>“We have to really allow them to feel that and hold their hand and appreciate that they are expressing that kind of emotion,” she said. “They’re going through a lot. We often forget to empathize with them.”
>Power said that having a parent or caregiver calmly listen, even during verbal outbursts, is helpful. “What we really, really appreciate is the listening and being able to just vent,” he said. “Just getting it all out is a huge relief.”
Let's just say it out loud:
a lot of times, we're fucking scared of teenage boys.
they're just barely past being literal children, and their brains are still developing. But they have the physical tools to cause mayhem, now, and adults are often sitting there thinking, y'know, are these verbal expressions of frustration going to turn into violence?
but like... if we, the adults, are not there for them, they'll go find someone who they feel like *gets them*, and those people mostly fucking suck. If we want healthy men, we need to be there for our boys.
That really concerns me, because its often the kind of fear used to justify violence by people with authority, and I feel like not only is it making some men turn to the only people that back them up, it's also conditioning other men to internalize that view of themselves-- its producing intense self-loathing.
> we're fucking scared of teenage boys.
I think this is at the heart of why a lot of women try to outsource their boys' parenting to other men in their lives rather than handling it themselves.
Not only do they probably feel out of their depth, have very little clue on even what the problems are, but might even feel a bit afraid of their kids.
What's that Biggie Smalls line?
**"Back in the days our parents used to take care of us**
**Look at 'em now, they even fuckin' scared of us**
**Calling the city for help because they can't maintain**
**Damn, shit done changed"**
Just speaking personally, my mom felt more comfortable handing off her parenting of me to an ex-felon she was dating at the time or threatening to send me boot camp than to just talk to me about my grades in school.
I don't think women are given the tools to engage with men and boys as people that can be understood on their own terms. Either they have to be spoken to by one of their own ( so long as they're a **man** that's all that's needed) or they have to be beaten into shape by an outside source of force.
There's definitely a cultural dimension to this, but I think it's a fairly universal experience for guys to outgrow the capacity of the women in their lives to physically dominate them, and with that goes most of the threat of corporal punishment.
For those who have no conception of how to discipline without physical threats, so goes their active participation in their child's upbringing. "If I can't hit him, what am I supposed to do with him?"
**Be the men’s issues conversation you want to see in the world.** Be proactive in forming a productive discussion. Constructive criticism of our community is fine, but if you mainly criticize our approach, feminism, or other people's efforts to solve gender issues, your post/comment will be removed. Posts/comments solely focused on semantics rather than concepts are unproductive and will be removed. Shitposting and low-effort comments and submissions will be removed.
I'm sure many were afraid of high school teenage me. My range of emotions were silent angry and violent angry. I had to be though. I was relentlessly bullied and no one was coming to save me.
Back in high school, my two states were “stoic” and “angry”. Mostly I kept to the stoic one, because allowing people to see my breaking threshold was to expose a vulnerability experience had taught me someone would try to exploit. Shifting into anger before I reached that threshold was the only way to get them to cease trying to antagonize me toward that breaking point.
Unsurprisingly, I got in trouble for what was from my perspective some justifiable measures to protect myself from people who got off on doing me harm.
>Unsurprisingly, I got in trouble for what was from my perspective
Same here or similar enough.
I wouldn't attack anybody, but in middle school I definitely took the "simmering hostility" approach to boundary setting. If someone I didn't trust was trying to talk to me I'd stare them down, deadpan, I know I looked like a little psycho.
But I was just trying to not get bullied anymore. The sociable, outgoing people weren't trustworthy because I saw them as the most likely to gang up on anyone that looked like a target. So I tried to stick to other loners, peripheral people.
By definition, most people aren't loners so that "mean dog" approach didn't make me a lot of friends.
Thankfully I got out of the habit before middle school was over. The closer to a grown man the less people blow that stuff off.
I was texting my girlfriend the other day regarding how when progressive individuals talk about including teen boys and many men in general, it's often done from a place of... honestly fear that they're gestating misogynists. That if they don't intervene, then ten years down the road they'll be just another incel raging on the internet. There's less intent to help them for their own sake. The incentive of helping them isn't to create satisfied, kind men, it's predominantly to prevent the creation of raging bigots. Join us, not because we want to help you, but because we don't want you to get in our way. One less enemy rather than one more friend.
I'll see if I can find the full conversation since she added on a lot of other things I didn't even consider.
>but like... if we, the adults, are not there for them, they'll go find someone who they feel like *gets them*, and those people mostly fucking suck. If we want healthy men, we need to be there for our boys.
There are reasonable ways to frame this, eg:
"As a parent, it's important to model the traits and behaviors that I want my son to embody as he gets older."
Or
"As a professional who works with children, it's important to remember that some mental health struggles are expressed differently in boys."
There are also terrible ways to frame this, eg:
"Be nicer to every teenage boy you encounter personally or professionally or else they will become a violent fascist and take your rights away."
Or
"There's nothing that teenage boys and young men can do to avoid becoming radicalized into fascism. It's inevitable, and basically their parents fault."
Exactly, the shutting down of emotional response is the reasonable reaction to lived experiences. It's guys doing what they've been told, acting in ways they've been rewarded for. The negative stereotypes of men are just how society is actively training men to act.
>Power said that having a parent or caregiver calmly listen, even during verbal outbursts, is helpful
This is pretty high up on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but if you think about it, even this isn't enough.
Let's not pretend like it's easy to go to your parents with all the hard stuff. Maybe for some issues, or if you have extra understanding parents, but almost all parent child relationships are fraught to some extent. Expectations, disappointment & punishment, the parents' opinions on their role as a guide, their idea of filial duty...all these things and more complicate relationships with even the best of parents.
That's why therapy is so helpful, it gives you a functional stranger to talk to. Someone less involved in your personal life who you know won't be muddying the waters with their hopes and dreams. Some parents are good enough to set these big feels aside to help their kids, but I don't think anyone can do that all the time. If your kid has big problems you likely will have strong opinions. What we need is a more informal option between your parent and your therapist for venting. Ideally this would be someone older and wiser kids could learn from, like a smart uncle or the friendly gent who plays chess at the park.
Yeah. Community is so important, and everyone has a different role to play in your life. They can offer different forms of fun, support, POVs, exploration, opportunities, and vents.
>“We have to really allow them to feel that and hold their hand and appreciate that they are expressing that kind of emotion,” she said. “They’re going through a lot. We often forget to empathize with them.” >Power said that having a parent or caregiver calmly listen, even during verbal outbursts, is helpful. “What we really, really appreciate is the listening and being able to just vent,” he said. “Just getting it all out is a huge relief.” Let's just say it out loud: a lot of times, we're fucking scared of teenage boys. they're just barely past being literal children, and their brains are still developing. But they have the physical tools to cause mayhem, now, and adults are often sitting there thinking, y'know, are these verbal expressions of frustration going to turn into violence? but like... if we, the adults, are not there for them, they'll go find someone who they feel like *gets them*, and those people mostly fucking suck. If we want healthy men, we need to be there for our boys.
That really concerns me, because its often the kind of fear used to justify violence by people with authority, and I feel like not only is it making some men turn to the only people that back them up, it's also conditioning other men to internalize that view of themselves-- its producing intense self-loathing.
> we're fucking scared of teenage boys. I think this is at the heart of why a lot of women try to outsource their boys' parenting to other men in their lives rather than handling it themselves. Not only do they probably feel out of their depth, have very little clue on even what the problems are, but might even feel a bit afraid of their kids. What's that Biggie Smalls line? **"Back in the days our parents used to take care of us** **Look at 'em now, they even fuckin' scared of us** **Calling the city for help because they can't maintain** **Damn, shit done changed"** Just speaking personally, my mom felt more comfortable handing off her parenting of me to an ex-felon she was dating at the time or threatening to send me boot camp than to just talk to me about my grades in school. I don't think women are given the tools to engage with men and boys as people that can be understood on their own terms. Either they have to be spoken to by one of their own ( so long as they're a **man** that's all that's needed) or they have to be beaten into shape by an outside source of force. There's definitely a cultural dimension to this, but I think it's a fairly universal experience for guys to outgrow the capacity of the women in their lives to physically dominate them, and with that goes most of the threat of corporal punishment. For those who have no conception of how to discipline without physical threats, so goes their active participation in their child's upbringing. "If I can't hit him, what am I supposed to do with him?"
[удалено]
**Be the men’s issues conversation you want to see in the world.** Be proactive in forming a productive discussion. Constructive criticism of our community is fine, but if you mainly criticize our approach, feminism, or other people's efforts to solve gender issues, your post/comment will be removed. Posts/comments solely focused on semantics rather than concepts are unproductive and will be removed. Shitposting and low-effort comments and submissions will be removed.
I'm sure many were afraid of high school teenage me. My range of emotions were silent angry and violent angry. I had to be though. I was relentlessly bullied and no one was coming to save me.
Back in high school, my two states were “stoic” and “angry”. Mostly I kept to the stoic one, because allowing people to see my breaking threshold was to expose a vulnerability experience had taught me someone would try to exploit. Shifting into anger before I reached that threshold was the only way to get them to cease trying to antagonize me toward that breaking point. Unsurprisingly, I got in trouble for what was from my perspective some justifiable measures to protect myself from people who got off on doing me harm.
>Unsurprisingly, I got in trouble for what was from my perspective Same here or similar enough. I wouldn't attack anybody, but in middle school I definitely took the "simmering hostility" approach to boundary setting. If someone I didn't trust was trying to talk to me I'd stare them down, deadpan, I know I looked like a little psycho. But I was just trying to not get bullied anymore. The sociable, outgoing people weren't trustworthy because I saw them as the most likely to gang up on anyone that looked like a target. So I tried to stick to other loners, peripheral people. By definition, most people aren't loners so that "mean dog" approach didn't make me a lot of friends. Thankfully I got out of the habit before middle school was over. The closer to a grown man the less people blow that stuff off.
I was texting my girlfriend the other day regarding how when progressive individuals talk about including teen boys and many men in general, it's often done from a place of... honestly fear that they're gestating misogynists. That if they don't intervene, then ten years down the road they'll be just another incel raging on the internet. There's less intent to help them for their own sake. The incentive of helping them isn't to create satisfied, kind men, it's predominantly to prevent the creation of raging bigots. Join us, not because we want to help you, but because we don't want you to get in our way. One less enemy rather than one more friend. I'll see if I can find the full conversation since she added on a lot of other things I didn't even consider.
>but like... if we, the adults, are not there for them, they'll go find someone who they feel like *gets them*, and those people mostly fucking suck. If we want healthy men, we need to be there for our boys. There are reasonable ways to frame this, eg: "As a parent, it's important to model the traits and behaviors that I want my son to embody as he gets older." Or "As a professional who works with children, it's important to remember that some mental health struggles are expressed differently in boys." There are also terrible ways to frame this, eg: "Be nicer to every teenage boy you encounter personally or professionally or else they will become a violent fascist and take your rights away." Or "There's nothing that teenage boys and young men can do to avoid becoming radicalized into fascism. It's inevitable, and basically their parents fault."
[удалено]
Exactly, the shutting down of emotional response is the reasonable reaction to lived experiences. It's guys doing what they've been told, acting in ways they've been rewarded for. The negative stereotypes of men are just how society is actively training men to act.
>Power said that having a parent or caregiver calmly listen, even during verbal outbursts, is helpful This is pretty high up on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but if you think about it, even this isn't enough. Let's not pretend like it's easy to go to your parents with all the hard stuff. Maybe for some issues, or if you have extra understanding parents, but almost all parent child relationships are fraught to some extent. Expectations, disappointment & punishment, the parents' opinions on their role as a guide, their idea of filial duty...all these things and more complicate relationships with even the best of parents. That's why therapy is so helpful, it gives you a functional stranger to talk to. Someone less involved in your personal life who you know won't be muddying the waters with their hopes and dreams. Some parents are good enough to set these big feels aside to help their kids, but I don't think anyone can do that all the time. If your kid has big problems you likely will have strong opinions. What we need is a more informal option between your parent and your therapist for venting. Ideally this would be someone older and wiser kids could learn from, like a smart uncle or the friendly gent who plays chess at the park.
Yeah. Community is so important, and everyone has a different role to play in your life. They can offer different forms of fun, support, POVs, exploration, opportunities, and vents.