Thursday, December 2, 2010

Male Messaging

I'm glad that Jordana spoke to the problems in messaging that males receive in out society. It's something that I've always paid a lot of attention to, and been very saddened by.
I'm at home right now, and I feel compelled to share what I can hear next door, even though it's extremely infuriating to me and unbelievable. I guess this constitutes as a rant.
I have some neighbors with small children, and they have friends over alot (often with small children of their own). There's alot of sitting outside and drinking beer that goes on. They have a friend over right now that has 2 small boys, probably about 2 years old and 4 years old. They got in a bit of a sibling argument and the older boy shoved the younger one to the ground, stepped on him, kicked him in the head, you name it. The child started crying, and the FATHER laughed and as a result, for the last hour or so, has been teaching these two boys of his to fight one another.
Comments such as:
"Punch him in the face if you wanna be my badass kid"
"If you don't get up and try to fight your brother back, im gonna fuck you up"
"This is REAL playing!!"
and "Are ya'll boys, or did I have daughters?"........have been some of the most common in his dialogue with them over the last several minutes.
The worst part is that the kids are doing what he's telling them, as though they're being asked to do chores. They don't seem to be looking at it like it's a game. The younger child is still crying, as a matter of fact.
Seriously????????????????????????
No wonder kids grow up to have problems co-existing with one another.
Additionally.......this, in my mind circles back to our studies of "Partners as Parents". In what way is this individual's right to raise his children as he likes preferable or more "safe", just because he appears to be a heterosexual male and is not  feared to be teaching his kids to be gay??
hmmmmmm
-Shannon

3 comments:

  1. Wow. I simply can't wrap my head around a father talk to his children like they were his college buddies.

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  2. Child reering terrifies me. I think I would be an awesome parent, and I could raise the most awesome kids! What scares me though as integrating that child into the world outside my home. We all want what is best for our children, and we culture them according to what we think is right. Often times parent raise their children in a way that will make them successful in the world they know. I can identify with your neighbors because that is how my teenage brother and his friends raised me. My dad was gone, and my mom always working so hard, my coming of age fell in the hands of my brother and his gang-banging friends. Reflecting on my experience, and his intentions to prepare me for the neighborhood as a teenager after he had be jumped and stabbed numerous times was done out of love. The father wasn't talking to his kids as though they were his college buddies, and by no means will I justify those actions in the context of children, but it just represent the f*cked up situation some people face. Boys from "the neighborhood" have to be hardened, you see this in girls too. This whole construct fall prey to the old chicken or the egg paradox. Can we integrate better people into the system who will still be successful and able to change the system, or do we have to change the system before we can change the people?

    I am honestly scared for my niece and nephew and the world they have to battle as vegan, conscious, frankly "different" people. I can only hope and pray that they have a network of support as strong as the one I have been able to build through my life to empower them to do amazing things in this world.

    Those poor kids, and even more, I feel sadness for the childhood their father must have had. No wonder, no amazement, no joy in just being a kid, always a push to become a man!

    Since the first day of class, I have been really aware in a different context of the male messaging. It has been so informative to reprocess many of my own experience and look at new messaging through this lens. I had been aware of the male messaging in the past, but never really analyzed it, and broke it down into all the destructive parts it is composed of. That has been a key learning moment in my experience in this class, and I am trying to be really conscious of the differences in the ways I treat my nieces and nephews. I hope as a result of this new awareness, I can re-enforce the positive masculine and feminine characteristics that are groomed out of us through messaging. Great topic to open a discussion on, thank you; your post will definitively benefit my yougin's lives.

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  3. My comment was too large for google to post, and now it is gone! Ah, I need to remember to copy and paste before submitting! I'm gonna try and post a response again in a bit.

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