Alarming new development......

[wroughtn_harv]

"Viva le difference" or something real close to that Cindi.

I was seventeen the last time my mom took a belt to my backside. It broke her heart when the results were her exhaustion and my stubborn stare. We lived in a trailer park and of course neighbors knew what was going on.

Mom stepped out of the trailer and one of the old guys was about. She broke down and started crying. He came over and put his arm around her and told her, "There comes a time when a mother has to turn her son over to his father."

This freed mom.

My mother died six years ago this week. We were very close. Many times she told me the story about my last whuppin'. As if I needed remembering. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif And how that old fella's advice had changed her perspective on raising a son.

Besides that, it's all the women's fault. If you don't believe me consider how many times you've heard a woman tell about how terrible her son was to rape that girl. Nine hundred and ninety nine point nine times out of a thousand it's the girl's fault, he was just being a man, she shouldn't have led him on beyond the point of no return.

We are getting ready to enter a new phase in our society. I think most of the men who were raised around men will admit to there being a difference, subtle, but a difference, between themselves and their compatriots raised without a man in their lives day in and day out. We really see it in the work world.

There's a difference and it's almost measurable. Those guys don't seem to know the rules of engagement. It's almost like they don't have the edge, tempering you will, that men who have been raised around men do.

I've discussed this with many men who manage men. Most of them seen a difference but they hadn't tried to reason it out as to why. But when I point out what I've observed they start shaking their heads in the affirmative.

As long as you run interference between the father and the son they will both allow you to do so. You'll be the buffer, catch the heck from both sides, make it easier on them, not allow them to work it out. But if you step aside and let it go they will have to work it out. They will be the better for it, short term, long term, and all the time in between.

As a teen I disliked my father because he didn't understand me. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

The truth was he understood me all too well. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I can agree with almost every single thing you said. Except the rape part, I think that's a broad statement to a situation that could have many scenarios.

But about women raising boys, I can agree with that. Jake was raised almost exclusively by his father from age six to twelve. After age six I .....A) never saw him au' naturale....B) saved the dispiline primarily for dad.....C) had him gone for several weekends out of the month hunting with dad. I focused on raising the girls.

To the best of my recollection Jake has never been afraid of the dark, afraid of a fight, or basically scared of anything you might expect a six-twelve year old to be.

At seven he was taken on a snipe hunt. I was along on that hunting trip when my husband and his friend came back to the house at about nine o'clock without Jake. They had left him in the woods holding a corn sack, waiting for a snipe to come along.

I was fit to be tied. Jake was not afraid of the dark at that point and I was sure that they had succeeded in taking care of that.

"You go back and get my boy!" I demanded, while they both tried to calm me down. "If anything happens to him I will never forgive you!" I said to my husband, while he sat on the back step of the house peeling a strip of Johnson grass down to nothing. He didn't say anything but grabbed another piece of Johnson grass and renewed the attack, his mouth set in a grim line. I was seriously questioning his 'fathering abilities'.

Jake came back to the house about an hour later, sans sack.

"Where's your sack at boy?"

"I left it propped open with a stick. I got hungry."

"Did you see any snipes?

"No I didn't see anything, but I did hear something crashing around in the woods rustlin' the bushes." Then with a sly grin, "Was it you Mr Grimes?"

"No! Heck no, that wasn't me!" He didn't even convince me, and I wasn't the one out in the woods. They had told me about rustling the bushes in an attempt to scare Jake.

"Well, there was something big and fat falling down out there, I just thought it was ya'll"...then realizing what he had just said.."I mean, something heavy."

He had walked through the woods, through two open pastures, crossing three dirt roads, using the distant light from the house to guide him home, and never thought a thing of it. Me, I would have been running. He was not out of breath, just wanted to be fed. I didn't speak to Fred the entire weekend but he took it and didn't back down.

I still think about it and it still makes me mad, but I don't talk about it anymore. My best friend's son is the same age as Jake and up until she remarried three years ago, he had no man in his life. He's scared of he dark, will not fight, even to defend himself, will run shreiking, pretty much as I would, at the sight of a snake or spider, can not bait his fishing pole and will not remove a fish if he catches one. Plus, and this is the creepiest part to me, he has no problem with his mother seeing him nude. Jake just turned fourteen and he would shrivel up and die if he though I saw him naked.

The difference between the two is like night and day. If it had been left up to me, Jake would probably be just like that. A woman's place is to nurture and love, and that's pretty much it, as far as raising a boy, if he gets too much of that then he will be more inclined to be tender hearted and sympathetic and not think twice about shedding a tear in public, and there's nothing wrong with that, but he will miss out on the manly art of being a rough and tumble, sterotypical hard to understand male, which can be good and bad. Believe me, guys are just as big a mystery to females as vice versa.

I often wish that Fred had more softness in him, and I wish that there was a happy medium, but I don't think there is. It seems there's only one way or the other. Jake has just now started coming to me about matters of the heart. Girls. Now is my moment to teach him the other half of being a man, and I hope I do as good a job as Fred did, teaching him the first half.

Fred is as hard as a brick most of the time, especially when it comes to emotions, having them, dealing with them, understanding them, empathising with them, and I would like to see if it is possible to create a soul that can be hard and soft at the same time. Is that asking too much?

 

[Boone]

If you work in law enforcement, you come across the troubled youth, with a fatherless background all to often. A firm no and the limiting of a negative behavior or action, along with a negative consequence imposed for the action is often received like a shock by these children and young adults. It is a very sad situation for the child and for society which pays a price in many ways.

 

[popeye]

<font color="blue"> Your "larger hammer" line reminded me of one of my favorites. "If it won't fit, force it. If it breaks, it probably needed to be replaced anyhow."
</font>
I like that theory.. Used it several times.
Before I call somebody I will try to figure it out or find out or keep trying for days before I give up. Becauuuse in the words of my grandfather " You've got to smarter than the equipment your trying to operate"
Never did like feeling dumb!
The older I get the more phone calls I make /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
Mike

 

[r0GuE]

"How do you know how tight to make it?" I said...
"Just keep tightening until it gets really tight, then loose again... Then stop" /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[sendero]

Back in my hot rod shade tree mechanic days, a hammer was referred to as the "fine adjustment tool".

As in, "I can't get this bolt to line up with this bracket, hand me the fine adjustment tool".

Truth is, sometimes a fine adjustment rendered with brute force is just the ticket /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[s1120]

<font color="red"> Just keep tightening until it gets really tight, then loose again... Then stop" </font>

Kind of like my fav.

" Tighten till she snaps, then back off a quater turn" /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

rofl.

girls are confusing, one day they love you the next they dont :-\

 

[Anonymous Poster]

We love you ALL the time, we just don't always show it. As weird as it seems, when I look at my husband after a fight, after I've spoken my piece and he his, that's when my affection is at it's strongest. I don't know why. I guess it clears the air and purges the tensions.

 

[Trev]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( If you work in law enforcement, you come across the troubled youth, with a fatherless background all to often. A firm no and the limiting of a negative behavior or action, along with a negative consequence imposed for the action is often received like a shock by these children and young adults. It is a very sad situation for the child and for society which pays a price in many ways. )</font>

The sad part is that even people like us, who take in foster kids, are severely limited in the tools we can use for discipline. No physical contact, if the kid says "I don't like that!" about whatever you're serving for dinner, you aren't allowed to say "The don't eat it!" and send them to bed. I understand how the pendulum thing works.. too many foster parents must have beaten their kids, and now the rules are that nothing of that sort can be done. I'm not an advocate of beatings, but I do know enough psychology to know that we need both a carrot and a stick sometimes.

As for guys and their behavior, I heard someone once talking about how the rules have changed and guys don't know their place anymore. They used to be the bread-winners, but now it's no longer clear that this is their role. They used to be the guys who figured out how to do the mechanical stuff, but that's unclear now too (don't ask me about my buddy and I trying to install a new door.. and finally my wife kicking us both out, looking it up on the net, and installing it perfectly! LOL!)

Maybe it comes down to a simple matter of intelligence. My wife is about 10 times smarter than I am, which, as you might imagine, puts me at a decided disadvantage in any situation that involves disagreement. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif