I have started to think revolutions always occur some 40-60 years before we know it. That’s because that’s how long it takes for people to grow into positions of power. Hence Obama’s unprecedented leftism, which is a product of the radicalism in the 60s and 70s as he grew up and came of age. The new Democratic left is something that was fostered back around the time the people in office were children or young adults, so although it seems “young and hip” to old timers like Joe Biden who were living and breathing that ideology as youths, it comes off as dated to me, and probably really just incomprehensible to people in their 20s and below.
With that in mind, I think it’s a great thing that more and more men are spending time with their kids and teaching them male values and problem-solving techniques. Unlike most people of my generation, I, too, was exposed to this as a very young child. I spent a great deal of time with my retired paternal grandfather, who treated me like his best friend. To this day he lives on in my dreams and fondest memories. He probably influenced me as much as anyone to put all the effort I could into being an involved, caring father for my children. He was far from perfect, but according to what my aunts and uncle told me after he died I got the best he had to offer.
Today, more and more children are lucky enough to have some of the same. Fathers are spending more time with kids, and more than ever are at home with them. Although the Census Bureau suggests that only 3.6% of men are stay-at-home dads, I suspect that’s an underestimate, because many men who work from home or who own businesses may be spending more time during the day with children than their wives, many of whom have conventional jobs.
In New Rochelle, N.Y., at-home dad Bryan Grossbauer takes his children, 2-year-old Finn and 9-month-old Georgina, outside twice a day for yard work or a hike through the woods. He wasn’t bothered when Finn recently picked a route through a big puddle and took a fall. “He walked back home happy as a lark, covered in mud,” says Mr. Grossbauer, a former actor and teacher.
He takes pride in pushing the kids to solve problems for themselves. Recently, Mr. Grossbauer stood back and encouraged Finn to figure out how to fetch a ball he had tossed into a milk crate nailed to a tree, just out of reach. After 20 minutes of frustration, and begging his dad to get it, Finn found a stool and retrieved the ball—a lesson in self-control and perseverance, Mr. Grossbauer says.
His wife, attorney Erin O’Callaghan, says her parenting style is different. Leaving Finn’s muddy clothes on the floor by the laundry room for hours “just doesn’t bother him the way it bothers me,” she says. Also, he lets the children “run and jump and climb and get themselves into precarious positions that I might not even allow,” she says. She is also more “ready to get involved” when one of her children is frustrated or starts crying, to comfort and guide them to a solution.
There really is a very marked difference between how mothers and fathers treat children, and it appears that children need both forms of interaction. Mothers tend to infantilize children, whereas fathers encourage them to grow up and be independent. I suspect mothers are very important for psychological well-being, but fathers are crucial where dealing with the outside world is concerned.
Parenting experts confirm this:
Kyle Pruett, a leading child-development researcher and co-author of a 2009 book, “Partnership Parenting,” says Mr. Grossbauer’s and Ms. O’Callaghan’s differences, typical for many couples, can benefit the children. Dads’ hands-off style tends to instill problem-solving ability, while the more engaged style typical of mothers often instills a sense of security and optimism, he says … Over the long term, having an involved father is linked in research to better self-control in children, less risky behavior and better grades, says Dr. Pruett, a clinical professor of child psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine.
Unfortunately, access to fathers is often restricted to the upper classes these days, as working class and poor families are characterized by father absence, which should be considered a major national crisis. Intentionally separating fathers from children through policy is a crime in my book — one for which feminists should pay every bit as dearly as the deprived children and fathers. There may be grounds to bring it to the attention of the United Nations as a major human rights violation for which the US deserves sanction.
However, the fact that articles such as this one are appearing is a good sign. There may be a trickle-down effect as men of higher socio-economic status realize how important it is for all children to have a present father and begin to stand up for the rights of all American men in this regard.
Curiously, the author of the article managed to find one man who was bothered by not being included in stay at home moms’ playground conversations:
One father in the Journal of Consumer Research study lamented that when he took his kids to public parks, “moms would talk over me as if I was not even there.”
Funny, but in all the time I spent with my kids at the park, it never bothered me one bit when the moms yapped with each other or on their cell-phones, which they did constantly; I was glad they left me alone. I’d just sit there in the sun reading a book, looking up from time to time to make sure the kids were staying nearby. Every now and then the mothers would initiate a conversation with me, often remarking on how well-behaved my kids were (other kids often made scenes and fought over toys, then cried for mommy). I’d tell them it’s because I didn’t treat them like babies — I expected them to work out their problems themselves, and if they couldn’t do so playtime was over. The mothers acted like this was some entirely new way of dealing with the problem that they never would have thought of. To me, it seemed an entirely self-evident solution.
So, I hope that as more men spend time not only bonding with their kids but also teaching them how to relate to the world and others, we are raising a generation of children – boys and girls – imbued with positive, practical masculine values. It may take decades before that bears fruit, but if, as an old man, I see that I made some small contribution to it, I’ll lean back and smile in my rocking chair.
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Years ago while in college, single and not even yet 21, I was doing some research in the campus library. There was an Army vet there in the same class that I was in, with his 2 year old son. So we started comparing notes, and sharing book references (pre Internet). We were doing work in a small space, while his toddler wandered around. This man was discussing history with me while keeping one eye on his son. At some point, the boy tripped over his feet or the carpet or something and fell down. From across the room, boy looked at father. Father looked back. No words were spoken. After a short while, the boy got back up and went back to what he was doing.
The father turned to me and said, “If his mother was here, she would have rushed over to him as soon as he plopped, and he’d have started crying, and he’d just now be getting over it….”
Some things a man doesn’t forget. Lessons like that are preciously useful.
I have friends where the mother is so dominant and the husband so dejected and aloof he’s given up fathering at all. Nothing he does is the “right way”. She’s an obsessed helicopter mom. Their 2.5 year old son punches, kicks and bites (draws blood) when he’s upset…and the only response is “ouch, don’t do that you’re hurting mommy.”
(He gave a woman a black eye and bit me in the leg at a gathering a few weeks ago. I shoved him back on his ass and he cried causing a big scene of course. “What happened?!? “I don’t know he just ran into my leg.”)
The father told me their boy is starting to develop a very strong personality lately (losing control of his emotions and becoming violent). I laughed my ass off, then told him it’s the father’s job to keep that “strong personality” in check; that if he didn’t do it, no one else would. But he’s knows he can’t because Mother will not allow him to discipline the child – so he checked out mentally from fatherhood. He’s more like a mother’s helper now, a babysitter. It’s easier than fighting about parenting skills all the time.
They’re trying to have a second child, so her plan comes to fruition. Wait until the children are in school, file for divorce, become heroic 40-something single mom, date and marry macho-thug, etc. It’s as predictible as the sun setting in the west. In a ray of hope I did over hear her father lecturing her on treating her husband with more respect. She didn’t listen.
“The mothers acted like this was some entirely new way of dealing with the problem that they never would have thought of. To me, it seemed an entirely self-evident solution.” -Price
Indeed; this is epidemic of our nation as a whole. If our country is the playground; we are loathe to correct the cackling hens from their self induced paupery of complacent, undisciplined, neglected, spiteful, self-centered “youth” from ever taking care of themselves. At least the child support buys their moms nice shoes! I’m sure that gives them inner peace.
They have led their narcissistic lives for so long; anything looks and sounds like a creative solution to their ears. After several decades of over nourishment of their already over-inflated feminine egos; they fail to perceive anything the conflated group think sociology their feminist’s overseers have not given them.
If not for the love of a better future; and the knowledge that I am responsible for doing my part to make it so; I would kick them and their hell spawn to the curb and not think twice.
The world is cold. Do we really want them to lead us in their eventual surprised reaction to this? If not, then we know what we have to do.
Contrary to your wishes Price they will most likely never suffer their just deserts. Their kids will though.
Such is the depth of state poison and manufactured ignorance about right from wrong nowadays, fewer and fewer people recognize patent sham from facts. The mischief wrought onto parenting notions by rent seeking officials today only becomes vivid and clear when seen as a method by design of their illegitimately profiting from parenting’s subversion.
Do any Judges, Divorce Lawyers, Jurists, Legislators or the executive compilers of false misleading social statistics ever reveal actual truth in their line of work to the female stooges and bastard children before them. That is, as the human fools whom comprise their remunerative subject matter ? The answer is no of course, for the professionals and officials themselves are positively invested in negative outcomes for stupid wives, mothers and their imminently bastardized children.
It is plain wrong to celebrate the false notion, only repetitively spread as propaganda, that men are nowadays spending more time with their children thanks to feminism, when they weren’t doing so before. Men whom for centuries prior to feminism, returned home to their families from a days work in the office or in the field were already practicing good quality parenting. So men as fathers certainly don’t need to relearn how to do what they instinctively and quite successfully were doing all along unimpeded.
If any person, official or authority really seeks better health, welfare, safety, security and provision for children, they must themselves withdraw their unwanted meddling and intrusion. No man becomes a husband, a parent or a father to edify or to satisfy officials, authorities or statisticians. Why should any of these lot have a say ?
I wish I could share your optimism about this passage:
“There may be a trickle-down effect as men of higher socio-economic status realize how important it is for all children to have a present father and begin to stand up for the rights of all American men in this regard.”
but I’ll believe it when I see it.
It’s the whole bullcrap self-esteem movement, mothers try to become their kids’ best friends instead of parenting. They’re afraid of the kids hating them. They’re afraid to hurt their kids’ feelings, and they’re afraid of their kids becoming independent. Single mothers like my sister prefer that their kids are dependent, a great deal of their identity is wrapped up in their kids. My niece is 20, but my sister is not encouraging her to grow up, if I didn’t know her and saw her in the street I’d think she was 15 or 16, judging by her behavior and the way she carries herself. Sis encourages her to sit leaning up against her to watch TV at night. It’s definitely not normal.
Many mothers lately seem to treat their children as extensions of themselves, and as little minions who they can order around into doing chores they don’t like to do. Their attitude says ‘You owe me’. Once you decide to have a kid, you owe them an upbringing that leaves them with a work ethic, honest values, and makes them independent of you. The best mothers eventually become useless. Mothers like my sister never cut the strings, they seem to be terrified of cutting the kids loose.
Children definitely need both parents. They need fathering, the roughhousing, the challenges , the adventures. It teaches kids to test their limits and instills confidence.
Many mothers lately seem to treat their children as extensions of themselves, and as little minions who they can order around into doing chores they don’t like to do.
Most traditional cultures were like this. Indian culture is among the worst in this regard. Even adult children (let alone minors) are treated as the property of the parents.
As a kid, I’d ask Santa for the same thing every year: a new step-dad. And usually, I got one. Just kidding.
But I did have three overall, and they were thoroughly useless as any kind of mentor. Violent, verbally abusive, sexually deviant; my mom knew how to pick em’.
Which is weird, because her father, my grand-dad, was the exact opposite. A man of few words, he was reserved yet still put off what can only be called a Patriarchal presence. Everybody knew that he had the final word, and what he said went. He would be the man to teach me how to drive when my mom’s husband wouldn’t. He insisted that I learn on a standard. And when I was turned sixteen, he took me to get my license (the two times it took me to pass the test) and let me know in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t a license to fuck up. I was being given a privilege, and I had to be responsible with it. A couple of years later, he taught me how to drive trucks, which is what I still do for a living, just as he did for over forty years.
He died when I was 19, and I only found out a couple of years ago that he was my mom’s step-dad; her real father had split when she was 8. He remains the only real positive male role model I had growing up. The high school sports coaches were big on racial favoritism and the Army turned out to be such a bastion of fraud and baseness that it’s depressing to think about it, even ten years later.
I’m a working single-dad, but the premise about fathers handling things differently is spot-on. My daughter spent two weeks with her mother over Christmas, and she came back in such a spate of learned helplessness that I had to practically teach her how to dress herself all over again. With me, when she falls, she picks herself up and resumes. With her mom, she completely collapses into this frenetic emotional supernova, which is almost always in public. I don’t know where this idea that fathers aren’t competent came from, but I’m glad the other side of the coin is being seen.
‘Most traditional cultures were like this.’
In traditional cultures, children were kept close (for safety) and raised in extended families for the most part. Attachment parenting is an offshoot of this kind of culture. I do not think it was normal in these cultures to make your child another facet of your own identity, so that you can’t be comfortable without them, and all your photos are of you and the child with your heads together making silly faces. Child as accessory and ego boost is, I think, a recent development.
It’s because of mothers like these, the micro-managers and helicopter parents that ‘attachment parenting’ is becoming a dirty word . Women are taking their children to the ballet, people’s weddings, to classes etc and letting them disrupt things, while shouting about attachment parenting, when all it means is breastfeeding, using a sling when they’re small and keeping them close at night. It is not a license to let your child noisily be the center of the universe.
“So, I hope that as more men spend time not only bonding with their kids but also teaching them how to relate to the world and others, we are raising a generation of children – boys and girls – imbued with positive, practical masculine values. It may take decades before that bears fruit, but if, as an old man, I see that I made some small contribution to it, I’ll lean back and smile in my rocking chair.”
Old Chinese proverb: A lord rides up on his horse to a servant who is working outside and says “Be sure to have that apricot tree planted later this afternoon”.
The servant replies “But, my lord, the tree will not mature for another 20 years at least”.
The lord thinks about this for a minute and then says “Better plant it this morning, then”.
In Scandinavia, there are many more male kindergarten teachers than anywhere else in the Western world. You can be walking down the street in Copenhagen and you will see a young dude leading a group of small kids across the street. It is more common there than in other places, where it is usually a woman.
10 posts and no mentions of “Sharia Law”, “Jihadis”, “Twurrorists”, “Muslim Rapists” and such ? Must be a record!
Is it possible that a lot of modern women are almost as worthless as mothers, taking responsibility for child(ren) whom they probably see as distractions from their “careers” in any event, as they are in the workplace.
Every reader of the Spearhead knows what a mess these over-educated, spoiled-rotten, indulged, narcissitic, self-indulgent “goddesses” (who by 25 or so are challenged even being human) create in schools, offices, and shops (either as customers or employees)! They were also worthless as wives, divorcing their mates when it was convenient or profitable for them to do so, regardless of the children’s well being.
It should surprise nobody that such women would also be worthless as mothers, doing their part to inevitably raise neurotic, ill bred, sometimes even criminal messes as their children!
Thank you, Betty Friedan, Susan Brownmiller, Germaine Greer, Oprah Winfrey, et al. Women needed “liberation’ like an alleycat needs fleas, and any such “liberation” they got did them–along with the rest of us–as much good as fleas did for the alleycat!
What can I say ? It was certainly true in my own personal experience. From my own personal experience and observation of others, mothers provide socialisation for the child – getting them to get along with others, knowing how to behave in public and how to make friends, how to network and basically fit into society. Fathers tends to provide more practical guidance as how to function productively in the real world, real life practical skills, problem solving and how to provide for oneself in a practical or educational sense. Like the author says, both kinds of education is necessary and balances with each other.
The problem arises when women are brainwashed by rubbish idealogies end up brainwashing their children with their own rubbish idealogies which can range from one political extreme to the other. My own mother tried to brainwash me in the opposite idealogy to militant feminism, which was to focus exclusively on feminine helplessness and an obsession with looks. She put me on a diet when I was 8 years old and kept insisting I should get plastic surgery because she insisted I couldn’t find a husband to take care of me without plastic surgery. My father’s advice and guidance was certainly more useful and did not leave me with emotional and psychological scars.
“Fathers are spending more time with kids, and more than ever are at home with them. ”
Fathers spending lots of quality time with their kids is nothing new. Over 100yars ago, we have evidence of children saying how they loved their father dearly. When recession hit, working class fathers would use the time to spend with their kids, and they were reluctant to be the disciplinarian of the family.
Fathers were the last to sign up during WWI, as they were understandebly reluctant to leave their family.
The media has a habit of promoting this image of the emotionally distant, or absent father figure, and that father involvement is a new thing, when in fact its anything but.
Of course it was feminism that promoted the idea that fathers wre drunken and abusive.
I was raised by my dad & he taught me masculine values like the ones you discribe. And he tried to start his own mens rights group too.
Fathers being with kids are good. Father staying at home is definitely not, lets please come to consensus on this. A father at home, a male at home, with a female as the “breadwinner” is based entirely on a political objective defined by feminism. The more twisted feminists want role reversal; they want the prestige and honor of being the patriarch (and not working for it). They hardly realize that their juvenile and idealized notions of “patriarch” are actually not true at all; stewardship of one’s family takes sacrifice. Here is something men need to be doing more of – set the example. That’s very hard for anyone and women fall very short. Setting the example to a young boy, properly, will invariably include how to become self-sufficient. If the dad is some stay at home wimp, the son will discount him accordingly and the message will not be effective. A working Father that still makes time to play ball and raise his son to become a man will transmit a rock-solid message that will resonate through his son and out into society. Gents, being a man, modern or not, is not easy and it never was. If you choose to bring your children, your DNA, your progeny into this world than it is incumbent upon you to see that that child is raised to the best of your ability. As it applies to Father-to-son, some sahd, is a pathetic pushover who rather be idle at home letting a weaker person have power over him or is indeed weaker than a woman. Now, to some of the more egalitarian types here, yes, I said weaker than a woman, and so what? You do realize that women are calling all of us weak, you realize that? I implore people to keep in mind what matters here – and it’s the boy’s perspective (ahem not yours). Boys, like all children, perceive the world in a purer sense; we’ve known this for years. That said, they see much better than we do even at the MRM the differences between men and women. You’ll do much more harm to a young boy who will doubt that hard work and sacrifice mean anything when it’s the feminine value set and feminine weakness that are presented to him as being the path to success. Other than that, yes, men and boys must be re-connected. Reminder, we should be pushing for sex segregated schools too. Oh, and if we don’t women will only continue to exact an on-going agenda of abuse to young boys. Get them while their young – can’t agree more, time for the MRM to step up here.
It’s the whole bullcrap self-esteem movement, mothers try to become their kids’ best friends instead of parenting. They’re afraid of the kids hating them. They’re afraid to hurt their kids’ feelings, and they’re afraid of their kids becoming independent.
Pshh well yeah… I like the ego trip!
Actually, I am more opposed to pets than I am to kids because for 14+ years, I have to pour food, fill water, bathe, and take out for a dump a dog, while if I’m still doing those things for my kid, I seriously screwed the F*** up.
I always wondered if I had a masculine side to me – or maybe I just trained my hyper-emotional female brain into logical submission while I was waiting for Prince Charming so now I rarely give into it. I want independent kids. But not gonna lie, feeling needed feels good.
Many mothers lately seem to treat their children as extensions of themselves, and as little minions who they can order around into doing chores they don’t like to do.
Yuppers. But minus the extension of self. I thought chores were part of learning independence? Gotta know how to do your own laundry when you move out, or do you want to keep coming home to mommy dearest when you run out of underwear?
Seriously, daddy bought a bigger house to accomdate you and I had to clean it all by myself for 5 years. Least you can do is pick up your toys, put the dishes away, and wipe your bathroom sink.
Sorry for the 2nd person narrative thing going on.
I love my husband. He is gone for a lot of hours out of the day and used to travel a lot. We miss him dearly when he is not in the house. When he is home, he plays with his children. He doesn’t do much disciplining unless they get completely out of hand because we are trying to create a way for him to spend his hours at home building a relationship.
As a result, I’m the main discplinarian – they obey me faster, respect me swifter, and argue with me less. But they miss their daddy. Thanks to my parents for raising me, my husband for discussing discipline tactics with me, and you guys for raising awareness on certain issues, I don’t fall into this trap you guys talk about with mothers.
Clearly, kids need their dads for something. But even if dad can’t figure out how to be a SAHD or be home for longer hours, there’s still things that can be done to help your kids not be “pussified” by mommy.
through the post i came to know the importance of masculinization
I didn’t feel like putting too much detail in, but I see I didn’t put enough. I’m sorry.
My sister and her daughter are creepily co-dependent. I was remiss in not saying ‘some single mothers’ because this behavior is pretty much confined to them. They do try to be best friends with their kids. Best friend + helicopter. No criticism of the child is allowed. I was in the US for a year in 2000. We were trying to start a business in the US, my parents said not to rent somewhere, but to stay with them, and I did, so I got a year’s worth of seeing single mother parenting up close. After a couple of months there I was sure I saw the signs of a learning disability. I talked it over with my father and he agreed. ‘Your sister won’t listen though!’ Twice I broached the subject, the second time I got shoved into a wall…’You keep your mouth offa my kid!’. She must have regretted it because she “apologized” saying ‘Sorry I lost my temper, but I’m a momma bear when it comes to B. Remember that’. Later I saw niece pinching food from the kitchen. A few days later we found she had no clean socks and went to look for a pair that would pass muster for that school day. I put my hand under her bed and it was STUFFED with food wrappers up to the box spring. I thought ‘eating disorder’, spent some time researching and floated the idea and got the same momma bear treatment. I washed my hands of it all.
My brother was foolish enough to take up the gauntlet when niece reached junior high, and into high school when she was failing everything. He was a teacher in a private school, so he’s well familiar with educational milestones. He started talking to Sis about how she HAD to get the junior high math down or she’d be in serious difficulty in high school. Again, Sis turned into Godzilla, and finally he gave up too. She ended up staying back and has a transcript that effectively keeps her out of any 4-year college, she’s starting junior college now. And she weighs 260 pounds. The kid is a prisoner and victim of my sister’s need for the child to be dependent on her. I know other screwed up kids of single mothers in that age group, it’s not just her.
Chores are fine. But giving a child the chores that you clearly and vocally hate is not a good message. My sister is not speaking to my brother, so when she needed to contact me or my brother while we were in the US (because he is my mother’s executor) she had my niece do it. When the argument broke out, it was my niece who left a nasty letter in the house for us to find when we arrived, a letter defending her mother. No direct word from sis except for de-friending my brother on FB and blocking him on Skype. She sent her daughter, at 10 pm at night after work (in a mall before Christmas) to pick up the things she forgot when she moved out rather than come to the house herself. Chores for independence are one thing, making your child do the things you find repugnant is not in the child’s benefit at all.
It’s great that you discipline your children and that’s how it should be, but there is a subset of co-dependent mothers who do not. ‘You’ll hurt my child’s self-esteem!’, they bad mouth the child’s teachers to the child ‘He doesn’t know you like I do’ , go to the school and berate the teachers for a bad grade, if you haven’t seen it you wouldn’t believe it.