the crisis of masculinity: media myth or reality?

I think that was an excuse for this kids behavior. I remember feeling like I was in trouble too. But i dont remember exactly what happened

Also i think it was nonsense. I was kind of weird and spacey and thats why i drew this kids attention.

yeah, probably nonsense

My mom used to say shit like "well the kids who feel unpopular in school always wind up the cool ones in college," -- just completely useless to, say, an eight year old. No tools or strategies for dealing with life in the present whatsoever. Maybe there's nothing you can do as a parent -- it scares me a lot as a parent. I don't know what I'd tell my daughter if she was being bullied. Some of this isn't really about masculinity I guess, except that I'm saying that some of this new, superficially "softer" approach fails to actually get boys any closer to dealing with their real feelings.

I mean I think growing up I was kind of trapped between that classic fear of being a "pussy", and the "new" approach which really just meant suppressing other feelings, like anger and aggression.

tune in and drop out

I remember wishing I could be homeschooled. In hindsight though dealing with bullies made me more skeptical of people in a good way. I still tend, too often, to assume that everyone is my friend, so it is sort of jarring still whenever someone is rude or inconsiderate to me, leading me to apologize when I should really react more assertively... Not cause a confrontation, but also not acquiesce to whatever they are saying. I think this situation would be worse if I hadnt dealt with bullies in school.

But yeah hurting, i think maybe it would have been better if my parents told me "fuck those kids who are bothering you, they are in the wrong" instead of variations on "you just try to do your best and dont worry about other people," which sounded abstract and meaningless to me... just vague advice to take the "high ground." Who knows though. I'm not even sure I'm remembering these situations accurately.

sad to say, but i stopped bullying cold by getting into fist fights with the people bullying me. that shit worked -- bullied one day, "mad respect" from people at school the next. and I got my ass kicked. i mean, these are kids we're talking about here, i have no idea how you'd talk emotional sense into them. oh lord i dread the day if i ever have kids.

I dont ever want kids. I had an objectively decent childhood - nice parents, plenty of free time to draw and catch grasshoppers and stuff - but still I remember it as being mostly hellish.

damn i tend toward hyperbole don't i. my childhood wasn't "hellish". it was fine but i like being an adult more.

Can we talk about how being from mars has affected us

It's made me deathly afraid of Slim Whitman.

as a counterpoint, I've never really had a problem w/ this. mb when I was a growing up; I remember the realization that I cld actually be friends w/girls & feeling suddenly relaxed. some guys are hard to talk to tho, & others can be Very Intense when they talk about their feelings which obv tends to push ppl away & exacerbate their feelings. being really bummed out about life w/ friends, going for walks, agonising over girls, wondering about the state of the universe, making each other laugh at our supreme alienation &c. was one of my main ways of hanging out when I was a teenager, I don't think there's a universal problem

For what it's worth, I am a parent of a young son, and culturally speaking a liberal who hangs out with other liberal parents, and I think current popular practices among this set are very much centered on teaching boys that their feelings are real, they count, they are allowed to talk about them, while at the same time teaching them how to manage them (no contradiction -- it is hard to manage emotions that you are denying to yourself and to your parents that you have)

This is otm in my experience. I have two sons, and both at home and at school/pre-school, they've been consistently encouraged to recognize and articulate their feelings. My older one has a tendency toward meltdowns when things don't go his way, and between his mom and me and the people at school, we've developed this nice system where as soon as he starts to get upset, he has a set of 5 cards that he goes through that give specific directions. Basically, it gets him to sit down, calm down, and then the final step is "tell a teacher or grown-up how you feel." And he's good at it! He'll say, "I'm sad because..." or "I really wanted to..."

So I think some of the touchy-feely psychobabble of the last several decades really has actually sunk in, at least to some degree. When you have male pro athletes giving tearful interviews and that kind of thing, which happens way more now than it used to, I do think it has a real effect.

current popular practices among this set are very much centered on teaching boys that their feelings are real, they count, they are allowed to talk about them, while at the same time teaching them how to manage them (no contradiction -- it is hard to manage emotions that you are denying to yourself and to your parents that you have)

This sounds good and positive. I will be delighted if it also involves them realising that their feelings ARE feelings and that's OK rather than going "I'm too manly/logical to have feelings so any thoughts which appear in my head are clearly 100% objective fact, whereas any objections from women or people I think I'm better than are the shrieking hysteria of feelings-beasts", which I have heard variations on quite a lot lately.

Not that it's a solely male problem but it does skew that way a little. Sorry for bitter!

also p. offtopic I guess but re Hurting's post last night

My mom used to say shit like "well the kids who feel unpopular in school always wind up the cool ones in college," -- just completely useless to, say, an eight year old.

I'm not male but also heard a lot of "at university you get to meet more interesting people and be less lonely / the work is more interesting which makes it easier bcz motivation / you'll discover who you really are and have awesome fun and then get a better job than your bullies" which made me feel even more lost aged 21 when I'd flunked out of university and couldn't work out what I wanted to do, find an interesting job, interest the people I'd imagined would be "my own tribe", etc.

(my parents were both from the first generation in their families to go to university and my mother in particular went from a p. straitlaced and ignored childhood in that grand old hippy era of freedom and self-discovery so I guess I can't really blame her for sharing her enthusiasm, too bad I was a spoilt kid from the slacker angst generation)

http://www.believermag.com/exclusives/?read=interview_gornick

BLVR: Do you think that the aimlessness of fiction these days has something to do with changes caused by the feminist movement?

VG: That may very well be. These are generations of transition. You can’t make a real strike against a whole culture as we have and not have adverse effects. It’s like—what do they call it when you take a drug that helps you, but it has side effects? That’s what this is. It’s a side effect. No doubt it’s true that a great deal of the self-confidence of men has been chipped away, but all these young men who write these terribly depressed books about being themselves—“I’m so depressed I turn on the email six times a day, or ten times a day,” or that kind of thing—they’re ridiculous. But it’ll change. It’ll change in your lifetime for sure. But you may have to live twenty-five years before [it happens]. When your bunch are in their forties, or fifties, let’s hope for something better. It’s going to be different. Who knows.

“I turn on the email”. How quaint.

It’s like—what do they call it when you take a drug that helps you, but it has side effects?

Very articulate. Is this person a professional writer?

you should be so articulate, when you're 80 and being interviewed

oh durr, didn't actually look to see who it was

Is there a male equivalent of a lady with lots of make up on preening for a camper?

I believe the most direct equivalent would be a man with lots of make up on preening for a camper.

camper?

more camp