Men's rights/issues thread- Grab 'em right by the willy

[Theda Baratheon]

I don't see how family and marriage has anything to do with boys and girls in school??? Can you elaborate 

[James Arryn]

1 hour ago, the Greenleif Stark said:

From the US and I'd say a big difference, in my opinion, from 30-40 years ago to now is the value of family and marriage has gone down a lot and the individual has been put above all else 

Haven't people been saying that since like the 60's, at least?

[the Greenleif Stark]

14 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I don't see how family and marriage has anything to do with boys and girls in school??? Can you elaborate 

You can't see how the family and the relationship between parents affects young kids?  I was responding to a post about what has changed over the last 30-40 years and I said the devalue of the family and marriage.  My mom is a teacher and so is my sister and my wife works in home with families.  I listen to my family talk about school and work and hear all sorts of stories and just feel overall that in America today family and staying married are not valued much anymore and that has an affect on kids, especially young kids.  How does that affect young boys in school?  Well without positive male role models in their life I think young boys tend to get into trouble and lack discipline.

 

And as to James' comment, I wasn't around in the 60's so no idea.

[Squab]

12 hours ago, Einheri said:

Chances are that someone who’d be willing to do something like this is not going to be the sanest person around, and I also don’t doubt that there are men out there whom this would work on.

 

http://jezebel.com/wendy-williams-says-its-okay-to-trick-a-man-into-gettin-1567980067

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Oh--boys doing worse in schools? It's sports. Everything is sports--and maybe it always was, but the idea of sports seems to permeate schools differently. Boys not engaged? Get them engaged through sports. Rough class of 8th grade boys? Use sports metaphors to inspire them. Ultimately, the message about school becomes: you're not here to learn, you're here to physically compete. And on top of that, when we use metaphors to compare to school, (like sports as school metaphors) we're subconsciously telling our students that school is inferior. 

"Your education is like..."

Anytime I hear that, I cringe a bit, because it can go horribly wrong. Education is a like a business/sport, or whatever. Message is--education is less valuable and only a tool that we must endure to get to the better things. Kids have no love of learning. Boys especially. Boys don't read books. They put on football pads.

[Jo498]

2 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

Anytime I hear that, I cringe a bit, because it can go horribly wrong. Education is a like a business/sport, or whatever. Message is--education is less valuable and only a tool that we must endure to get to the better things. Kids have no love of learning. Boys especially. Boys don't read books. They put on football pads.

Are you describing a cliché or reality? I do not deny it but apart from the fact that this is only true in the US, for all I know, it is not new either.  "Friday night lights" was written in the late 1980s. The US is a special case because its society is both deeply anti-intellectual and obsessed with (any kind of public) success, so it is no wonder that it gives contradictory incentives to young people.

But I would not be too hard on the metaphors. St. Paul used sports metaphors for the spiritual life in the 1st century and he certainly did not think sports were more important than faith. My brother had a Latin teacher who made a competition out of reciting declensions etc. as fast as possible and timed the pupils' performances with a stopwatch. It seems to have worked quite well.

Whatever, I am constantly amazed that in many respects gender clichés seem to have hardened in the last 30-40 years despite feminism etc. Some of the fault goes to the toy industry but this cannot be the whole truth. It is a strange kind of backlash in any case.

[TerraPrime]

17 hours ago, the Greenleif Stark said:

You can't see how the family and the relationship between parents affects young kids?  I was responding to a post about what has changed over the last 30-40 years and I said the devalue of the family and marriage.  My mom is a teacher and so is my sister and my wife works in home with families.  I listen to my family talk about school and work and hear all sorts of stories and just feel overall that in America today family and staying married are not valued much anymore and that has an affect on kids, especially young kids.  How does that affect young boys in school?  Well without positive male role models in their life I think young boys tend to get into trouble and lack discipline.

 

18 hours ago, the Greenleif Stark said:

I never said things were better 30-40 years ago.  What I said was, in America today, the emphasis and value is on the individual and no longer the family and marriage. 

 

So, you're saying that the devaluing of family and marriage led to boys suffering from a lack of role models, which then gets them into troubles. 

 

But you're not saying that before the devaluing occurred, things were better. 

 

Because it's not better to not get into trouble... ? It's good to get into trouble? I guess? 

 

Not really sure how PoC or the LGBTQ community factor into my statement.

 

Because the ideology that maintains the "perfect nucleus family" which you're fondly not-remembering is the same that marginalizes PoC and LBGTQ people. You can't have the type of booming economy as the 20s without exploiting labor. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

9 hours ago, Jo498 said:

 

Whatever, I am constantly amazed that in many respects gender clichés seem to have hardened in the last 30-40 years despite feminism etc. Some of the fault goes to the toy industry but this cannot be the whole truth. It is a strange kind of backlash in any case.

What makes you think gender cliches have hardened?

 

24 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

 

So, you're saying that the devaluing of family and marriage led to boys suffering from a lack of role models, which then gets them into troubles. 

You don't think there is some truth that a lack of a father figure is unhelpful when it comes to boys lack of role models?

[Savannah]

What on earth is TerraPime bickering about?

Healthy family structures are basically what healthy individuals are made of and healthy individuals are the building blocks of a healthy society.  

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

42 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

So, you're saying that the devaluing of family and marriage led to boys suffering from a lack of role models, which then gets them into troubles. 

 

But you're not saying that before the devaluing occurred, things were better. 

 

Because it's not better to not get into trouble... ? It's good to get into trouble? I guess? 

 

 

 

 

Because the ideology that maintains the "perfect nucleus family" which you're fondly not-remembering is the same that marginalizes PoC and LBGTQ people. You can't have the type of booming economy as the 20s without exploiting labor. 

 I think there is some legitimacy to the lack of family argument in that two involved, caring, conscientious parents are going to be more effective than one. I believe this would also be true of an LBGTQ parental unit. I can point to my own divorce as a personal example of this. While my divorce was beneficial to my children in some ways, it most certainly effected their schooling in a negative way for a time. There was a lack of a united front for quite some time regarding this issue.

[Kalbear]

My suspicion is that the diaspora of extended family groups is significantly more harmful than the one vs. two major parent things, and that also corresponds greatly with the specific timeframe involved.

[Theda Baratheon]

3 hours ago, Savannah said:

What on earth is TerraPime bickering about?

Healthy family structures are basically what healthy individuals are made of and healthy individuals are the building blocks of a healthy society.  

Hmmm. What constitutes as a healthy family structure to you 

[MerenthaClone]

7 hours ago, Savannah said:

What on earth is TerraPime bickering about?

Healthy family structures are basically what healthy individuals are made of and healthy individuals are the building blocks of a healthy society.  

You could start by not assuming that everyone agrees on what "healthy family structures' are, or what "healthy individuals" are, or, in fact, what "healthy societies" are.  Your statement would be true if everyone involved in the conversation agrees with all of the above, but since its likely that we do not, well, its an utterly pointless one.  

[Savannah]

11 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Hmmm. What constitutes as a healthy family structure to you 

Seriously? Are you trolling? 
If you would have grown up in a dysfunctional family you would know the difference.
I bet there were no dysfunctional families among your neighbors and friends growing up

either. 

 

That being said I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and respond.

It doesn't  matter  a great deal what anyone personally prefers as a healthy structure.

You should maybe look into some family and children psychology to get the basics. 
Read a book or read an article. 
Volunteer for families and listen carefully to the professionals working with them. 
There are few key points, and one of them is of course physical safety. 

[Savannah]

8 hours ago, MerenthaClone said:

You could start by not assuming that everyone agrees on what "healthy family structures' are, or what "healthy individuals" are, or, in fact, what "healthy societies" are.  Your statement would be true if everyone involved in the conversation agrees with all of the above, but since its likely that we do not, well, its an utterly pointless one.  

since you obviously either wilfully misinterpret and lie about what i said, or can’t read, this conversation is over. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

14 hours ago, Kalbear said:

My suspicion is that the diaspora of extended family groups is significantly more harmful than the one vs. two major parent things, and that also corresponds greatly with the specific timeframe involved.

Sure if you are referring to broken up families then that is pretty harmful. In terms of how it relates to boys I think its important for boys to have male role models, in the same way you'd expect girls to have female ones. Wherever they come from it maybe doesn't matter, but if there isn't one then boys can feel quite lost and directionless. I know a couple of my friends who grew up with no fathers and basically had no men around to help them. One of them has been in prison for a couple of years the other is basically a bit of a bum. There is research suggesting lack of a father figure is a pretty major contributor to whether boys end up in crime later on too.

[mormont]

2 hours ago, Savannah said:

I bet there were no dysfunctional families among your neighbors and friends growing up either. 

I knew lots of those. Most of them had two (heterosexual) parents.

[Jo498]

10 hours ago, MerenthaClone said:

You could start by not assuming that everyone agrees on what "healthy family structures' are, or what "healthy individuals" are, or, in fact, what "healthy societies" are.  Your statement would be true if everyone involved in the conversation agrees with all of the above, but since its likely that we do not, well, its an utterly pointless one.  

If one has to agree about everything debate is both futile and unnecessary. Also we do not have to agree on what exactly "healthy" means to agree to some extent with the statement. The gist of the statement is that the role and benefits of the family cannot easily be replaced, regardless of how exactly we spell out "healthy". A possible differing opinion would be that the core (or the extended) family is a patriarchical or bourgeois structure and should ipso facto be treated with suspicion and maybe got rid of in favor of something else (e.g. alternative "collectivist" models like Sparta, Plato's Republic, Huxley's Brave New World, hippie communes, kibbutzim or whatever).

As for "healthy" we will disagree about some things but we might also by and large agree on some other things. E.g. that it is not "healthy" if father comes home drunk and beats his wife and children. Or if homosexuals are forced into the closet. Or if a man has no right to check whether the childrens he raises are his own.

Still, there can be reasonable disagreement on stuff like whether the "stoic" coping strategies JonSnow mentioned are usually or always "toxic" or if there can be some value to them.

[Theda Baratheon]

3 hours ago, Savannah said:

Seriously? Are you trolling? 
If you would have grown up in a dysfunctional family you would know the difference.
I bet there were no dysfunctional families among your neighbors and friends growing up

either. 

 

That being said I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and respond.

It doesn't  matter  a great deal what anyone personally prefers as a healthy structure.

You should maybe look into some family and children psychology to get the basics. 
Read a book or read an article. 
Volunteer for families and listen carefully to the professionals working with them. 
There are few key points, and one of them is of course physical safety. 

You made a point and I asked you to better clarify yourself that is all  I don't see how my simple questin could be construed as trolling but okay ...I won't engage you in future then??? I guess?? :| 

1 hour ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Sure if you are referring to broken up families then that is pretty harmful. In terms of how it relates to boys I think its important for boys to have male role models, in the same way you'd expect girls to have female ones. Wherever they come from it maybe doesn't matter, but if there isn't one then boys can feel quite lost and directionless. I know a couple of my friends who grew up with no fathers and basically had no men around to help them. One of them has been in prison for a couple of years the other is basically a bit of a bum. There is research suggesting lack of a father figure is a pretty major contributor to whether boys end up in crime later on too.

I mean yeah; role models are important to all children - it's powerful to identify with someone and admire them - it's just figuring out who and what those role models would be. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

2 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I mean yeah; role models are important to all children - it's powerful to identify with someone and admire them - it's just figuring out who and what those role models would be. 

I completely agree. I don't see this as a particular problem for men or women.  I would like someone with more expertise to weigh in, but I would have thought it is the lack of STABILITY, rather than a lack of figures of a certain gender that drives a lot of these outcomes.  There are lots and lots and lots of really successful men who were raised by a single parent, and plenty of dysfunctional men who to all outside appearances grew up in an episode of Leave it to Beaver.  (I grew up in a very nice suburb and had NO IDEA that my next door neighbor's husband was an alcoholic and that a dad down the street regularly beat up the mom - but it explains SO MUCH about stuff I'd see with the kids).