In dysfunctional families there is something called “the no-talk rule.â€Â Talking about the source and cause of the dysfunction is prohibited. If one of the parents is an alcoholic, then no one is allowed to speak of the drinking. This rule is rigidly enforced by a variety of means, including invoking family loyalty in an “us versus them†mentality. “We†must stick together because “we†are all each other have in our struggle against all of “them†in the outside world. The no-talk rule is in effect regardless of whether the problem is alcohol/drugs, abuse, incest, gambling, or any other uncontrolled behavior by one member which affects the family as whole.
Both sides of the gender war have their own set of no-talk rules. Women cannot and will not talk about violence by women, the lies they tell, or their manipulation. Men are much more willing to tear into and attack each other, but there is one subject which does assume a bit of the status of a sacred cow – fatherhood. Out of deference to our brethren who really are good fathers fighting tooth and nail for the smallest opportunity to remain part of their children’s lives in the face of the anti-male, anti-father, feminist onslaught, the subject of fathers who left a lot to be desired in how they fulfilled their roles is seldom discussed.
Here at the Spearhead we talk about things which men are not encouraged to talk about anywhere else, and in most places are actively discouraged from talking about. In fact, some of us take a bit of perverse delight in breaking the no-talk rule, and spitting in the face of the mandate “you can’t say that!â€
It is too bad that the lame-stream media did such a hatchet job on the mythopoetic men’s movement, because I think it had a lot to offer men to help them understand and put in proper perspective both their own internal experiences and the expectations and demands placed on them as men by their cultures. Mythology is full of examples of the complex relationships between fathers and sons – the competition, the love, sometimes the hatred, and a great deal about the tension between a man’s sense of loyalty to his mother versus his father.
The power that a father has in a young man’s life and to affect his sense of himself can be illustrated by fairly contemporary example as well as a biblical one. The actor Burt Reynolds was once asked “How does a boy know when he has become a man?â€Â Reynolds’s answer was short, sweet, and to the point – “You know you are a man when your daddy tells you that you are one.â€Â The power of, and need that a boy feels for, his father’s blessing is illustrated in the biblical story of Jacob and Esau. Even though fathers generally lack the social power today that they had in biblical times, they still have a great deal of psychological and emotional power over their sons. Few things matter more to a boy than his father’s blessing. Boys will often turn themselves inside out to hear their father say “You are good. You have done well.â€Â Even seriously defective fathers – rogues, drunks, compulsive gamblers, etc. – often hold their sons in thrall, chasing the approval and blessing of the most significant man in their lives.
And when that happens, a whole host of stresses and distortions enter the picture. In a story that goes back to Hesiod’s Theogony composed circa 700 BC, the creation myth of the ancient Greeks, the primordial god Uranus came every night to cover the earth and mate with Gaia, but he hated the children she bore him. Uranus imprisoned Gaia’s youngest children in Tartarus, deep within Earth, where they caused pain to Gaia. She shaped a great flint-bladed sickle and asked her sons to castrate Uranus. Only Cronus, youngest and most ambitious of the Titans, was willing: he ambushed his father and castrated him, casting the severed testicles into the sea.
There certainly are men who want to “lay with†(or just “layâ€) a woman but who hate the children she bears as a result. Perhaps such men would be better described by the breeding-stock term “sireâ€, representing a purely biological role, than by the honorific term “father†which has positive social connotations that simply getting a woman pregnant do not earn a man.
And, there are women like Gaia who love their children greatly, but despise the men who fathered them. And frequently such mothers will enter into collusion with the sons against the fathers. Seldom is the castration physical, as Cronus did to Uranus. But, boys and young men who sense that their fathers are destructive and not using their male power in a constructive and responsible manner will seek to psychically and emotionally castrate them and take away their power.
Robert Bly, in one of his videos, goes into great depth about the glee he used to get from sticking it to older men. Boys, deprived of the blessing of an older man they admire, often carry a deep and seething resentment against the way that their own fathers failed them, and will often get trapped in alternating between knocking themselves out trying to gain the blessing of an older man – a father figure – and hating them for the psychological and emotional power they have over the younger man.
The sins, and failures, of the fathers do, indeed, get visited on the children unto the 3rd and 4th generations.
Such men are sitting ducks for women, because in the absence of approval and blessing of their fathers, they sought it from the only place they could get it – their mothers. And thus does an unholy alliance of emotional incest often form between boys and mothers, with the boys displacing the fathers as the emotional mate of the mother. For many of them, being a “good man†involves both making “mama†happy, and being as unlike their fathers as they can manage to be.
What does not work, and never works, is to replace “blessing†with “beratement.â€Â Nothing will alienate a boy from his father faster, or more thoroughly, than a sense of being unfairly attacked by the older man and used as a whipping boy for the old man’s rage. As Cronus castrated his father, and Oedipus killed his, a boy left without a means to form an emotional alliance with his father will become his enemy, and seek alliance with his mother.
I think that if you look around today at the effects of feminism on the culture, and the wholesale loss of allegiance to manhood and manly ideals, you will see a lot of the effects of men feeling betrayed by older men – sometimes their own fathers, and certainly by powerful men in the culture in general. The emotional allegiance to women we see today is an inevitable result of boys and young men who lose the ability to trust older men. In every man-bashing advertisement created by a man, and in every sitcom where the man is portrayed as a clueless buffoon, we see the traces and lingering after-effects of a boy who never had a man he could respect and admire, tell him that he was now a man.
In fairness to some of the men who dropped the ball on handing off the mantle of manhood to their sons, many of them were set up. From the Industrial Revolution onward, and even before, men were isolated from their families for the workday and when they returned home at night were often stressed out, angry, tired, and had little if anything left to give their families because they had given it all to the role of being the breadwinner. For many kids, all they ever saw of their fathers was their temperament. And, being children, they did not see the stresses and pressures which caused it.
But, under such stresses to be the sole providers of their family’s survival, many men did a poor job of making a distinction between being dominant and domineering – or between leadership and being a petty tyrant. Their frustration and rage at their own sense of being entrapped came out at the most convenient targets, the ones close and present – their families. And, sons in particular often bore the brunt of it.
In my own specific case, my old man’s two favorite sayings were “YOU ARENâ€T WORTH A PINCH OF SOUR OWL SHIT!!†and “I’M GOING TO KICK YOUR ASS “TILL YOUR NOSE BLEEDS!!†– both delivered from a state of red-faced, bellowing, rage. He never actually succeeded in kicking my ass until my nose bled, but he did succeed in kicking it until I absolutely hated his guts.
Many men today have mixed and conflicted feelings about their fathers, their own roles as fathers, and fatherhood in general. Most men do love their kids with all their heart and soul and the news is filled with stories of men who give their lives protecting their children.
Nothing I say here is intended to give fathers a hard time, nor to denigrate fatherhood in general. But I have some serious questions and reservations about certain elements within the generalized Men’s Movement who have attached a certain mystique to fatherhood in the same way our culture idealizes motherhood. Some parents are not good parents – both mothers and fathers. But, having either a toxic mother or a toxic father will skew a person’s perceptions for life, and often lead to them following a very roundabout path to maturity – if they ever achieve it.
It is easy to lay blame, but often difficult to move forward. A great many men of current and future generations are suffering and will suffer from what the mythopoetics call “The Father Wound†– the loss of the part of themselves which the father represents. I’m not big on obsessing about “wounds†because in today’s chaotic world we all have them. But, I think it will benefit everyone – men, women, and children – to give good fathers their just due and recognize how vitally important they are to both future men and future women, as well as their future spouses and future children.
Because some fathers  give children little choice except between being destroyed by them or repudiating them – and along with them, most if not all of the good things which fathers do.  And those are things we cannot afford to lose.
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{ 53 comments… read them below or add one }
It was the opposite for me. Toxic mother, excellent father. This applies to mothers as well IMO.
I’m pretty sure I realised I was a man when I realised that my father (and my mother) was just a flawed human being like me. This idea was strengthened when I had my own child and realised was a tough job it can be. There is no such thing as the perfect parent sadly.
Thank you for this.
I am one such man. I did substitute mentors – many different mentors at many different points, in fact – but I always longed for a father (written shortly after my 16th bday), even if I didn’t always actively acknowledge this. My father was not dead, but he may as well been dead to me because of how unavailable and incapable he was. (Whereas my father was akin to a benign novelty at best and nonexistent factor at worse, my mother had nothing positive going for her at all.)
I intellectualized his failures as “at least he wasn’t as bad as mom.” He was more of a pal – someone to hang out with from time to time, and maybe commiserate a little over what our mother was doing (even if he “white knighted” her all the time). I got over him shortly after he abandoned our family (more or less) around the time I was hitting puberty. I learned from a very early age that there is no magical significance to blood relations that makes them any better or worse than any other person, and that reciprocity is the best course of action for dealing with people.
This is an important distinction. I think it is entirely possible for any man to assume the mantle of “fatherhood” for any boy, though obviously it is most preferable if the biological father assumes this role. “Fatherhood” is earned. This is similar to criticisms against hero worship of our military – not everyone is a hero simply for joining the military. One must earn one’s stripes, and be heroic, in order to earn the honorific of “hero.” Similarly, one should be required to earn the honorific of “father.”
A large phase of my life (thus far) could adequately be summed up as doing exactly this. Thankfully, two things worked to my advantage. One, my father provided the perfect example of everything not to be, so attempting to be his opposite was actually a boon. And two, my mother could NEVER be satisfied, so eventually I tired of trying and “went my own way” as best I could (though still not fully cognizant of all of society’s ills) by running away when I was 17.
This was an excellent post, Zed. We should not exonerate any men or fathers who have failed – to do so would be to commit the same sins of feminism, which fails to hold any woman accountable for her misdeeds. At the same time, we can and should celebrate those men who are exemplars and paragons of virtue.
The first paragraph above should have been blockquoted… my mistake.
Perhaps we should remember that millions of fathers find themselves working for long hours in a job that they do not like, in order to support a wife who does little more than worsen his already-miserable existence, whose children are being brought up to have contempt for them, and who have absolutely nothing worthwhile going for them.
And most of the time, his feminist-dominated society tells him that he is worthless!
Who can blame these fathers for going off the rails by, say, abusing drugs and/or alcohol, getting angry all the time – or leaving?
Are they not entitled to have a decent life of their own?
Why work your butt off to support people who seem to hate you for most of the time?
I’m pretty sure I realised I was a man when I realised that my father (and my mother) was just a flawed human being like me. — Stu
That’s a good point, Stu. I went through the same thing.
I did not have the best of a relationship with my father… but, that was just as much my fault as his. OK, probably more mine. I was a pretty stubborn and pigheaded guy, and we butted heads quite often. Same as the competition thing Zed mentions. I went through that with him, and quite often I was certain that he was always trying to one up me.
But, I think as time passed, I started to realize, “Wow, I’ve held my parents to impossible standards, because I demanded perfection from them.” And, after a while, I seen I had screwed up so many times in my own life… it took a bit for me to realize that at, say, the age of 35, if I was still struggling to find my way through life, so were they at that age, I imagine.
My dad died a few years back – prematurely. And, I’ve thought about fathers a lot over the years since. I’ve kind of been forced to realize that, wow, it’s a good thing that parents don’t hold their children to as high of standards as children hold their parents to.
I kind of realize, now that I am older, how silly it was of me to always have my eyes sharp for his flaws, while I never really did the opposite, and had sharp eyes for his strengths to balance it. Upon reflection of our relationship, I now see often that, indeed, he did know better than me and on many occasions I certainly was a pigheaded fool for butting heads with him so many times over so many stupid things. In fact, it’s been one of the things that’s made me step back once in a while and realize that sometimes, yeah, maybe I should shut up and listen to what other men older than me have to say as well.
It’s a tough one, the father-son relationship. But, I’ve decided that now that he is gone… well, I could have had a lot worse, and I’m not sure that I am any better of a human being than he was, so…
There is a massive problem with paternity fraud in the west.
estimates range from 1 in 10, to 3 in 10 so called ‘fathers’ are not actually the biological father of the child they believe to be theirs. They are actually another mans child.
This leads to a situation where instinctively either the ‘father’, or the child, or both, simply dont bond. If the ‘father’ feels a sense of detachment from the child, then subconciously that man will start to doubt whether the child is infact his. That is a huge emotional problem for a man. They need a connection with their child, but it is not there and they dont fully understand why.
Along with unhappy marriages, I suspect this accounts for alot of the alcohol abuse by men. It is men ‘drowning their sorrows’ as we say in the UK.
As with most things in life, men get the blame, but its women who are the root problem.
.
Are you trying to say that a problem which afflicts 10% – 30% of the population (do you have a source, by the way? I love saving good sources of information for use later) can effectively account for poor fatherhood even when there is no biological disconnect?
It is important to recognize where women are at fault, but we shouldn’t let our zeal to expose their demerits blind us to the demerits of men, either. After all, men have a degree of culpability for what has happened to our society. There are no enemies among the dead, and this gender war has left many humans – male and female both – dead.
I should add that as men, should we fail to learn from the mistakes that the men before us have made, then it is likely we will be doomed to repeat them when the chance is ours. If we foster a view that only women were at fault for the things that have happened, we will fail to have the critical self-awareness that is necessary to avoid making the same mistakes. As has been pointed out many times, women have only managed to unbalance things this bad because it was men who allowed them to.
I would tend to see all that as proof that “A Brave New World” would indeed fix the problems of fatherhood and motherhood.
Not all species attend their young. A few mammals, monkeys, most birds and some fish (sea horse).
All other species just lay them (turtles, alligators…) and then leave them to fend for themselves.
Isn’t our own species ready for artificial reproduction in baby factories? The technology is (almost) ready. There must be a reason for that.
Would it hurt if the young humans were taken care of by robots or machines?
It’s just a question. Worth a thought, I believe.
“The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons.” My siblings and I lived in terror of our father’s moods. I was the only one to escape broken bones at his hands, and that was luck more than anything. Even as I repudiated the behavior, I internalized it, and found it in myself when faced with a recalcitrant child. No damage was done, but the impulse was there and I looked with horror upon myself.
I had some long talks with my dad after that, trying to understand him and myself. It turned out that grandpa was much worse; his regular punishment was standing dad in the bathtub so that washing the blood off after whipping him was easier. My father has borne the scars inside and outside for his life, my scars are internal and all but gone. Best of all, my children do not carry them (to the best of my knowledge).
My father isn’t such a bad guy after all, and taught me much that was needful; my job as an adult has been to separate the gems from the crud.
“the subject of fathers who left a lot to be desired in how they fulfilled their roles is seldom discussed.”
Surely this is some kind of a joke that this statement is put on spear-head Zed. Are you not aware that 50% of all divorce cases have a host of false allegations? Not only are the subject of fathers who ‘left a lot to be desired’ extremely widely discussed across ALL mainstream media the slander and lies that are repeated so often about great fathers are ALSO widely disseminated and discussed.
I for one am said to be, under oath, a father/husband who:
1. Committed adultery.
2. Committed acts of domestic violence.
3. Abandoned my family.
4. Was an unsuitable father for my children.
5. Was not reasonable to expect my spouse to co-habit.
This despite the fact that my ex wrote me a letter just a few months earlier begging me to take her back and calling me ‘the Sampson that has held the world up for our family while I acted like Delilah undermining your every effort while pretending to love you’. This despite my two sons and my father in law calling me the best possible husband and father I could be.
My ex justified this slander of me as ‘a negotiation tactic’ that ‘did not count’ because it was ‘only forwarded to the court and not made public’. Apparentely if perjury and lies are told about me to people I don’t know who claim the right to sieze my property and give me back what I ‘deserve’ according to these lies then I should be ok with this. Really? Of course, I am one in millions.
Sorry. That sentence is about the most false sentence I have seen in a spearhead article Zed. Men are constantly talked about as crap fathers, and especially in the FC. There is barely a good father role model left out there.
Yeah, that’s a pretty good point. Cause you know, a baby should be held to the same standards as a man.
Did you know that the abused often blame themselves for the abuse?
J. Durden said:
‘Are you trying to say that a problem which afflicts 10% – 30% of the population (do you have a source, by the way? I love saving good sources of information for use later) can effectively account for poor fatherhood even when there is no biological disconnect?’
Perhaps 10% to 30% could be the total sum of male bad parenting.
I think this is a tricky area to get into( as are most areas concerning women), but I have personal experience in this area, and I believe it to be a problem which is absolutely central to disharmony in society.
take a look here for more information:
http://www.australianpaternityfraud.org/statistics.htm
Disregarding the effect on the so called ‘father’ for just a minute, children that are forced to grow up with a non-biological ‘father’ are effectively living in single female parent households as far as emotional bond with a male is concerned. In single female parent households, children have a greater chance of becoming delinquent, and going on to become criminals.
Perhaps measuring the rate of teenage delinquency (children involved with the law) could give us more of an insight, but it wouldnt suprise me if it was 10-30% of kids, the same sort of range for paternity fraud.
I suspect if hospitals were forced to DNA test every baby thats born against his ‘fathers’ DNA at birth, and the ‘father’ had a legal right to know, then alot of societys problems would be alleviated. women would know the game was up and that they would have to be more careful. but the state wont do it because they know the problem is so big. Its an open secret in hospitals in the UK that paternity fraud is a major issue, but the state certainly doesnt want the truth to out, because it wants duped dads to go on supporting these children. if they dont, the state will have to do it.
Sure, some biological fathers may be bad parents, but its obvious that a man that is truely the biological father of his child will do his very best for the child, where as non-biological father will become disinterested and not be the best for the child.
J. Durden said:
‘women have only managed to unbalance things this bad because it was men who allowed them to.’
That statement is fundamentally wrong.
Men are constantly trying to keep women from misbehaving and acting in a selfish and dishonest manner. Feminism and the organisation of women is what has tipped the balance, and women have been complict.
so it is not correct to say that men have ‘allowed’ the current situation to occur. even without the outside forces of feminism and government, stopping women from destroying society is a full-time, near-impossible job. To go off on a tangent somewhat, thats why religion (any religion) is important to society. it was the best preventative we had in controlling the selfish and destructive nature of women. the holy books are there to give (women primarily) instruction on how to live better lives. and if they are in church worshipping god, they are less likely to be having sex with your friends, and commiting paternity fraud on society.
I rather suspect paternity fraud to be the reason men have always had to have a close eye on their women (“oppression”), because if not, you may be wasting your resources on bringing up another mans child.
What Harry said.
And yes, many men suck balls plenty good all on their own. (Bell curve) However, as a former niceguy and someone with a deeply felt inherent sense of justice, I have little pity for women who pick and end-up with shitty men, little pity for the shitty men who have to deal with their shitty unwanted thug-spawn, but, a fair amount of pity for said thug-spawn, who with proper guidence, could be taught to control said thuggishness and direct said unrefined masculine energies into being a productive member of society. As a former niceguy, we wouldn’t even have the problem of shitty, abusive men if women would mate with the niceguys instead of Alphas. This would have a two fold affect. Niceguys would outbreed the assholes to a greater extent (but not entirely), and assholes would adjust their behavior to emulate the niceguys. Win, win. The only problem is a culture of niceguys can be walked over and taken advantage of, especially by other cultures. Solution. Educating the niceguys, like what is happening on the web, about the realities of selfish, evil, corrupt people and prepare them to deal with them. If human intellect has taken us this far, it can take us to the point that we are psychologically not prone to mindless violence, but intellectually capable of nuking the fuck out of anyone who crosses the line. Walk softly and carry a big stick. Is that so hard? I like to think of buddhist monks who invented KungFu to defend themselves. They spend all their time being peaceful hippies and “exercising”, but when the bandits jump out of the bushes, look out. Hiyah! (That might not be a historically accurate representation of the orgins of KungFu, but you get my point.) The problem is women like men who walk loudly and pretend they have a big stick whether they do or don’t. They are simply shallow creatures whose inner sex competition drives them to find the flashiest guy with the flashiest stuff to flaunt their female status. They don’t look for true quality. Women don’t control evolution. The forces of “what works is what works” is too strong to overcome, but they can nudge it in a certain direction. Too many keep shoving it in the violent, bombastic, lieing, bullshit direction. The problem with men is caused by women. Thats the way women want it, thats the way the get it. Go interview the innmates and any jail, and see how many of them had girlfriends (or have girlfriends). The vast majority of them. Go to MIT, and ask the same question.
Nice one Jabber. Why thanks Wocky.
Pats myself on the back.
I concur.
Perhaps I should be more specific. I do not mean to apply guilt to all men, so perhaps our disagreement is merely one of semantics. But surely we can agree that there was a time in this nation’s history when the power to make and uphold laws was solely a male domain, yes? The only way that this could change was if men gave up their power to women, which happened. And this is not the first time it has happened, either. Meaning, men haven’t yet learned from their mistakes.
Did you know that the abused often blame themselves for the abuse? — Internetwood
Did you know that I recognize you keep trying to pick an argument with me for no reason at all?
Ouch.
I will make a prediction here, Zed. Though this piece is as well written as anything else you offer, and addresses a very important topic, you will get the fewest comments on what you are actually writing about than any other of your works here.
You are 100% correct. We have a no-talk rule about our fathers. And you just violated it, much to your credit.
Feminism set itself up for being the generic scapegoat for more enlightened men, but I don’t see pointing the finger there in this case. Men, after all, weren’t perfect until being damaged by gender politics. They had already been damaged by other things for ages past. One of those things being fathers.
We talk easily about fathers rights, fatherlessness through the courts, the importance of fathers, ad infinitum. But even the wisest of men fall silent when we touch upon wounding by our fathers. Sometimes the best answer we can muster is just another critique of feminism. That is how great the pain is for some.
Harry says:
And I think he is right. But I also think there is something else to be considered, outside unappreciative wives and resentful children.
Like how to be fit for cannon fodder and a good father at the same time.
My father went through two wars. He was in the Korean conflict where he was shot, got severe white phosphorus burns to his leg and a back full of shrapnel from a mortar round that blew up 50 feet from where he stood. He kept a box full of medals, three purple hearts, a bronze star and a silver star in a bottom drawer, I shit you not, where also stashed some porn.
Anyone want to bet on what kinds of memories were attached to those medals?
Then he went to Nam in the early 60′s as an advisor and got shot again. Another medal, another part of his life I would only hear about from my mother.
And I don’t want to make this sound like it is just about war. It’s not. But I do think we might benefit, as men, to question what we are even supposed to provide as fathers in a world that breeds us to die in the defense of others, or just in the name of better commerce.
I used to think my father was brutal when what I needed was a father that provided the blessings of Bly’s writings. And I was right. But then again, my father wasn’t wrong. He was just as much hostage to and victim of the strangling forces of his life as those around him.
I hope we can lean from this and at some point start passing the lesson down to younger men, and in honor of the older men who never had a snowballs chance in hell of doing that for us.
Rebel said:
‘Isn’t our own species ready for artificial reproduction in baby factories? The technology is (almost) ready.’
Yes, so long as women arnt in the world. Women are the perversion in the world.
I believe this current attack on men in our hi-tech age to be a scream for survival by women, because they know technology will soon make them irrelevant. sex bots, cloning, artifical means od reproduction which dont require women.
It seems to me that technology has always been moving in this direction. I welcome it.
Zed,
as a father of 4 who also had a great father my experience of fatherhood is broad. I also attended a great many forums run by Landmark Education and mens issues with their fathers is one of the MAIN issues men have in their lives. Men will either be like their father or revolt against their father until such time as they choose to be their own man, which may be never by the way. Many men live like/not like their father their entire lives.
In one question that happens in the Landmark Forum the men are asked to please stand up if you feel that your father staying in the home has ruined or had a severe and negative impact on your life. Usually around 10-15% of the men will stand up. The next question is now please men stand up whos fathers left you as a child and you feel the absence of your father has had a severe and negative influence on your life. Another 10-15% of men will stand up. At which time the comment is usually something like “Guys, look at each other, the other could be you, time to get over it.”
Despite what women will tell you, fatherhood is MUCH more difficult than motherhood. Motherhood is about feeding, clearning, nurturing and teaching a few life lessons. A lot of work and a very important task. But fatherhood is about how to bring the boy out to be a man for those of us who are good fathers. This is an incredibly difficult thing to do today. Much harder than it was 40 years ago. Fathers must walk a complex tight rope. They must be provider and protector requiring them to often be absent from the home for most of the time. They must also be disciplinarian and instiller of values which requires them to punish the boy when he is rebellious, as he will be.
My father walked that line brilliantly but I still had some issues with him until I was about 30. I cleaned up those issues at about 30 and have since enjoyed a relationship with my Dad that is far closer and better than my brothers. Indeed, my Dad and I hug each other and ‘mate around’ so much now that my brothers slightly object to the whole show of love and affection!! LOL!!
Getting this ‘tight rope’ right is so tough. My step-son, whom I was not allowed to discipline, ran off the rails, got into drugs and a bit of trouble before contracting cancer and learning what self-discipline was all about. He credited me with helping him save his own life in that experience. I recall the one time I had to spank my younger boy when he did not deserve it to get him to do what I needed him to do. I later spent 10 minutes by the road-side crying that I had to do that. I understood I had spanked him when he did not deserve it and I was very upset and concerned about how he would feel about it in his future years. There simply was no other alternative at the time but you can’t tell a 12 year old that.
Sure. Some fathers have trouble negotiating that tight rope. Give them a break. It is a tough job. I am reminded of part of the speech I gave at my wedding. I had had my two step children in the house for 2 years then. I said: “When I was 18 I thought my Dad was a complete idiot. I wondered how he managed to survive in the world being so stupid. (There was much shock in the audience when I said that) Now I am 25 and I have had these two children in my life for a few years and I talk to my Dad I find him to be such a wise man that I can come to when I need help. And I wonder to myself, how did he get to know so much in just 7 years!”
This was met with riotous laughter. It was clear who the stupid one was….me. It was also an acknowledgement that fatherhood is a tough job and good fathers are worth their weight in gold. Alas, we are much denigrated now and I will not provide my services as a ‘father’ again.
Paul,
“I hope we can lean from this and at some point start passing the lesson down to younger men, and in honor of the older men who never had a snowballs chance in hell of doing that for us.”
A place like spear-head is a great place where discussions on fatherhood would be of great benefit to those men who are now fathers but grew up without a father figure. I’d be pleased to see a forum set aside for that. On MABTW we spend a lot of time helping the younger guys who grew up without fathers around but very few of them have kids themselves.
With the complete lack of role models around now for fathers and father figures, this is important. When I was a kid I was blessed with father figures to look up to all around the place.
“But even the wisest of men fall silent when we touch upon wounding by our fathers.”
Actually I do not find that. Perhaps it is because of my association with Landmark Education but when men come to me for advice and guidance the first relationship I explore is the father relationship. I have never met a man who is unwilling to talk about that relationship in detail. Sometimes with much veremence.
Example. I was working in the US and a young man joined our project. He was a very angry young man and he was causing problems. I took him aside one day and just asked him about his Dad. The tirade that came out did not surprise me one bit. As far as he was concerned his dad was a low life scum who had ruined his life. Over the period of about 2 months, and a trip off to Landmark, this young man completely turned his life around. When he came back from that class he hugged me and was crying on my shoulder in thanks to me for taking the time to notice him and help him.
His story was his Dad was in the military and had ‘abandoned’ him to a boarding school and so his Dad hated him and despised him because he would not be around him. Now? He realised his Dad was a patriot who took the issue of protecting his fellow citizens very seriously and was required to travel a lot. He had done his best to get his boy into the best possible school and give him the best possible start in life. In short, he came to know his father loved him deeply and had sacrificed much for him. And the boy did have a great start in life. He was only 28 and yet he was already earning USD60K and was well on his way to being a talented specialist in his industry sector and he learned much from me as well. His father had got the job done, and now the boy knew it. It’s pretty amazing when a man cries on your shoulder while thanking you. I’ve had that happen quite a few times now.
J. Durden said:
‘surely we can agree that there was a time in this nation’s history when the power to make and uphold laws was solely a male domain, yes? The only way that this could change was if men gave up their power to women, which happened. And this is not the first time it has happened, either. Meaning, men haven’t yet learned from their mistakes.’
Yes I agree.
The experiences I’ve had when trying to talk to some males has been frustrating beyond belief. They are simply unwilling to believe that women are not the ‘emotionally beautiful goddesses’ they think they are.
The pig-headedness of males, particularly young males is highly frustrating. You cannot say anything to them, and yes, thats why we go on like this. but I think the root cause of the problem is their nature is manipulated and taken advantage of by women.
Culture (paintings, music, literature, etc ) try to educate our young men about women, which on the whole doesnt work, they only learn after-the-fact.
But yes, we as ordinary men are not getting involved in enough direct action in the streets to warn other males. I think we’ve got to come at this from every angle we can, with all the tools available to us.
so in that regard you do have a point.
I just want to add one more thing:
The reason why I am relatively hard-line about women and blaming women, is firstly because they are the major root cause wrong doers, and importantly, because if there is any grey-area, any wiggle room at all, women will use it to turn the argument around and blame men, and we end up in the situation the US and the UK finds itself in now.
Stu January 20, 2010 at 04:29
“There is no such thing as the perfect parent sadly.”
Stu, I disagree. I think if you tell a young man or a young woman that there is no such thing as the ‘perfect parent’ you are undermining them. What I say to men and women who have children is: “you are the ONE AND ONLY perfect mother/father for your child. NO ONE ELSE could possibly do a better job. Now, this is a complex job and you must expect to make mistakes. We all do. Learn from them and love the child with all your heart and all your soul.”
Most people confuse ‘I make mistakes’ with ‘I am not perfect’. I do not confuse these. I say ‘I am perfect AND I make mistakes’. Mistakes are normal and natural. They are not a sign of ‘imperfect people’. As far as I am concerned God gives us the perfect parents we need to grow up to be who we are going to be. Sometimes we don’t know that until we are much older.
My Dad had what he called a ‘bad father’. But I pointed out once that without his experiences as a boy he might not have grown to be the great father to me and my brothers he was. That perhaps he had the father he had as a preparation to be the father he would be?
I am glad we could come to an understanding. I am not denying that women have manipulated men, but I am also not denying that men allowed themselves to be manipulated by women, if you understand what I am saying. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. What happens after we’ve been duped 11 or more times? Haha.
I’ve been inspired to write another post somewhat related to the problem we’ve been talking about here. We’ll see if the Spearhead posts it.
Short story on being a father. One time I was working at Landmark and I called a man preparing him for his class. His BIG issue was his son. His son was ‘wild’ and he ‘breaks things’ and the father had been so angry so often and he wanted some better way to deal with his son. He loved the boy so much and felt he needed to spank him to discipline him but it was breaking his heart each time he did it. Could we please help him? What a noble reason to do the forum.
Anyway, on the evening session on the tuesday night I was along to see how the class went and to see what people got. This man stood up and talked excitedly. His story? “Today my son ran in our house and he broke a vase, and rather than be angry and upset with him, I hugged him and I kissed him and told him I loved him…and I told him not to run in the house. After all he is my son.” The man was crying tears of joy that he was much more comfortable with his son. I too was very moved knowing that the boys father had found new ways to be with his boy.
A major part of the degenerating sickness of the pan-anglosphere culture is their males assertion of authority to intevene or intrude on behalf of others children or women.
You have no such right to intrude or intervene into other peoples affairs mr. pan-anglosphere becuase that very assertion gives precedence to your own prejudices, your pown bigotries and your own chauvenisms. All things which may effect as much damage to the women and children you supposedly insert yourselves on behalf of.
Mr. pananglosphere do mind your own business within the appropriate and limited sphere of your concern and others will mind theirs. Otherwise other men will accordingly be able to assert the authority to intrude into your affairs on account of the intrests of women and children you are responsible for !
Great job pointing out the taboo, Zed. You are being kind and stating your proposition in its weak form. I prefer to state it in its strong form: most men suck. Most men are selfish, lazy, and irresponisible, with little care for anyone. If you are a shitty man you will be a shitty father. Therefore, most fathers suck.
So many people like to bitch about women and blame feminism. Bunk. Sure, women suck, but we do more. There is nothing that feminism could ever accomplish if not for the complicity, both active and passive, of men.
The major roadblock to helping out men, is other men. They just don’t care. It is really that simple. In fact, most men glory in the suffering of other men, whom they inevitably fashion as inferior in some way.
J. Durden January 20, 2010 at 08:24
“but I am also not denying that men allowed themselves to be manipulated by women”
J, this is true. Us men HAVE been manipulated by women and the whole ‘saint mother’ thing. However, cut a little slack for men on this. The corrupted legal system traps men very badly.
In my example, when I caught my wife lying to me and we had an argument over that lie she had the police come and arrest me and throw me in jail for the night. I was injured in the process and only narrowly escaped much more serious injury.
Was I ‘manipulated’? Yes. Was it by my wife? Well, not only my wife. Guys with guns kidnapped me and locked me up for the ‘offense’ of ‘offending’ my wife by correctly calling her a liar. It was also clear that my children would be taken from me if I divorced. Nevertheless the ultimatum to my ex was to take full responsibility, apologise, tell all and sundry that I at no time threatened her or she would be divorced.
It is not women manipulating men alone. It is powerful men passing biased legislation to enable women to manipulate men so that the men are emasculated and powerless in their own house. Powerful men oppressing less powerful men. The story of all history. These powerful men need to be jailed for their treachery. Men who think the problem is women are missing the fact that men pass the ‘laws/statutes’ and other men come into the home with guns to enforce the corporate policy of the corporation known as the country.
@ Globalman
I probably should have been more clear. I have talked about fathers and their impact on our lives in many places. Just not in MRM-type places.
It is ironically one area where men seem to avoid the subject for the most part.
Makes for lots of interesting speculation as to the cause.
I make no claims as to how men and women who have been part of the problem should be handled; rather than focus on vengeance, I find myself more personally satisfied by focusing on my success. The Fiercely Independent John Nada once said “success is the best revenge,” and I agree with him. Help those you can, ignore those you can’t, but most of all, take care of yourself.
Justin January 20, 2010 at 08:42
“most men suck. Most men are selfish, lazy, and irresponisible, with little care for anyone. If you are a shitty man you will be a shitty father. Therefore, most fathers suck.”
Justin,
you must know a whole lot different bunch of men to the ones I know and the ones I grew up with. In my experience the vast majority of men I have dealt with across my life have been good men. Some tried to rip me off, sure. But I am well known for the fact that I never do business with someone who tries to screw me over. So few have tried. The younger men who grew up without fathers? Most want to do well but they are very confused. To call them shitty because they are confused is harsh. In my experience it is definitely not ‘most’ men who are poor.
On the topic of women marrying men and getting bad husbands who make shitty fathers. 40 years ago it was taken as gospel truth that a woman would never leave a good husband in country Australia. Men vary greatly in their quality as husbands and fathers because it is such a tough job and not all men are up to it. My opinion is the top 5% of men make great fathers, then about 15% really good, 20% good, and the bottom 50% of men in the father stakes go downhill from ‘good, to mediocre, to bad, to downright dangerous’. Since we have ‘laws’ saying a man can not marry two women the competition has ALWAYS been for the women to land the ‘best possible husband’ and a poor choice she would pay for for her entire life. There is simply not that many ‘good husbands’ to go around. Now? All husbands are considered ‘not good enough’ so I quit. The number of men willing to be good husbands is dropping like a stone because this is no longer respected.
Absolutely correct, Paul. I’ve just kind of laid open the “third rail” of gender politics from the men’s side, and so far only a couple of men here have come close to touching it.
I’ll make another prediction – that there will be more angry responses directed at me over this subject than anything else I have written here.
But, I’m going to keep talking about it because I don’t think men will ever figure out what hit them, and keeps hitting them, until they grasp the concept of the emotionally incestuous bond between mothers and sons which often occurs when a boy must cope with a brutal, rage-filled father whose motivations and circumstances he may not understand for 30-40 years, if ever.
Tweel touched on it, very lightly. The image of a small boy standing in a bathtub being beaten bloody by an adult man who outweighs him 5:1 should give rise to some thoughts about 1) the dynamics of power relationships, and 2) what does that little boy do with the rage his father dumped on him other than dump it on his own children? “The sins of the fathers.”
Taking it a couple of steps farther – what happens the day that the full grown man is no longer 5x the little boy’s size, and no longer has the overwhelming power and size advantage, nor the psychological advantage of intimidation? And something snaps inside the boy’s head and he comes to the decision “You have beaten me for the last time, old man.” I know of a young man in that situation who came very close to returning all his father’s rage, accumulated over several years, to the old man in one serving – and was only prevented from beating the old man to death by the intervention of his mother.
I would be willing to bet that just about every man who has been clobbered by a male judge, prosecutor, or other divorce system functionary, if they look beyond the specific person they will see a case of emotional incest with the mother and a father that they wanted to repudiate and punish for the way he treated them. Since they couldn’t punish him, they punished you as his stand-in.
This is why I think men need to examine and address this issue.
Paul Elam January 20, 2010 at 08:45
Hi Paul,
“It is ironically one area where men seem to avoid the subject for the most part.”
To tell the truth, I never noticed men avoid it. Fathers and the role of fathers gets a lot of discussion on MABTW. Perhaps this is because many of the regulars did not grow up with their fathers.
Zed,
Have you read “I Don’t Want To Talk About It: Overcoming The Secret Legacy of Male Depression” by Terrence Real? I read it a few years back and it was very powerful. The author goes to great pains to track the “under-diagnosed” phenomena of male depression, which he goes on to assert is passed down from father to son, often in an unintentional/subconscious way. Seems to resonate a lot with your most recent comment.
Zed,
“Taking it a couple of steps farther what happens the day that the full grown man is no longer 5x the little boy’s size, and no longer has the overwhelming power and size advantage, nor the psychological advantage of intimidation? And something snaps inside the boy’s head and he comes to the decision “You have beaten me for the last time, old man.” ”
Depends on whether the boy read his bible and obeys it. “Honour they father and mother” it says. And that’s pretty good advice for a child. I got my last hiding from my Dad when I was 7. From then on I knew that if I was willfully disobedient I would get a hiding. And by ‘honour’ I took that to mean I may not raise my hand to my parents. So I figured being obedient to my father was a really good idea. That he did not have to spank me from 7 to 18 is a good indication that I was pretty obedient.
My elder brother was more willfull and more arrogant being an alpha. At 17, and in the national football team, he figured he could tell mum he was going to the beach for a swim. My mum told him that he was required to ask permission. He poked his chest out and walked off. My mum went and got the toaster cord (minus toaster) and marched up the road after him. She whipped him all the way home. I was watching and did a ‘note to self, mum WILL whip me if I am willfully disobedient’. He had to wear long pants for a week to cover the whip marks and avoid the embarrassment of telling people he had been whipped by his mum for being dis-obedient. LOL!!
Sure. SOME men beat their boys without sufficient reason. MORE women do so by the way. But I am of the school of thought that says a boy may NEVER hit his father or mother no matter WHAT the provocation. If he feels unjustly done by, the boy has to talk it out or leave as an adult. When a man spanks his son he does it for a reason in the vast majority of cases. Even if the kid does not know what that reason is.
I think is a great and controversial post if there ever was one.
Last year my father came close to dying, and this was right hot the heels of being laid off from a job that meant so much to me in a world full of shit jobs that are soul-draining work for most people. When he recovered, I was surprised at some of the resentment I had been carrying around towards him for years—I was aware of all of it, but I thought I had finally gone beyond it. I barely hammered him with anything because his physical and emotional state was delicate during a certain period, but I askance as to why it would profoundly effect me as it did. For the most part, I kept my feelings untapped.
I think part of it had to do with the fact that my dad could not decide how to parent me completely—he ranged from being hands off to authoritative, and being someone that enjoyed being my own person at a very own age, being told what to do without explanation burned me pretty quickly. Plus, my dad had his irrational turns, and even didn’t come to grips with the realization that much of his own upbringing had forged the brooding, troubled part of his nature, including feeling that he had failed my sister and I, and the tremendous guilt and insecurity that wrought.
He had challenged me (physically) a couple of times, I think, not because he wanted to do it, but because he had seen others in his lineage do the same, and could not grasp that the world around me was far different from his own growing up—and it had placed the zap on me. It threatened him, and not just because I was becoming physically intimidating and a strong personality on my own right. He could often be rather manipulative and selfish, and his fears did infect me to a certain extent—hell, I love the band Black Sabbath, but I think the dour worldview the early material (the group conveyed) was because I could see through my father’s lens—a world often colorless and gray, a world that was frought with unpredictability and painful change–and convoluted life lessons.
Deep down, my father was and has been too sensitive for his own good. Oddly enough, it seems strange to say that I am more like my mother, but it’s the truth that I am more rational than my own father and his neurosis. So is she. I say that not out of pure spite; it’s simply the truth, and I’m sure many MRAs/MGTOWs don’t always acknowledge there they received their ingrained traits and temperament from. My father is not the stereotype of pushover, but wears much of his emotions on his sleeve, and it has even ruled him at his expense.
I love him dearly, and it’s not a disclaimer to say that—it’s actually coming from accepting his flaws, and the dawning knowledge that the facade of strength from the roles he enacted do not detract from my compassion, but I had wished he hadn’t had donned that persona of armor to see that he was human, too.
Perhaps he felt I would rebel even more when I discovered he was mortal as anyone else; I remember seeing him weep bitterly when he had felt he had failed my family and it tore through me like a machete. I no longer felt less of him as much as that I knew that I would not ever have children of my own—if his guilt troubled him that much, and life had beat me up unjustly, I was going to be damned to subject anyone young to this harsh reality. It was not his fault entire—that doesn’t bear on my father alone; rather, it was bring a circle to an end, and to show I had accepted him, warts and all.
I still question and whys and wherefores of his justifications for not procuring a different life for my sister and I, but that is over and out of his hands. Hell, the other day I mentioned, “I could say you could done certain things for me, but you can no longer help me. We just have to see things through for now.”
No amount of embitterment can change that; there is no going back, just cherishing the moments I have left with him.
Another thing …
The pan anglosphere culture seems to be too readily accepting of the State that inflicts the following of the most heinous injuries and injustices upon men, women and children: Execute, Imprison, Taser, Batton, Water Board, Electrocute, Tear-gas, Flog, Whip, Cudgel and financially rob.
Yet why does a fathers disciplining his brood attract so much psycho-analytic mumbo jumbo, when it is clearly multiple times milder than what the state routinely does to people and in anycase beneficial to the broods good order?
Heres why: Only by lowering and excoriating males as husbands, fathers or workers, does the pan-anglospher culture acheive the greatest yeild for free or for nothing out of them as men.
Look at the poor man having to sue British Airways for publicly removing him from sitting by an unaccompanied minor on their flight. Yet pananglosphere airlines will expect the same man incase the flight were to ditch into the sea, or have an accident by fire or terrorism, to readily risk himself to help the same unaccompanied minors to safety and away from patent hazzards.
This culture stinks of too much cynicism and hypocracy. And the culprits are the very males whom condone and accept the same for their fellows, in the supreme chauvenists delusion that they are better men.
POIUYT January 20, 2010 at 11:15
“Yet pananglosphere airlines will expect the same man incase the flight were to ditch into the sea, or have an accident by fire or terrorism, to readily risk himself to help the same unaccompanied minors to safety and away from patent hazzards.”
This is why I will not bother helping women or children again. If I see a father with a child, I will help. A mother with a child I will only help if it is clear to me the child is in imminent danger and there is no danger to me.
I did this the other day. A stupid woman trying to carry a stroller down the stairs and a 2 year old by the hand going down the stairs…if the 2 year old fell they would call it an ‘accident’. The woman did not have proper control of the child if the child tripped. Any idiot could see it.
When many more men say ‘stuff it’ I am not going to help a woman then the women will get the message. Helping can not be legislated.
Yes. Us men are such bastards.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/children-watch-in-horror-as-parents-drown-in–rip-20100119-mjar.html
“Her husband also drowned trying to rescue her after their children reached the beach safely.”
“”The children were in the water a short time before and the mother’s gone into the water, found herself in difficulty and the dad, to his credit, has gone in to help her,” Richmond Local Area Commander, Superintendent Bruce Lyons, said.”
Zed -
Do you think that this “‘emotional incest with the mother and a father” leans men, on the average, towards white knighting of women? Or is your position solely on male to male aggression?
I never had a fatherly/masculine figure or role model at all, only an older brother who failed miserably at being one – and I honestly feel a lot of resentment towards him (for being such a terrible role model).
@Mr.M
Yeah, I do think mother-son emotional incest has a lot to do with white knighting. There is a subtle difference between simply protecting or “rescuing” the fair princess and killing or wounding the mother’s mate. Dudley Dooright never killed Snidely Whiplash – he just always rescued Nell from the railroad tracks seconds before the train got her.
Zed –
Interesting, that would mean that the powers that be (politicians, lawyers, judges, anybody that can impact your life) will be, on the average, an older male who was raised during this time of family turmoil that you mention (post-Industrial revolution, but before this single mother phenomenon). Thus, by your thinking, willing to lash out at any hapless male as a way of retribution against bad-daddy.
So then, what happens 50 years down the line, when all the powers that be are raised from single mother households? Perhaps still the same resentment at the nonexistent father/male figure?
Without having a father, personally, I know I missed out on a chance to have a masculine role model. Flip side, I also missed out on the chance to have a toxic father. I don’t *think* I harbor a resentment towards the average male, but then again have been drinking from the MRA fountain for awhile.
A good, heartfelt article which reminds us that fatherhood is not just a genetic connection, but is an ability and a relationship which takes commitment, selflessness, love … and time. “Father” is more crucial as a verb than a noun.
It is certainly legitimate in advancing the goals and ideals of the MRM to honor, and thus encourage, fatherhood by pointing out how horribly damaging bad, or non-existent, fathers can be to their children’s well-being. I think of it as constructive criticism. We can hardly castigate feminists for attempting to destroy the role of the father without at the same time acknowledging bad parenting by men when it occurs. We don’t, however, want to create an unduly negative view of men’s performance in this regard — our feminist enemies would love to have some additional ammunition in the form of “admissions” by influential MRA’s.
So, I will quibble with one statement. Statistically, thank goodness, only a relatively FEW men, not “many men”, are, or were, bad, violent, or distant fathers who unfairly took out their own frustrations on their families. (And most women, while far from perfect, were good and caring mothers, as well.)
It is also important to remember that the parenting of yesteryear cannot be judged and condemned based on present standards, nor taken out of the larger societal context (a favorite device of feminists who are busily ginning-up the “herstory” of female “oppression”).
Nor are mothers necessarily free from complicity in the way that fathers interact(ed) with their children. By way of personal example, I love my parents very much and wouldn’t trade them for anyone, notwithstanding that I was the recipient of occasional physical punishment from both (mostly deserved, of course!) that today might be considered “abuse” by some. My mother administered most of it contemporaneously with the offense (a slap or spanking), but discipline for the worst infractions (a belt across the butt) always began with “Wait until your father gets home!” So, after getting up for work before dark, and coming home after dark, tired and hungry, my Dad would sometimes be met by my Mom and informed that he had the task of administering corporal punishment to me or one of my siblings. I now know that he HATED that it was his “job” to do so — even as I accepted, then and now, that it WAS his job as the father. (He has apologized to me profusely for one punishment where he later discovered that I was wrongfully punished for something instigated by others. I had long forgotten it –but he never got over his feeling of shame and regret. I should also mention that my parents’ punishments were followed by hugs and kind words — I knew they still liked me, even though they didn’t like what I had done.)
I rarely disciplined my own kids with even a swift swat on the fanny (mostly just to get their attention!), but I recognize that not every parent who took a belt to a kid’s backside was an ogre. Leaving aside the issue of whether any corporal punishment is ever appropriate (I think so), a punishment which leaves no injury and is measured out as discipline is NOT the same as assaulting a child in anger or out of frustration. Such an assault — verbal or physical — injures a child even if no physical damage occurs.
For those whose fathers, for whatever reasons and in whatever ways, failed them, or even injured them, I applaud your still championing and encouraging responsible, loving fatherhood. I don’t want to live in a society without it. The fight to preserve this precious, wholly-masculine resource is growing more desperate and must never be given up.
The real tragedy is that just ENOUGH of these sonsofbitches have always existed to foul both the act and notion of loving, responsible fatherhood by association.
I think this is very important. In our culture, a woman does not need to justify the title, the mere fact that she can or has given birth makes her a woman. In contrast, a man does not have that title unless someone else gives it to him. His role is pure social construct, not biological destiny. Hence, men exist in a state of fear or anxiety regarding who they are and whether that can be taken from them.
“Nice one Jabber. Why thanks Wocky.
Pats myself on the back.”
Lol!
You are incorrigible Jab!
And the names of these elements would be. . . ?
I suppose some of this is true, but you leave out an important part of things: most sons simply have contempt for their fathers. They learn it from their mothers. Whether or not the father is present, the prevailing zeitgeist is to see fathers as churls and clowns, rather than the saints they actually were. A couple of friends of mine got married a few years ago; the whole “best friends, who eventually slept together and got married,” thing (aka, she wanted some dude who would beat her, and settled for a nice guy). Their offspring is 2, and refers to his father by his father’s first name. That’s so barking insane as to be nearly beyond human comprehension. I can’t even imagine what this kid will be when he’s 18, but it won’t be anything good. The father is partially to blame, but it’s mostly the mother’s fault. She doesn’t respect him; it’s obvious.
@PeterUK: I think the whole paternity fraud thing is overstated. 10-30%? Sounds like nonsense to me. The only way I could imagine such results is if you only select from samples who actively seek out paternity testing. Administered to a random sample of the population …. just a guess, but I bet it doesn’t reach 4%. In any case, I had a stepdad, and he’s a great guy, and was a very positive role model.
Comment to LUPO: I would think that if anything the 30% figure for bastard children is low!! This is based on maost men trusting their wives and the wives using that trust to maintain the “PRINCESS” in their lives. Men should always have “their” children DNA tested. An informal test is easy to do and that, if it negative for the “Father” to be the biological Dad, would offer enough proof to enable a formal test. Afterall how many women do you know that never lie??
Lupo raved:
Lupo, do you know bad men? I’m curious, really, do you know any men at all who are mean, or lazy, or just plain selfish? Any? Ever?
Do you think THOSE men magically become wonderful people when they become fathers? I’m curious as to why the f* you would believe that.
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