult. Stop the magic thinking. Read about children, they're weird and wonderfully different.
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.
This is exhibit A, not only have they learnt nothing, but will reject every opportunity to learn. Exactly like my Father.
I have a daughter growing up, and every time there is a decision to make, I check what people like this would do, and do the opposite. Or at least make sure to avoid that.
I can't downvote this enough. Sure, it's true that experience is the best way to learn but that method leads to alot of dead ends that society then has to deal with. Saying that parents can self-learn and self-evolve totally distracts the reader away from the original comment which is about the critical need for society to better support parents structurally. Most of us don't live in multi-generational communes where this stuff might happen without a structured approach ... and for all those new parents who do not, the need is great.
>> Good parenting is foremost about growing up before your kids do
This unfortunately is not a given and that's the crux of the discussion.
If every parent were able to achieve complete knowledge and wisdom about all things parenting before they had kids we wouldn't be talking of any of this.
My mother tried to be a good mom but never addressed her mental health issues, leading to four kids having pretty severe problems twenty, thirty years later.
She took decades from us, though she "tried to live" but didn't want to learn anything she didn't already know.
Wholeheartedly agree, the thought that we can school our way out this seems overly simplistic. And I'd go as far as to say the schooling philosophy is part of this pathology.
Society decided to dump most doctrinal support but unfortunately this has left a significant portion of the masses with little direction. But also many have little inclination or time to work it out for themselves. And even if you did start to read Jung, Nietzsche, Hegel, Hiedeger or whichever philosopher you chose there's a myriad of directions one could take it and it's a heady mix. I've started to read these philosophers but I bring it a traditional Creator grounding and it's still pretty wild.
Ultimately I don't think we have a clue what we're doing and we are prone to getting very scared and taking it out on those around us or in our care.
Would you be surprised to learn that there is something similar in Japan? Though not necessarily required, there are "mama papa" classes done by the government with the basics covered. And there are checkups (1 month, 3 months, 6, 1 year, 2, 3) which have some involvement in checking the child's health, wellbeing, development, as well as that of the parent(s).
Plenty of parents in America have taken classes like that at local hospitals or through their school, but the reality is that a lot of people don't have the means and the desire to take some.
> 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.
> How about some minimal coaching so that all parents are aware of the state of the art in child psychology and techniques to do better as parents.
In my country, we had a housekeeping class in school, that taught everything from basic cooking skills, to safety with electrical appliances. There was also a woodworking class, where you were taught how to use various tools correctly and safely. Later, in university, there were courses that concerned things like paying taxes in more detail, employment law and how small businesses work etc.
I think that parenting classes sound like a good idea. It can also help people figure out when they're absolutely not ready for something or are not comfortable with it - like happened to me and getting a driver's license.
Along this same thought - if you know anyone who has ever adopted the process and review procedures of the adoptive parents can be intense... and this is for people who desperately WANT to be parents, meanwhile at least in the USA you have a ton of people not being able to terminate a pregnancy that they are not prepared for and this leads to children raising children, hurting both.
My city (Munich, Germany) automatically sends "parent letters" to every child registered here (they are addressed "To the parents of <child's name and address>), which contain advice on dealing with common problems and questions as well as providing information about support services, sorted by age.
So for example, the one for 3,5 years has sections on how to deal with food pickiness, or with excessive preference for one parent.
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.
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.
Maybe you could re-create an extended family w/ friendship and local community - "the village" so to speak - but let's say I have my severe doubts about finding enough like-minded people in at least the US to accomplish it. Very few with options have the commitment.
The government and institutions seriously cannot even hope to replace a tiny fraction of this support structure though. People actually have to care about each other on a individual human level. It turns into checkboxing CYA otherwise - having seen a bit of this implementation in social work.
This is an underrated comment. American lifestyle forces people to make tough choices about their extended, sometimes even closest family. The % of the population who earn enough to support one or more dependents comfortably, be it a child or a parent, is probably in single digits. The result is the mental health epidemic.
that's a hell of a leap - saying take some basic classes (likely not that much unlike how catholic churches require couples classes prior to marrying folks) to understand how to properly care for a child is nothing like eugenics and gene manipulation.
Well there already is eugenic like behavior going on. Partners select for money, tall and handsome. It's just not framed that way. End result is the same.
One of the things that Finance people do is force employees to have short computer-based trainings every year. They seem stupid and bother everyone, but I think they are fairly effective (and they've been going on for years, so they must have proven some level of effectiveness).
Health insurance providers could be forced to have parents do a yearly 1-hour training on how to handle kids to enable benefits.
You're not going to solve the biggest problems, just like SEC trainings don't prevent money laundering, but whateveer moves the needle a little bit may be worth doing...
> and they've been going on for years, so they must have proven some level of effectiveness
They are effective
In reducing the liability of the company that is forcing it's employees to take the course. As for actual behavioral change, that is often not the case.
> 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 we’re going to have a super controlled society with forced birth control and abortion, there’s not a qualification to give birth. And developing nations have really low birth rates so anything to further lower birth rates has some negative societal and economic impact.
That being said, there are many free programs available to parents but they have to reach out to find them. I live in a pretty backwards, relatively speaking, state and there were numerous state, county, charity, and religious programs to help with parenting coaching before and after birth.
It does seem like a good idea to add coaching into the maternal health programs to give more education and support to expecting and new parents.
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)
interesting - one way to test the efficacy of something like this might be to compare median outcomes of adopted kids (whose parents went through some parenting education) with that of the non adopted general population (after controlling for other factors).
Something I don’t think many people know about is that marriages licenses, (yes you need a license to gain some tax benefits) often have an incentive to do pre-marital counseling. Tennessee, for instance, at least halves the price of the marriage license if you got any premarital counseling. Which they very broadly define, so you could get it from just about anyone a reasonable person could call trained in counseling.
Something along those lines, such as cheaper hospital stays or government covering part of childcare or some incentive like that could support what you are thinking. Not required, but a financial incentive. This is especially useful because it targets lower income families, hopefully reducing the correlation from parental income and career/health/etc outcomes.
PS: Smart of you to wear your nomex, this thread is a conflagration.
I guess this is simply straight-up unenforceable. Making babies is the one thing almost anyone over 12 is capable of doing, with no effort. A key tenet of public policy is that it must be achievable, else forget about it.
Poverty is certainly a factor but its another factor. There are kids who have the basics covered and then some but don't get the emotional support they need and that impacts them over their adult life.
<< 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.
The issue is that in US driving license is trivial to get and it shows on the roads ( queue explanations that it is just the function of car being a necessity -- true, but irrelevant too the point ). Even if instituted, I don't think people would accept that kind of infringement though I admit this is probably one place, where we should be able to self-regulate ( we clearly can't though and some systems are built for ever increasing population, which is a separate force that would prevent that kind of change ).
In short, I agree. I don't think we are doing it well now.
What to do about multiple parenting styles that are at odds with one another (sometimes even in the same household)?
How about the baggage that parents are carrying that influence how they’re gonna parent, many of those suitcases inherited from their parents?
That’s one thing for sure, but some parents aren’t even parenting for various reasons, not enough time, lack of responsibility or not being around for various reasons. If we could tackle all that we’d basically get a much better society but it’s a nearly impossible problem to solve in a practical way…
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.
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 retirement prior to actual death.
People, who have enough resources (financial, educational) don't have much children. I don't think that this will affect this group.
People, who have no access to education or anticonception, have disproportionally more children. Many of them are unwanted. Some are irreversibly damage due to abusive susbtance intake.
I think a society would have better outcomes by teaching young people the consequences to their lives of having children, such as time and financial costs. In one of the classes in my high school, students had to carry around a sack of flour for a week without damaging it.
A reward/benefit system is possibly better. We can examine how teaching consequences concerning the law, isn’t working sufficiently if we look at the US prison system population and the US prisoners reoffending rate. I think something like offering a tax deductible for completing a parenting program that’s specifically designed for outlining psychology negatives of not being there for the child is obvious. The money for financing the said program should be taken by a tax of adults with kids that haven’t completed the said program. I wouldn’t apply and cutoff age as well because everyone that has kids regardless of how long ago would still benefit society by completing such a program.
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.
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 other, but try to sed s/women/men/ and you're a toxic macho.
I think the outcome is unsurprising.
Just to be clear, a lot of the initiatives for promoting women's success are good and necessary. But to me the emphasis should have been on promoting equality, not bashing men for the benefit of women.
I have a similar sentiment. I remember growing up with jocks and bullies and really not identifying with the whole “group showers and snapping towels at asses” masculinity not pleasant and spent a lot of time getting beaten up or avoiding being beaten up.
So at first I liked the pushback against toxic masculinity as I didn’t like jerk men. But then the concept expanded to everything. “Mansplaining” isn’t something unique to men, but it’s ok to point out “mansplaining” but not non-men explaining stuff. “Manspreading” is used quite a bit, but there’s a reason why men sit with their legs open so there’s a polite about of space that’s ok for comfort. Etc etc.
I hope this is overcompensating for a long time of jerks being jerks but I fear that the bullying resulting from “strength = power” and jocks has now changed to “money = power” and people other than jocks have power.
I go to an esports bar quite a bit and an esports team was there. And they were totally bullying people and it was weird because it was multiple genders and races being total jerks to people. But the bully’s were strong, tall, handsome jocks. They were esports-types. So the jerk dynamic was still there.
I don’t think it’s progress if we end up with the same number of “toxic” jerks.
> not identifying with the whole “group showers and snapping towels at asses” masculinity
Me, neither. And, in fact, I've never met anybody who did. Have you ever noticed how many of the movies we grew up watching were about a "shy, sensitive boy" who "wasn't like the jocks" who ended up getting the girl in the end? Ever notice how that trope appealed to almost everybody? That's because that's how everybody remembers their teenage years, too - even the guys who actually were on the football team taking group showers.
Imo I think this comment would have had more weight behind it for me before recent political events and before Roe vs Wade was overturned. I don’t believe in easy answers and I don’t claim to be able to experience life from the other gender, but cat calling is still common in the US. Women still get payed significantly less than men. Women still have much higher risks of sexual assault. We just decided to roll back constitutional protections for abortion something that imo is critical for women’s ability to exist as equal citizens. I don’t think we’ve pendulum swung somehow past equality. Obviously something has gone wrong for men in the US. Stats around education, depression, and suicide make that hard to dispute, but it remained the fact that a boy born today can expect to have more power than his sister.
I do think this can be true while there can also be elements of society that push the other way. Culture is made up of many micro cultures and the kid born in SF will have a different experience than the one born in Mississippi, but we do have bigger issues than people on the internet making fun of mansplaining or something. It’s just too easy to have one’s perception of reality distorted by your perception.
This is not a zero sum game. We can acknowledge that there has been regression or no change in some areas without any bearing on the negative outcomes of over corrective attitudes towards men.
Food for thought: the types of men who are likely to rely on macho masculinity and the abuse of power dynamics are the least likely to be phased by an undercurrent of anti-male sentiment.
Sensitive men, the men who are not propagating these patterns are the men who take such sentiment seriously, and are more likely to be harmed/held back by it.
The issue is not “men”. The issue is bad behavior. But as long as the framing is men vs. women, people who are not exhibiting the targeted behavior get caught up in the broader backlash, leading to a very hostile situation that does little to address the real issues in a sustainable way.
It may be that the pendulum swing was necessary for a time, and indeed there have been times in our history where this was obvious, e.g. the women’s suffrage movement.
And there are still clear wage gaps and the issue of bodily autonomy among others that remain critical to solve. But those can be addressed without perpetuating a culture that demonizes boys for being born male. This is a shift in thinking that we must make.
All those issues has equality issues that impacts both genders, and solutions that would benefit both men and women generally ignored. Roe vs Wade could be changed into a human rights discussion where every person has a right to demand consent to parenthood before being forced into it. The asymmetry of child birth has up to today dictated different amount of rights for men and women, both before and after birth. Unifying those into a single right, a human right, would bring those issues closer to each other and change how policy is created around them.
Women still get payed significantly less than men, and men work significantly more hours than women and at more dangerous jobs. Those two inequalities also hang together with inequalities related to non-paid work like parenting, and also that men are twice as likely to not have children than women (sometimes refereed to as reproductive inequality). Solving those require a lot of different initiatives that all work in unity to reduce inequality for both men and women.
Women are also at much higher risks of sexual assault, and men are at very higher risk of assault. Reducing sexual assault and assault involves solutions that are fairly similar, ie higher cohesion in society, more trust, and stronger social connections, social networks and social support among the population. Inequality in social economic status is also a strong indicator of high amount of sexual assaults and assault.
Could it be that equality is not the just nor fair answer?
A big silence in terms of women’s equality is found in the most drastic case in fields like the military, where even though women have been allowed and encouraged via advertisement, is still overwhelmingly male worldwide. It’s obvious that women’s bodies are not the same as men’s bodies in general… so why would we aim for full equality (aka identicalness) given these basic facts that men are not like women?
Also see pay and work: the more time a woman spends at her job is less time with her kids, which directly impacts society in many unfortunate ways, especially since men are still often the breadwinners, and even sociobiologically, the role of motherhood cannot equal fatherhood. So is work pay more about capitalism & lowering wages or more about a nebulous sense of empowerment?
In terms of assault and harassment: there is also the general culture on both genders of situations that encourage this. For example, things like clubbing, heavy drinking, proximity with strangers, hookup culture, a culture focused on individualism and bringing attention to oneself in terms of clothing, behavior, etc… all of these are factors.
Perhaps to obtain the outcomes people wish to see, “equality” is not the answer.
Were they really though? I mean, yes there always were and always will be some abusive men, but men _as a group_ have been more associated with protecting and caring for women than being hostile to them. Until very recently in human history, women actually couldn't physically survive without men - it's only been in the past few generations that the nature of work has changed to where women could actually perform it.
In recent memory, 40% of cops ADMITTED to physical violence towards their wives.
But sure, tell me that men forever were actually so nice and good to everyone and slapping your wife or threatening her harm for basic things wasn't normal, or that women had the freedom to do what they wanted like every innocent human deserves, or that there weren't explicit societal pressures to be subservient to men, not by choice.
>Until very recently in human history, women actually couldn't physically survive without men - it's only been in the past few generations that the nature of work has changed to where women could actually perform it.
This is just wrong. The vast majority of women are as physically capable as the vast majority of men. There are only differences in the extremes
> I mean, yes there always were and always will be some abusive men, but men _as a group_ have been more associated with protecting and caring for women than being hostile to them.
As much a slaveowner has been "protecting and caring" for his slaves.
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.
> But increasingly, we fixed it by normalizing hostility to men. Overemphasis on "toxic masculinity"
"Toxic masculinity" is self-criticism. We men are harming ourselves, and the article discusses this. For example, "Fathers are also more likely to sing to and soothe their toddler daughters at night when they cry." Both girls and boys have emotional needs, but we're ignoring the emotional needs of boys. We expect boys to be "manly" and "strong", to bottle up any problems and never show weakness. That's toxic masculinity. Toxic to ourselves.
>to bottle up any problems and never show weakness. That's toxic masculinity. Toxic to ourselves.
Women have a strong expectation for men to be this way too. Ask a room full of men their experience with being totally emotionally candid with their SO and you'll hear the same "she left me" refrain ad-nauseam. Go look up the reddit threads when this topic comes up, the comment volume is insane. Many guys reading this have their own story too, I know I do.
But I don't even blame women either. They are just acting by natural instinct. And so are men. I think it's a fools errand to try and uproot instinct.
That is true, and the term could reasonably be interpreted that way, but it’s often a motte-and-bailey tactic. When the term is criticized, your definition is waved, forming an easily defensible motte. But in casual use, the term is very commonly used in its most obvious meaning, i.e. “men are toxic” (forming the bailey).
> 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.
>But increasingly, we fixed it by normalizing hostility to men
What evidence do you have of this? All my friends who want healthy views of women consider me a valid human being, deserving of respect and care, even though I have a penis. Sure, lots of young men are glomming onto this absurd train of hatred, that women or "femoids" actually naturally enjoy rape and other horseshit, but they are being told this stuff by adult men, who clearly and overtly do not consider women to be equals, or deserving of anything but nonconsensual sex.
How the hell do you blame the toxic masculinity problem, caused by assholes like Jordan Peterson, Andrew tate, Nick Fuentes, "Fresh and fit podcast" etc, on women asking to be treated like people. It is not women driving the hatred against women, it is morally bankrupt individuals quite literally profiting off boys who were never told that they shouldn't be trying to pressure their girlfriend into sex, or kids who have no idea how to treat women being told "here's a simple mental model" that surely explains all their problems, they just have to be fit enough or attractive enough and then they will get the sex they "deserve".
Meanwhile, all these "Manosphere" influencers seem to be really against anyone being gay, or anyone being trans, and also for some reason are great friends with actual neo-nazis, and I don't remember those people being very pro-women's rights.
Universally? No one can say that, but at large, men have been hostile to women in most cultures including most of the modern non-western societies: China, India, Korea, Japan, Middle East, South & Central America, Russia, etc.
There are exceptions, but to pretend that they are relevant to current public health crisis is a red herring at best.
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 fundamental issue in the red pill is, whenever someone tries to point out where society is failing boys and men no-one listens and they get shouted down.
As pointed out by Corrine Barraclough, of the Australian tabloid newspaper The Daily Telegraph, who said in her review of the film that "the message of The Red Pill is compassion" and the film made her "wonder why feminists tried so hard to silence this crucial conversation."
I feel the same about "The Red Pill" movie and couldn't see how the criticism aligned with the reality. What I do see often is that entrenched actors and groups will attack, with specially reserved ardor, any artist or production taking a position of understanding and shared interest between groups or actors that are meant to be at odds.
With this movie, the critics could have said the filmmaker, Alex Lee Moyer, avoided the most misogynistic fringe that could be associated with the Men's Rights movement and been correct but that would undermine the safe thing to say, that the _entire_ Men's Rights movement is fringe and misogynistic.
I'm not especially interested in Men's Rights but I thought the movie was a refreshing surprise, commend the risk taken by the creator, and hope people continue to take risks when the evidence leads them into the unexpected.
PS: The film maker went on to make "TFW No GF" which followed and explored lonely, young men. Searching "Alex Lee Moyer", the second result is a Rolling Stone article on this movie with the headline, "‘TFW No GF’ Is a Deeply Uncomfortable Portrayal of Incel Culture". Here are just a couple quotes that show how much bull this director has had thrown her way for her troubles:
> This non-judgmental approach has made many viewers deeply uncomfortable, with writer Eric Langberg tweeting that the film is “one of the most irresponsible docs I’ve ever seen,” leading to a barrage of abuse from incels on Twitter.
> But even if you believe that objectivity is the best approach to capturing a subculture marked by misogyny, violence, and racism, it’s hard to accept the argument that the film’s relationship with its subjects is wholly objective in the first place.
Clearly, how dare she go and explore this sub-culture by meeting and filming some of its members, willing or not, without reminding the audience that these are bad people that say bad things on the internet and laugh at bad jokes.
> couldn't see how the criticism aligned with the reality.
I think it’s the same phenomenon of people skipping the article and going straight to the comments where they make statements based on the headline and their own existing contexts.
By the time they learn the content, if they ever do, they dig in and try to defend their positions.
I think this is caused by the incentive is for karma/whuffie/whatever rather than actual knowledge and benefit to fellow man. So macro is that the first to comment gets the most points. And everything else is downstream results.
So people assume the doc is about bad people doing bad things and talk like that. It doesn’t help that it also falls into the complex zone of “Hitler loved dogs” where people who truly are jerks also are into redpill stuff, but likely a very small percent of the total number. So it’s easy to make reductive comments of “this jerk is into redpill let’s talk about him and get more clicks and ignore the thousands of men blowing their brains out [0]”
It wasn't that many years ago people did word bubble (frequencies) of reddit subreddits, and both Feminist and Mens Rights Activists subs was very similar. The most common word in the Feminist one was "Men", and the most common word for Mens Rights Activists was Women". The second most common word was also symmetric, Women in the first and Men in the other.
It is not symmetric to assume that all female equality issues and all male equality issues must be the fault of men. People are human. Faults in human society is from humans, and humans are 50% women and 50% men.
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.
/r/menslib is a honey pot by radical feminist super mods who delete absolutely everything that is even remotely not "xyz, but women still have it worse". It's probably one of the most censored subreddits, which is quite an achievement. Instead, take a look at /r/leftwingmaleadvocates for some actual discussion.
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.
In every species female is the selector, that's how natural selection works.
Generally in a group of healthy young population with 50% sex ratio, about half of the men are selected, and they help eachother.
But in the online dating / birth control age this ratio has gone more extreme, and there's no real ,,parenting advice'' or emotional need support that can help, just accepting the new normal for everyone, and competing harder.
> 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 cover costs.
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 & counting the male attendees, I can’t say for sure that all were fathers but it roughly balanced the # of 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.
The problem with confrontation is people tend to start acting as if they’re playing a role that they don’t know how to leave. As though they’ve seen in movies and places where two sides get ramped up, confront one another, but there’s usually not an equally powerful resolution to model. It’s just: get angry and be blatant/audacious. Notably in movies violent resolutions are much more common as the ultimate resolution, too, and that doesn’t leave much as a compromise or alternative-so just stay pissed/audacious/etc.
I don’t know if I have a suggestion to OP. One option would be to offer to contribute to buying the flowers next time. That’s a soft way to engage and remind there’s others in the audience not being celebrated. Personally, I’d probably be put off by the whole thing and just let them have their moments. Or bring dark chocolate. Chocolate because theobromine acts a little like a happy “everything’s good” buzz for people and men might tend towards dark chocolate over milk. But bring some milk chocolate too-shows you’re being inclusive.
It is annoying ( effectively being excluded ), but do we need social validation to do our job ( raising kids )? Now, if the teacher is withholding information, that is a different story.
It’s not only about how the father feels in a situation like this. It’s also about the message that sends to the child, who has now seen (and will continue to see throughout their childhood) subtle messaging about the role and responsibilities that each parent takes on, and the perceived value of each parent in caring for them. A message that is heavily imbalanced, yet will influence their own view on things as they grow up.
> New research shows that when fathers are present and emotionally invested in children’s lives, they are more likely to develop a stronger sense of self-worth and excel in everything from school to relationships.
Regardless of the debate on how tough (or not) love should be, the absent fathers issue seems like something concrete and impactful that we should be trying to address.
> absent fathers issue seems like something concrete and impactful
There is a general corruption of the concept of masculinity in American culture. It’s similar to what’s happened to the symbol of the American flag, but more insidious.
When I say masculinity, or masculine values, what do you think of? When you think of someone who values their masculinity, who do you perceive? Now do the same for femininity. Which model is healthier?
Men and women have, on average, physiological differences. These differences are pronounced in puberty. That’s when these frameworks matter the most; they thus must be embedded in childhood. There is no right answer, I think, but there are right questions that boys dealing with a burst of testosterone should ask themselves. That we’ve ignored or even repressed that seems to link both failures in boy and fatherhood.
It also seems to naturally extend to trans and non-binary kids, another situation we are culturally bankrupt in addressing. Boys understanding and speaking to their feminine sides is, ironically, a classically masculine strength in the way women understanding and acting on their masculine sides is, traditionally, a classical sign of motherhood and through that feminine strength. (The linking of feminine strength and motherhood is obviously dated, though as someone who lives in bear and moose country I can see why it was originally embraced.)
When I think of masculinity, I see positive and negative aspects of it. I also see that tribes tend to zero in on only the positive or negative. I see the same thing happening with femininity. For whatever reason, the people who zero in on the positivity of one tend to zero in on the negativity of the other, at least on social media. I'm not sure why this is.
> When I say masculinity, or masculine values, what do you think of? When you think of someone who values their masculinity, who do you perceive? Now do the same for femininity. Which model is healthier?
I really struggle to understand this question. Between masculinity and femininity is there one that is supposed to be obviously healthier?
If we go by what the marketing is pushing it's a toxic tarpit on both sides (see The Rules vs The Game).
> When I say masculinity, or masculine values, what do you think of? When you think of someone who values their masculinity, who do you perceive? Now do the same for femininity. Which model is healthier?
I don't think of anything aside from obvious physiological differences
> but there are right questions that boys dealing with a burst of testosterone should ask themselves
I mean, everyone's different, different personalities, different trials and tribulations of life. I have no idea how you can generalize across all teenage boys without making a bunch of stuff up
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 transforms to something that is more similar to a good companionship (yes - you should like each other a lot, sure... but be less seeking for the thrill you might have had in the first year).
Kids need stability - not parents living in their own unrealistic world.
I think as a culture we need to normalise respect for both men and woman. Currently, in society violence against men is acceptable. You see it through articles like this[1] or in tv shows where it's acceptable for a woman to slap a man. Men in ads and tv shows are shown as helpless and clueless without their wives/girlfriends.
In modern media, woman are nearly always portrayed positively. Woman are always the 'girlboss', who need to show they are equal or superior to men. Practically, every male space has been feminised.
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 bonding with another in and of itself long term provides the stability children need.
It can be healthy for a family not to be together. Fetishizing stability and the nuclear family over happiness of the people in that family isn't necessarily a good solution to anything much.
Sure, a good relationship might not resemble the hollywood ideal very much, but "duty to the family" leads to misery for a lot of people, and kids don't grow up happy and well adjusted when mom and dad are very unhappy with their lives and each other.
> 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?
That ship has sailed. We live in a culture that not only has doubled down on the idea that the happiness/romance of the marriage is far more important than children, but even tells us that the marriage itself must dissolve when unhappy or this will do damage to those kids.
Imagine going to work and telling a coworker that your marriage is a disaster, but that you and your wife are considering staying together for the sake of your kids. What would your coworkers say? Do any of us know anyone that we believe might tell us "hey, that's a good idea, and I hope it works out that way for you"?
It shows us where our priorities as a society and culture lie.
Even if someone could intellectually admit that this assertion of mine was correct, it has inconvenient implications. The larger culture war around us relies on the idea that children simply aren't important to a marriage.
Without evidence, I'll suggest that this is an oversimplification. In a model where boys require masculine modeling from older, adult figures, "absent fathers" are most an issue when a boy's regularly-accessible social unit has been whittled down to the nuclear family. That seems to be a crisis in-and-of-itself. When I look at socially-successful men, they often have had multiple older men in their lives to model themselves after - usually grandparents, uncles, teachers, etc., on top of their father (or in lieu of). This is two-fold redundant, in creating fallbacks for both a central father figure and in skills or traits which that figure may lack.
I think this is important because the "absent father" is often used as an excuse, when it rather represents the last breached line in a long list of failures of society, which have ripped boys from the men who would look after them.
(I admit that there's likely some who won't like hearing this, as it cuts against the grievances of those who find pride in specific fatherhood ("I will raise MY child.") and see society's manner, or the dissolving of the nuclear family into a larger community unit, as working against that.)
Joseph Campbell emphasized the idea of the “second father.” A mentor who takes a young man further than his father can.
A father has to love you, but the second fathers love has to be earned. Think NCOs in the military, coaches, sensais in martial arts.
We aren’t just missing fathers, we’re missing second fathers.
Not many people would describe a gunny sergeant, or football coach, or the guy who runs the local Karate America as a second father.
If you include foremen, clergy, and union bosses as second fathers, a man living in 1960 could expect to spend his entire life under the tutelage of second fathers.
Traditionally masculine institutions like the military, workplace, and churches have renounced their “second family” status, and tried desperately to feminize to appeal to women.
What sorts of institutions offer “second fathers” to young men now? Predatory ones, like far-right groups. And some sports.
Edit: there are plenty of institutions that market themselves as second families - tech companies for example. But they tend to eschew masculine gender roles.
A big part of this in the US is our continued evolution in suburbs: In practice, in person contact with others is a lot more work than historically. This makes children have very little contact with adults other than teachers and their own parents. Even contact in businesses is depersonalized, given this world of chains, large stores and many employees with changing shifts, leading to minimal recurring contact, and interactions that very rarely get personal.
More communal countries, both in Europe in Asia, still have some personal contact: From a pharmacist to an ice cream man, a town or a neighborhood can have community, and with that community come the children seeing those workers as people, and having a relationship with them. When most business is done on foot, people see each other down the street, or in the park, and there's a chance of community. With suburbia an cars, all social contact takes effort: Community get expensive, and few pay the price.
> are most an issue when a boy's regularly-accessible social unit has been whittled down to the nuclear family. That seems to be a crisis in-and-of-itself.
Quite the contrary, it seems that those who would modify and engineer culture have been pushing on everyone the idea that men are fungible. That step-daddy, or mommy's new boyfriend, or all the men in the hippy commune are adequate substitutes... and it seems like that's just never the case (at least not often enough to count on).
It may just be down to math. All those other men who might substitute just have their own lives. Your grandpa likely has other children and other grandchildren. Their focus is diluted. Uncles might be trying to raise their own families. Step-dad just thinks your inconvenient and a competitor for the attention and resources of his own children, either from a previous marriage or after he knocks up mommy.
And if that's not bad enough, think about the circumstances we tend to see in these situations. Mommy (and it's usually her, isn't it?) just doesn't get along with the rest of her extended family. Not only is she demanding extra attention for her own offspring, she's showing them all how bad she is at judging character, at planning her life, etc. It's a high risk investment in a person who doesn't look like a good investment at all, for someone they already have negative feelings for.
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
Teachers, mentors and friends are of course very important, but I would believe this not to be the case.
There is no society or commune to take care of the immediate needs. There can be large families that offer a very good and secure support network and there are families that form clans. In that it seems to be a very neutral influence.
> I admit that there's likely some who won't like hearing this
You have to advertise this larger community unit a bit because I don't really see it aside from the latter example. The time of the utopia commune parenting with the weird third party uncle was never very popular and most importantly, not very successful.
Father that take pride in parenting will get much better results and to say that is egotism seems like a very sad and reduced perspective.
My father attempted to be the opposite of my grandfather and yet still remained very similar to him. Thankfully still an improvement over my grandfather. Not implying this is you too. Just thought the observation was interesting.
Though the statistics speak loudly enough, my anecdotal experience with a bit whose father abandoned him has been harrowing. It’s deeply disturbing to him. Even having a father figure step in to take care of him doesn’t fill that void or resolve much distress. It seems it will be a lifelong issue to some degree.
I didn’t quite believe it at first. Over time it has become abundantly clear. Boys without dads, not even someone to step in to support them, are often swimming upstream at best.
I agree, as a kid I just didn't think about that, but as an adult I see the epidemy all around me. Women without functional father figure have same deep scars that they struggle with for rest of their lives, and so do men. They just manifest very differently since each have their own needs from this father figure that were not met.
And its not just physically absent fathers, those working long hours constantly (under false premise of 'providing for my family'), or for some other messed up reasons are simply not there often enough, physically or emotionally, often cause all this.
Its a vicious circle too, people take this baggage with them into their own relationships which suffer then, and cycle repeats. Lack of trust, running away from solvable issues, sleeping around etc, I've seen it all and some more. Some of my relationships failed exactly due to women on the other side not being able to deal with exactly this baggage, to the point I gave up on trying to fix other people's lives, because you basically can't anyway.
> Regardless of the debate on how tough (or not) love should be, the absent fathers issue seems like something concrete and impactful that we should be trying to address.
Where would we even start? The only circumstances where we could hope to do anything at all are those where it's either not a problem, or is still only a minor one... if daddy's doing 20 for murder or dealing at the kilo level, are we supposed to let him out so he can sing lullabies?
There exists an entire class of problems that people only seem to comprehend the causes of once those same problems have escalated far beyond the capacity for comprehension to allow us to fix them. Perhaps the universe hates us. Or maybe we just deserve it.
It is strange that you immediately went the criminal route. I was thinking more about fathers who work too much, which is most in my world. They spend far less time with their children than their wives, maybe 5x to 10x. My father had a grueling commute as a child that was 90 minutes each way. What a waste. I hardly saw him during the week, then he was exhausted on the weekends. I cringe every time I hear senior (_ALWAYS_ male) executives say: "I do it all for my kids." Yeah right; work less and spend more time with your kids -- that is what they really want, not another fancy ski trip.
A simple answer (the one other developed countries tend towards) would be to emphasize / invest more in rehabilitation than in retribution/deterrence in the criminal justice system.
Another set of approaches would be to fund pro-natal/pro-family initiatives such as child income tax credits, to make it easier for fathers to participate in family life; at the margin economic instability drives families apart among other things. (More paternity leave (and better maternity leave while we’re at it) would help a lot here too).
I think you can look to other countries for examples here, Scandinavian countries for example have much better pro-family programs we could copy if we were really serious about this.
Or are people who are not genetically inclined towards executing monogamy also not genetically inclined towards other “organization and self control” rooted behaviors?
I think the "absentee father" issue would be easy to address: have the courts stop favoring mothers as custodial parents in divorces.
Of the divorced couples I know with children, the mothers were awarded custody in every single case, often over the strenuous objections of the fathers and other family members like grandparents (and in one case, even in the face of documented abuse by the mother).
I feel like studies on the effect of children who grow up with a missing parent need to somehow control for couples who split because of mental health issues. Otherwise, it's studying not the effect of the absent parent, but the effect of the behaviors of the parent who was granted custody, and some of those behaviors may strongly correlate with not being able to maintain a marriage or other partnership.
In the US it depends heavily on the state, but as I understand it, the stats on the mothers getting custody are misleading. Overwhelmingly, the fathers are giving up custody and not fighting for it. When they do, it is roughly equal, though some studies suggest bias one way or the other.
Too late to edit my comment, but I want to clarify the first sentence of the above: I'm not arguing the courts should automatically favor fathers, either. I meant to say blindly assuming one gender is more suited to raising children than the other is a bad policy, and it should be reformed. (And I do believe some family court jurisdictions have gotten better about this than when I had friends going through it 10-20 years ago.)
How do you even address something like that? Even if you paid each father $10k to stick around to age 18, that doesn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t become domestic abusers, suicide victims, or would even be good role models. It’s possible that father presence for kids is only so valuable because the only fathers that stick around are the ones that care.
> only so valuable because the only fathers that stick around are the ones that care.
Last time I looked at data about this, it appeared that even a poor father who was present was better than no having a father in the home. If I remember right it was measuring the likeliness of a teenager to end up in prison. If there was a segment of fathers that were worse than not having a father, I don't think it shows up in any study I've seen.
Gilder's Wealth and Poverty book cites a lot of studies and examples showing how society has changed in ways making it harder for dads to stick around with everything from how drug policies are enforced to the way that welfare resources are allocated.
> It’s possible that father presence for kids is only so valuable because the only fathers that stick around are the ones that care.
Even if this would be the case, we should allow those fathers to spend more time with their kids. For example, it is very difficult for a man to find a part-time job. Most companies take "I also want to spend some time with my kids" as "I don't really care about the work I do". You can care about the work without wanting to devote your entire life to it.
You're looking myopically at the issue; absent fathers is less likely to be a choice, but an economic consequences of income inequality, along with the other economies that arise because of this.
You're looking at the drug war, high school graduation rates, ability to find a job, attached to teenage pregnancy, lack of commute options, and below living wage - likely connected to public health issues including water treatment, sewage, inneficient or unsafe homes (hook worms, sceptic, HVAC)
So instead of a 1 time $10k (which is delusional) think marijuana being legal, healthcare and childcare being affordable, public transport - or at least not a food desert in a walkable community, and $15+/hr 30+ hour weeks at a single employer.
It used to be done by promoting marriage and stigmatizing divorce. Now, that has obvious costs for the parents in many cases and certainly isn't always the right approach because of problems like domestic abuse.
But the good of the children is part of why past societies have incentivized keeping parents together to care for their children and maybe we've gone a bit too far in the other direction, away from a happier medium.
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 and I own my mistakes. But it's freaking wild to me that it's only now in my 30s that I'm going through emotional development that I can look back on and see people I knew in high school who had already done this sort of growth. After having read Running on Empty I started asking people about the dynamics with their parents growing up, and it really solidified how uncaring my childhood was in many ways.
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.
I’m 45 and only realized this a few years ago and I think about when my dad was 45 and it’s obvious he had no clue. He was all work, work, work, don’t complain, no crying, no weakness. I know he tried his best but man what a screw up…I’m thankful for my wife and friends who put up with my complete and total lack of maturity for so long. Like wow, what a heavy lift I threw at them and still do because I’m still not caught up and not sure I ever will be?
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.
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).
OK, this is going to sound extremely controversial, but as a person who lived for many years in three different worlds:
1. The Western world (born/raised/educated in Canada)
2. The Arab world (lived for years in Jordan, have Muslim/Arab roots)
3. Eastern Europe (currently living in Ukraine for many years, now volunteering in the war)
My observation is that 1. has an overly effeminate culture and harmfully stifles masculinity, or the other extreme 2. has an overly masculine culture and harmfully stifles femininity, 3. celebrates both feminine and masculine qualities in a mostly healthy way, and is the most "balanced" of the places I have lived. The one problem I would say that is way too common here in Eastern Europe is absent/cheating dads, but that is balanced by a strong and independent feminine (not feminist!) expression.
For me it was a real awakening and a welcome cure to live in a place where men are men and women are women.
I am polish, but was raised in germany. I can confirm the observation about eastern europe, at least regarding poland. Man are man, and Woman are Woman. In general, (non-trans, non-homo and somewhat binary people) seem to have a healthier relationship with their core-gender identity. People in western societies certainly should take an example when it comes to modern gender roles. I would not glorify the situation there, though.
Of course, this already implies problems with people with non-traditional orientations and identities. But I wouldn't regard those as the main problems. They even seem somewhat easy to overcome when compared to the usual sexism in Poland.
I find sexism in Poland to be a very different thing than sexism in Germany for example. With regards to both genders. It is more reciprocal, with more obvious sexism against man than in germany. It would be a too big subject, to even outline it here.
I find this weird. My interpretation of Poland and of a decent amount of folks who came from Eastern Europe is that both sexes actually exhibit more faux-stoic and vaguely masculine behaviors than other western countries. There is an idea that many people in Eastern Europe are stoic but then the rampant alcoholism and other such behaviors would make it clear that they’re not actually stoic… whatever they’re dealing with actually is troubling them (which it wouldn’t to this degree with a stoic).
Poland has plenty of issues… and wiping the whole lgbt-free zone thing under the rug seems quite negligent.
I’m reminded of a general trend I heard of from sociology decades ago-societies birthed around plenty of water tend to be more sexually liberal than those from dryer places. The US is somewhat a mix of that while UA seems to have consistent water access.
Are people as glued to social media in EE as they are in the US? Have they had a #metoo movement? How about religious zealots?
Granted, in UA it goes a long way to face your own existence in war to clear the mind of certain topics.
I’m guessing though there’s some event UA has or hasn’t experienced that helps explain the difference-possibly many. US contends with a lot of guilt around the past as something like societal psychological trauma. Guilt and sexual repression are bigger in the US than elsewhere.
Edit-note, the metoo movement had a strong legal component replete with legal, criminal consequences. That would tend to compound the effects, yes?
Interesting. I thought for 1 there was actually both : half men are effeminate and the other half basically ultra-masculine gym bros ^^. Eastern Europe looks interesting tho
I don't think that's ultra masculine. At least people around me like that are self obsessed, appearance obsessed but ultimately fragile men. I also know because I was probably almost the same. I had a beard and looked like a lumberjack. Was I a real man? Not really.
I'm not saying I now know what a man should be, but it definitely isn't an ultra masculine gym bro. It is someone who can create a stable, responsible, potentially loving environment for a family, someone who can endure a lot of strain and responsibility while still holding it together. It also helps if you have a goal in life other than "look good naked".
Masculinity is summed up in the motives behind why we do things: are you running from something or are you building towards something?
You can build an impressive body because you're running from the thoughts and feelings you get when you're at home alone without the endorphins in your blood. Or you can have a vision and build towards that actively.
You'll always have both to some degree in everything but the core point here is what percentage are spending in which pole?
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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, detention centers, jails etc.
How about some minimal coaching so that all parents are aware of the state of the art in child psychology and techniques to do better as parents. Potentially break the cycles of bad parenting that have been running in families for a long time (I write this as one such person).
I expect it will be hard (nay impossible) to institute a parenting license (like a driving license) in a democratic society. So instead have a strong incentive in the way of a financial grant for every parent who clears a parenting curriculum sometime before their child turns 1 (or some appropriate marker). Keep the freebees /incentives piling on during the kids childhood so parents are motivated to undertake "continuing education"
Parenting is truly important stuff - for many parents it is the most important responsibility we'll ever have in our lives- but we seem to leave it to chance to get the right outcomes.
To me it seems quite trivial to create unfalsifiable arguments, for near anything, using extremely nebulous terms like "reducing public health risks." It's not like anybody's ever going to say, "No way man - I really think we should work to increase public health risks!" But what separates science from pseudoscience is falsifiability. So it's only once you break things down into actual, specific, and measurable goals that the conversation can even begin.
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As but one example, the most fundamental component for a society to perpetuate itself is fertility. And so, in my mind, a child's upbringing should absolutely be focused on ensuring this person will be able to both raise and support their own healthy family in the future. Yet of course even this simple goal is going to prove controversial because there's some conflict between it and certain cultural norms. And you'd need to reconcile this in some way that people, independent of worldview, can be generally happy with. I'm not sure this is possible.
Amount of psycological trauma and repression, neuroticism, insecurity. Suicides.
All easilly measurable.
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).
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 kids died left and right, but the logic was, if so many died following the best practices, how many wouldn't have died if babies were left drinking only milk! (Retold as best I can describe it from what an older person in the family told me.)
All this is before we start talking about parenting fads like "no rules parenting" (not sure about the exact English term) which must have caused untold harm.
So creds to your dad for finding the correct advice and sticking with it.
As a new parents we got tons of books as gifts on pregnancy and baby's first year or two. But then it ended. I continue to buy books on parenting, child psychology, etc. But sadly it seems once baby turns toddler, most parents are done with learning.
One of the most common toxic phrase I keep hearing from these parents is I was raised this way, look I turned out to be fine. Of course, later in the same conversations they will admit they are not fine.
Maybe it is us geeks who love to learn and feel proud to deep dive into whatever we get into.
While reading the book (attending the course) would likely provide more benefits, just the intention to be a better parent and the willingness to reflect on one's parenting practices may still be valuable step leading to an improvement in parenting abilities.
Seeing this repeated in this thread. Who are these "experts"? What makes them "experts"? Is there some kind of track record I can look at?
At the other end, modern parents have so many restrictions and expectations put on them.
1. We don't know as much as people think we do about what constitutes "good parenting". At best, we know some behaviours which are typically harmful (molestation, violence), but everyone already knows that, and the people exhibiting those behaviours need therapy themselves, so a parenting course won't fix that.
2. You're basically turning what is normally considered an innate human right into a privilege for which you need to earn a license. This invites all kinds of abuse (only the right kinds of people get this license!).
Horse crap, a huge amount of parents genuinely believe violence is a necessity for child rearing (including frequent repetitions of "spare the rod, spoil the child") to the point that they've even pushed to bring it back into public schools!
Even the very basics are not accepted as fact by many.
Our options are to keep creating support programs to cover for bad parenting (not nearly as effective as good parents) or to stop “bad” parents from having kids (not super moral).
Good parenting is foremost about growing up before your kids do.
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 kid into submission. But by reading stuff and talking to professionals, you learn that some kids do have weird ways of expressing their emotions, and that acknowledging that and supporting them works. You have to completely turn the way you speak to them around. It's really hard to do cause nobody wants to confort a kid who's annoying, but it works.
None of the stuff I do with my kids would have been possible had I not learnt it as an adult. Stop the magic thinking. Read about children, they're weird and wonderfully different.
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.
Actually I do.
This is exhibit A, not only have they learnt nothing, but will reject every opportunity to learn. Exactly like my Father.
I have a daughter growing up, and every time there is a decision to make, I check what people like this would do, and do the opposite. Or at least make sure to avoid that.
This unfortunately is not a given and that's the crux of the discussion.
If every parent were able to achieve complete knowledge and wisdom about all things parenting before they had kids we wouldn't be talking of any of this.
My mother tried to be a good mom but never addressed her mental health issues, leading to four kids having pretty severe problems twenty, thirty years later.
She took decades from us, though she "tried to live" but didn't want to learn anything she didn't already know.
Society decided to dump most doctrinal support but unfortunately this has left a significant portion of the masses with little direction. But also many have little inclination or time to work it out for themselves. And even if you did start to read Jung, Nietzsche, Hegel, Hiedeger or whichever philosopher you chose there's a myriad of directions one could take it and it's a heady mix. I've started to read these philosophers but I bring it a traditional Creator grounding and it's still pretty wild.
Ultimately I don't think we have a clue what we're doing and we are prone to getting very scared and taking it out on those around us or in our care.
> How about some minimal coaching so that all parents are aware of the state of the art in child psychology and techniques to do better as parents.
In my country, we had a housekeeping class in school, that taught everything from basic cooking skills, to safety with electrical appliances. There was also a woodworking class, where you were taught how to use various tools correctly and safely. Later, in university, there were courses that concerned things like paying taxes in more detail, employment law and how small businesses work etc.
I think that parenting classes sound like a good idea. It can also help people figure out when they're absolutely not ready for something or are not comfortable with it - like happened to me and getting a driver's license.
So for example, the one for 3,5 years has sections on how to deal with food pickiness, or with excessive preference for one parent.
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.
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.
There is no equivalent. Full stop.
Maybe you could re-create an extended family w/ friendship and local community - "the village" so to speak - but let's say I have my severe doubts about finding enough like-minded people in at least the US to accomplish it. Very few with options have the commitment.
The government and institutions seriously cannot even hope to replace a tiny fraction of this support structure though. People actually have to care about each other on a individual human level. It turns into checkboxing CYA otherwise - having seen a bit of this implementation in social work.
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One of the things that Finance people do is force employees to have short computer-based trainings every year. They seem stupid and bother everyone, but I think they are fairly effective (and they've been going on for years, so they must have proven some level of effectiveness).
Health insurance providers could be forced to have parents do a yearly 1-hour training on how to handle kids to enable benefits.
You're not going to solve the biggest problems, just like SEC trainings don't prevent money laundering, but whateveer moves the needle a little bit may be worth doing...
They are effective
In reducing the liability of the company that is forcing it's employees to take the course. As for actual behavioral change, that is often not the case.
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 we’re going to have a super controlled society with forced birth control and abortion, there’s not a qualification to give birth. And developing nations have really low birth rates so anything to further lower birth rates has some negative societal and economic impact.
That being said, there are many free programs available to parents but they have to reach out to find them. I live in a pretty backwards, relatively speaking, state and there were numerous state, county, charity, and religious programs to help with parenting coaching before and after birth.
It does seem like a good idea to add coaching into the maternal health programs to give more education and support to expecting and new parents.
[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/14/43208...
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)
Now which PhD candidate will bite :)
What is "state of the art" in psychology? A bunch of irreproducible papers?
Many people have such broken relationships with their parents that they refuse to believe their parents can offer them good advice.
Before they take a parenting class, they might be better served taking a counseling class to repair their relationship with their own parents.
Something along those lines, such as cheaper hospital stays or government covering part of childcare or some incentive like that could support what you are thinking. Not required, but a financial incentive. This is especially useful because it targets lower income families, hopefully reducing the correlation from parental income and career/health/etc outcomes.
PS: Smart of you to wear your nomex, this thread is a conflagration.
Kids in families with good parenting, a focus on education, etc are the ones that make it out.
every factor we mitigate helps
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The issue is that in US driving license is trivial to get and it shows on the roads ( queue explanations that it is just the function of car being a necessity -- true, but irrelevant too the point ). Even if instituted, I don't think people would accept that kind of infringement though I admit this is probably one place, where we should be able to self-regulate ( we clearly can't though and some systems are built for ever increasing population, which is a separate force that would prevent that kind of change ).
In short, I agree. I don't think we are doing it well now.
> 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.
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 retirement prior to actual death.
There's 8 billion of us.
Reducing the number of (unfit, unwilling, unplanned) parents is a net positive.
People, who have enough resources (financial, educational) don't have much children. I don't think that this will affect this group.
People, who have no access to education or anticonception, have disproportionally more children. Many of them are unwanted. Some are irreversibly damage due to abusive susbtance intake.
If anything it's the opposite.
> You can't break cycles of bad parenting
Because you said so?
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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 other, but try to sed s/women/men/ and you're a toxic macho.
I think the outcome is unsurprising.
Just to be clear, a lot of the initiatives for promoting women's success are good and necessary. But to me the emphasis should have been on promoting equality, not bashing men for the benefit of women.
So at first I liked the pushback against toxic masculinity as I didn’t like jerk men. But then the concept expanded to everything. “Mansplaining” isn’t something unique to men, but it’s ok to point out “mansplaining” but not non-men explaining stuff. “Manspreading” is used quite a bit, but there’s a reason why men sit with their legs open so there’s a polite about of space that’s ok for comfort. Etc etc.
I hope this is overcompensating for a long time of jerks being jerks but I fear that the bullying resulting from “strength = power” and jocks has now changed to “money = power” and people other than jocks have power.
I go to an esports bar quite a bit and an esports team was there. And they were totally bullying people and it was weird because it was multiple genders and races being total jerks to people. But the bully’s were strong, tall, handsome jocks. They were esports-types. So the jerk dynamic was still there.
I don’t think it’s progress if we end up with the same number of “toxic” jerks.
Me, neither. And, in fact, I've never met anybody who did. Have you ever noticed how many of the movies we grew up watching were about a "shy, sensitive boy" who "wasn't like the jocks" who ended up getting the girl in the end? Ever notice how that trope appealed to almost everybody? That's because that's how everybody remembers their teenage years, too - even the guys who actually were on the football team taking group showers.
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I do think this can be true while there can also be elements of society that push the other way. Culture is made up of many micro cultures and the kid born in SF will have a different experience than the one born in Mississippi, but we do have bigger issues than people on the internet making fun of mansplaining or something. It’s just too easy to have one’s perception of reality distorted by your perception.
Food for thought: the types of men who are likely to rely on macho masculinity and the abuse of power dynamics are the least likely to be phased by an undercurrent of anti-male sentiment.
Sensitive men, the men who are not propagating these patterns are the men who take such sentiment seriously, and are more likely to be harmed/held back by it.
The issue is not “men”. The issue is bad behavior. But as long as the framing is men vs. women, people who are not exhibiting the targeted behavior get caught up in the broader backlash, leading to a very hostile situation that does little to address the real issues in a sustainable way.
It may be that the pendulum swing was necessary for a time, and indeed there have been times in our history where this was obvious, e.g. the women’s suffrage movement.
And there are still clear wage gaps and the issue of bodily autonomy among others that remain critical to solve. But those can be addressed without perpetuating a culture that demonizes boys for being born male. This is a shift in thinking that we must make.
Women still get payed significantly less than men, and men work significantly more hours than women and at more dangerous jobs. Those two inequalities also hang together with inequalities related to non-paid work like parenting, and also that men are twice as likely to not have children than women (sometimes refereed to as reproductive inequality). Solving those require a lot of different initiatives that all work in unity to reduce inequality for both men and women.
Women are also at much higher risks of sexual assault, and men are at very higher risk of assault. Reducing sexual assault and assault involves solutions that are fairly similar, ie higher cohesion in society, more trust, and stronger social connections, social networks and social support among the population. Inequality in social economic status is also a strong indicator of high amount of sexual assaults and assault.
A big silence in terms of women’s equality is found in the most drastic case in fields like the military, where even though women have been allowed and encouraged via advertisement, is still overwhelmingly male worldwide. It’s obvious that women’s bodies are not the same as men’s bodies in general… so why would we aim for full equality (aka identicalness) given these basic facts that men are not like women?
Also see pay and work: the more time a woman spends at her job is less time with her kids, which directly impacts society in many unfortunate ways, especially since men are still often the breadwinners, and even sociobiologically, the role of motherhood cannot equal fatherhood. So is work pay more about capitalism & lowering wages or more about a nebulous sense of empowerment?
In terms of assault and harassment: there is also the general culture on both genders of situations that encourage this. For example, things like clubbing, heavy drinking, proximity with strangers, hookup culture, a culture focused on individualism and bringing attention to oneself in terms of clothing, behavior, etc… all of these are factors.
Perhaps to obtain the outcomes people wish to see, “equality” is not the answer.
Were they really though? I mean, yes there always were and always will be some abusive men, but men _as a group_ have been more associated with protecting and caring for women than being hostile to them. Until very recently in human history, women actually couldn't physically survive without men - it's only been in the past few generations that the nature of work has changed to where women could actually perform it.
But sure, tell me that men forever were actually so nice and good to everyone and slapping your wife or threatening her harm for basic things wasn't normal, or that women had the freedom to do what they wanted like every innocent human deserves, or that there weren't explicit societal pressures to be subservient to men, not by choice.
>Until very recently in human history, women actually couldn't physically survive without men - it's only been in the past few generations that the nature of work has changed to where women could actually perform it.
This is just wrong. The vast majority of women are as physically capable as the vast majority of men. There are only differences in the extremes
As much a slaveowner has been "protecting and caring" for his slaves.
On equality, I find it highly disturbing the current policies have amounted to a zero sum game.
"Toxic masculinity" is self-criticism. We men are harming ourselves, and the article discusses this. For example, "Fathers are also more likely to sing to and soothe their toddler daughters at night when they cry." Both girls and boys have emotional needs, but we're ignoring the emotional needs of boys. We expect boys to be "manly" and "strong", to bottle up any problems and never show weakness. That's toxic masculinity. Toxic to ourselves.
Women have a strong expectation for men to be this way too. Ask a room full of men their experience with being totally emotionally candid with their SO and you'll hear the same "she left me" refrain ad-nauseam. Go look up the reddit threads when this topic comes up, the comment volume is insane. Many guys reading this have their own story too, I know I do.
But I don't even blame women either. They are just acting by natural instinct. And so are men. I think it's a fools errand to try and uproot instinct.
> 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.
What evidence do you have of this? All my friends who want healthy views of women consider me a valid human being, deserving of respect and care, even though I have a penis. Sure, lots of young men are glomming onto this absurd train of hatred, that women or "femoids" actually naturally enjoy rape and other horseshit, but they are being told this stuff by adult men, who clearly and overtly do not consider women to be equals, or deserving of anything but nonconsensual sex.
How the hell do you blame the toxic masculinity problem, caused by assholes like Jordan Peterson, Andrew tate, Nick Fuentes, "Fresh and fit podcast" etc, on women asking to be treated like people. It is not women driving the hatred against women, it is morally bankrupt individuals quite literally profiting off boys who were never told that they shouldn't be trying to pressure their girlfriend into sex, or kids who have no idea how to treat women being told "here's a simple mental model" that surely explains all their problems, they just have to be fit enough or attractive enough and then they will get the sex they "deserve".
Meanwhile, all these "Manosphere" influencers seem to be really against anyone being gay, or anyone being trans, and also for some reason are great friends with actual neo-nazis, and I don't remember those people being very pro-women's rights.
Perhaps in an American/European centric view of the world. I would heavily challenge/reject that assumption across the globe.
There are exceptions, but to pretend that they are relevant to current public health crisis is a red herring at best.
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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 fundamental issue in the red pill is, whenever someone tries to point out where society is failing boys and men no-one listens and they get shouted down.
As pointed out by Corrine Barraclough, of the Australian tabloid newspaper The Daily Telegraph, who said in her review of the film that "the message of The Red Pill is compassion" and the film made her "wonder why feminists tried so hard to silence this crucial conversation."
With this movie, the critics could have said the filmmaker, Alex Lee Moyer, avoided the most misogynistic fringe that could be associated with the Men's Rights movement and been correct but that would undermine the safe thing to say, that the _entire_ Men's Rights movement is fringe and misogynistic.
I'm not especially interested in Men's Rights but I thought the movie was a refreshing surprise, commend the risk taken by the creator, and hope people continue to take risks when the evidence leads them into the unexpected.
PS: The film maker went on to make "TFW No GF" which followed and explored lonely, young men. Searching "Alex Lee Moyer", the second result is a Rolling Stone article on this movie with the headline, "‘TFW No GF’ Is a Deeply Uncomfortable Portrayal of Incel Culture". Here are just a couple quotes that show how much bull this director has had thrown her way for her troubles:
> This non-judgmental approach has made many viewers deeply uncomfortable, with writer Eric Langberg tweeting that the film is “one of the most irresponsible docs I’ve ever seen,” leading to a barrage of abuse from incels on Twitter.
> But even if you believe that objectivity is the best approach to capturing a subculture marked by misogyny, violence, and racism, it’s hard to accept the argument that the film’s relationship with its subjects is wholly objective in the first place.
Clearly, how dare she go and explore this sub-culture by meeting and filming some of its members, willing or not, without reminding the audience that these are bad people that say bad things on the internet and laugh at bad jokes.
I think it’s the same phenomenon of people skipping the article and going straight to the comments where they make statements based on the headline and their own existing contexts.
By the time they learn the content, if they ever do, they dig in and try to defend their positions.
I think this is caused by the incentive is for karma/whuffie/whatever rather than actual knowledge and benefit to fellow man. So macro is that the first to comment gets the most points. And everything else is downstream results.
So people assume the doc is about bad people doing bad things and talk like that. It doesn’t help that it also falls into the complex zone of “Hitler loved dogs” where people who truly are jerks also are into redpill stuff, but likely a very small percent of the total number. So it’s easy to make reductive comments of “this jerk is into redpill let’s talk about him and get more clicks and ignore the thousands of men blowing their brains out [0]”
[0] about 80% of US suicides in the 2021 were men, https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/suicide-rate-by-ge... The rate different isn’t as stark globally but still much higher for men than women, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide
The film maker responsible for The Red Pill is Cassie Jaye.
Alex Lee Moyer was behind TFW No GF.
Try /r/menslib for a healthier discussion that isn’t centred around blaming women for everything.
It is not symmetric to assume that all female equality issues and all male equality issues must be the fault of men. People are human. Faults in human society is from humans, and humans are 50% women and 50% men.
Without clicking the link, I just know it's gonna be the patriarchy/masculinity, right?
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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.
Generally in a group of healthy young population with 50% sex ratio, about half of the men are selected, and they help eachother.
But in the online dating / birth control age this ratio has gone more extreme, and there's no real ,,parenting advice'' or emotional need support that can help, just accepting the new normal for everyone, and competing harder.
Gender differences in automatic in-group bias: why do women like women more than men like men?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15491274/
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.
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[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WMuzhQXJoY
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 cover costs.
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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 & counting the male attendees, I can’t say for sure that all were fathers but it roughly balanced the # of kids.
Maybe it was just her though. I'd talk to the school director over this.
In modern society we're normally conditioned to avoid confrontation, but it's the best way to initiate a proactive solution.
I don’t know if I have a suggestion to OP. One option would be to offer to contribute to buying the flowers next time. That’s a soft way to engage and remind there’s others in the audience not being celebrated. Personally, I’d probably be put off by the whole thing and just let them have their moments. Or bring dark chocolate. Chocolate because theobromine acts a little like a happy “everything’s good” buzz for people and men might tend towards dark chocolate over milk. But bring some milk chocolate too-shows you’re being inclusive.
And I doubt I was the only divorced father with shared custody.
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Regardless of the debate on how tough (or not) love should be, the absent fathers issue seems like something concrete and impactful that we should be trying to address.
There is a general corruption of the concept of masculinity in American culture. It’s similar to what’s happened to the symbol of the American flag, but more insidious.
When I say masculinity, or masculine values, what do you think of? When you think of someone who values their masculinity, who do you perceive? Now do the same for femininity. Which model is healthier?
Men and women have, on average, physiological differences. These differences are pronounced in puberty. That’s when these frameworks matter the most; they thus must be embedded in childhood. There is no right answer, I think, but there are right questions that boys dealing with a burst of testosterone should ask themselves. That we’ve ignored or even repressed that seems to link both failures in boy and fatherhood.
It also seems to naturally extend to trans and non-binary kids, another situation we are culturally bankrupt in addressing. Boys understanding and speaking to their feminine sides is, ironically, a classically masculine strength in the way women understanding and acting on their masculine sides is, traditionally, a classical sign of motherhood and through that feminine strength. (The linking of feminine strength and motherhood is obviously dated, though as someone who lives in bear and moose country I can see why it was originally embraced.)
I really struggle to understand this question. Between masculinity and femininity is there one that is supposed to be obviously healthier?
If we go by what the marketing is pushing it's a toxic tarpit on both sides (see The Rules vs The Game).
I don't think of anything aside from obvious physiological differences
> but there are right questions that boys dealing with a burst of testosterone should ask themselves
I mean, everyone's different, different personalities, different trials and tribulations of life. I have no idea how you can generalize across all teenage boys without making a bunch of stuff up
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In modern media, woman are nearly always portrayed positively. Woman are always the 'girlboss', who need to show they are equal or superior to men. Practically, every male space has been feminised.
Current culture doesn't really respect Men.
[1] http://jezebel.com/294383/have-you-ever-beat-up-a-boyfriend-...
Sure, a good relationship might not resemble the hollywood ideal very much, but "duty to the family" leads to misery for a lot of people, and kids don't grow up happy and well adjusted when mom and dad are very unhappy with their lives and each other.
That ship has sailed. We live in a culture that not only has doubled down on the idea that the happiness/romance of the marriage is far more important than children, but even tells us that the marriage itself must dissolve when unhappy or this will do damage to those kids.
Imagine going to work and telling a coworker that your marriage is a disaster, but that you and your wife are considering staying together for the sake of your kids. What would your coworkers say? Do any of us know anyone that we believe might tell us "hey, that's a good idea, and I hope it works out that way for you"?
It shows us where our priorities as a society and culture lie.
Even if someone could intellectually admit that this assertion of mine was correct, it has inconvenient implications. The larger culture war around us relies on the idea that children simply aren't important to a marriage.
I think this is important because the "absent father" is often used as an excuse, when it rather represents the last breached line in a long list of failures of society, which have ripped boys from the men who would look after them.
(I admit that there's likely some who won't like hearing this, as it cuts against the grievances of those who find pride in specific fatherhood ("I will raise MY child.") and see society's manner, or the dissolving of the nuclear family into a larger community unit, as working against that.)
Joseph Campbell emphasized the idea of the “second father.” A mentor who takes a young man further than his father can.
A father has to love you, but the second fathers love has to be earned. Think NCOs in the military, coaches, sensais in martial arts.
We aren’t just missing fathers, we’re missing second fathers.
Not many people would describe a gunny sergeant, or football coach, or the guy who runs the local Karate America as a second father.
If you include foremen, clergy, and union bosses as second fathers, a man living in 1960 could expect to spend his entire life under the tutelage of second fathers.
Traditionally masculine institutions like the military, workplace, and churches have renounced their “second family” status, and tried desperately to feminize to appeal to women.
What sorts of institutions offer “second fathers” to young men now? Predatory ones, like far-right groups. And some sports.
Edit: there are plenty of institutions that market themselves as second families - tech companies for example. But they tend to eschew masculine gender roles.
More communal countries, both in Europe in Asia, still have some personal contact: From a pharmacist to an ice cream man, a town or a neighborhood can have community, and with that community come the children seeing those workers as people, and having a relationship with them. When most business is done on foot, people see each other down the street, or in the park, and there's a chance of community. With suburbia an cars, all social contact takes effort: Community get expensive, and few pay the price.
Quite the contrary, it seems that those who would modify and engineer culture have been pushing on everyone the idea that men are fungible. That step-daddy, or mommy's new boyfriend, or all the men in the hippy commune are adequate substitutes... and it seems like that's just never the case (at least not often enough to count on).
It may just be down to math. All those other men who might substitute just have their own lives. Your grandpa likely has other children and other grandchildren. Their focus is diluted. Uncles might be trying to raise their own families. Step-dad just thinks your inconvenient and a competitor for the attention and resources of his own children, either from a previous marriage or after he knocks up mommy.
And if that's not bad enough, think about the circumstances we tend to see in these situations. Mommy (and it's usually her, isn't it?) just doesn't get along with the rest of her extended family. Not only is she demanding extra attention for her own offspring, she's showing them all how bad she is at judging character, at planning her life, etc. It's a high risk investment in a person who doesn't look like a good investment at all, for someone they already have negative feelings for.
Divorce is ultimately at the root of so many social ills but it's verboten to even mention
There is no society or commune to take care of the immediate needs. There can be large families that offer a very good and secure support network and there are families that form clans. In that it seems to be a very neutral influence.
> I admit that there's likely some who won't like hearing this
You have to advertise this larger community unit a bit because I don't really see it aside from the latter example. The time of the utopia commune parenting with the weird third party uncle was never very popular and most importantly, not very successful.
Father that take pride in parenting will get much better results and to say that is egotism seems like a very sad and reduced perspective.
Was your dad mostly absent, over-working, or what? Or emotionally invisible?
I didn’t quite believe it at first. Over time it has become abundantly clear. Boys without dads, not even someone to step in to support them, are often swimming upstream at best.
And its not just physically absent fathers, those working long hours constantly (under false premise of 'providing for my family'), or for some other messed up reasons are simply not there often enough, physically or emotionally, often cause all this.
Its a vicious circle too, people take this baggage with them into their own relationships which suffer then, and cycle repeats. Lack of trust, running away from solvable issues, sleeping around etc, I've seen it all and some more. Some of my relationships failed exactly due to women on the other side not being able to deal with exactly this baggage, to the point I gave up on trying to fix other people's lives, because you basically can't anyway.
Where would we even start? The only circumstances where we could hope to do anything at all are those where it's either not a problem, or is still only a minor one... if daddy's doing 20 for murder or dealing at the kilo level, are we supposed to let him out so he can sing lullabies?
There exists an entire class of problems that people only seem to comprehend the causes of once those same problems have escalated far beyond the capacity for comprehension to allow us to fix them. Perhaps the universe hates us. Or maybe we just deserve it.
Another set of approaches would be to fund pro-natal/pro-family initiatives such as child income tax credits, to make it easier for fathers to participate in family life; at the margin economic instability drives families apart among other things. (More paternity leave (and better maternity leave while we’re at it) would help a lot here too).
I think you can look to other countries for examples here, Scandinavian countries for example have much better pro-family programs we could copy if we were really serious about this.
Of the divorced couples I know with children, the mothers were awarded custody in every single case, often over the strenuous objections of the fathers and other family members like grandparents (and in one case, even in the face of documented abuse by the mother).
I feel like studies on the effect of children who grow up with a missing parent need to somehow control for couples who split because of mental health issues. Otherwise, it's studying not the effect of the absent parent, but the effect of the behaviors of the parent who was granted custody, and some of those behaviors may strongly correlate with not being able to maintain a marriage or other partnership.
I’m not finding great primary sources, but here’s some articles on it https://legaljobs.io/blog/child-custody-statistics/https://www.liveabout.com/child-custody-there-is-no-gender-b...
Last time I looked at data about this, it appeared that even a poor father who was present was better than no having a father in the home. If I remember right it was measuring the likeliness of a teenager to end up in prison. If there was a segment of fathers that were worse than not having a father, I don't think it shows up in any study I've seen.
Gilder's Wealth and Poverty book cites a lot of studies and examples showing how society has changed in ways making it harder for dads to stick around with everything from how drug policies are enforced to the way that welfare resources are allocated.
Even if this would be the case, we should allow those fathers to spend more time with their kids. For example, it is very difficult for a man to find a part-time job. Most companies take "I also want to spend some time with my kids" as "I don't really care about the work I do". You can care about the work without wanting to devote your entire life to it.
You're looking at the drug war, high school graduation rates, ability to find a job, attached to teenage pregnancy, lack of commute options, and below living wage - likely connected to public health issues including water treatment, sewage, inneficient or unsafe homes (hook worms, sceptic, HVAC)
So instead of a 1 time $10k (which is delusional) think marijuana being legal, healthcare and childcare being affordable, public transport - or at least not a food desert in a walkable community, and $15+/hr 30+ hour weeks at a single employer.
Are you doing something other than assuming that 'caring' is the primary factor?
But the good of the children is part of why past societies have incentivized keeping parents together to care for their children and maybe we've gone a bit too far in the other direction, away from a happier medium.
Interestingly, only a few years ago, Bill Cosby himself made an impassioned plea to address these issues. He saw it a lot.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cosby_sexual_assault_case...
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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 and I own my mistakes. But it's freaking wild to me that it's only now in my 30s that I'm going through emotional development that I can look back on and see people I knew in high school who had already done this sort of growth. After having read Running on Empty I started asking people about the dynamics with their parents growing up, and it really solidified how uncaring my childhood was in many ways.
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."
1. The Western world (born/raised/educated in Canada)
2. The Arab world (lived for years in Jordan, have Muslim/Arab roots)
3. Eastern Europe (currently living in Ukraine for many years, now volunteering in the war)
My observation is that 1. has an overly effeminate culture and harmfully stifles masculinity, or the other extreme 2. has an overly masculine culture and harmfully stifles femininity, 3. celebrates both feminine and masculine qualities in a mostly healthy way, and is the most "balanced" of the places I have lived. The one problem I would say that is way too common here in Eastern Europe is absent/cheating dads, but that is balanced by a strong and independent feminine (not feminist!) expression.
For me it was a real awakening and a welcome cure to live in a place where men are men and women are women.
Of course, this already implies problems with people with non-traditional orientations and identities. But I wouldn't regard those as the main problems. They even seem somewhat easy to overcome when compared to the usual sexism in Poland.
I find sexism in Poland to be a very different thing than sexism in Germany for example. With regards to both genders. It is more reciprocal, with more obvious sexism against man than in germany. It would be a too big subject, to even outline it here.
Poland has plenty of issues… and wiping the whole lgbt-free zone thing under the rug seems quite negligent.
Are people as glued to social media in EE as they are in the US? Have they had a #metoo movement? How about religious zealots?
Granted, in UA it goes a long way to face your own existence in war to clear the mind of certain topics.
I’m guessing though there’s some event UA has or hasn’t experienced that helps explain the difference-possibly many. US contends with a lot of guilt around the past as something like societal psychological trauma. Guilt and sexual repression are bigger in the US than elsewhere.
Edit-note, the metoo movement had a strong legal component replete with legal, criminal consequences. That would tend to compound the effects, yes?
Millenials and Gen-Z? Absolutely.
>Have they had a #metoo movement?
Not really, other problems abound.
>How about religious zealots?
In Poland thanks to them abortion was recently banned. Other countries don't really pay attention to them.
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I don't think that's ultra masculine. At least people around me like that are self obsessed, appearance obsessed but ultimately fragile men. I also know because I was probably almost the same. I had a beard and looked like a lumberjack. Was I a real man? Not really.
I'm not saying I now know what a man should be, but it definitely isn't an ultra masculine gym bro. It is someone who can create a stable, responsible, potentially loving environment for a family, someone who can endure a lot of strain and responsibility while still holding it together. It also helps if you have a goal in life other than "look good naked".
You can build an impressive body because you're running from the thoughts and feelings you get when you're at home alone without the endorphins in your blood. Or you can have a vision and build towards that actively.
You'll always have both to some degree in everything but the core point here is what percentage are spending in which pole?
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Also, re: "men are men and women are women" -- how are LGBT rights doing in Ukraine outside of Kyiv these days?
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