Have you seen young men without good role models in their life? I have, they break things and hurt people. There are exceptions to every rule obviously, but especially in the growing toxic male culture that we have right now young men are in precarious positions. I’m a huge fucking nerd, I built my own computer in high school and was captain of the quiz bowl team. It’s still important to find positive and healthy outlets for the energy young men have. This poster specifically pointed out that they do have toxic male influences in their life already. Keeping active is never bad advice and while I may have been over emphasizing some things, it’s important to address behavior now before he starts driving, working, going out on his own, etcetera etcetera
Comment on HELP! How do I help educate my son about his body when I know nothing about boys??
artificialfish@programming.dev 1 week agolol this is a very macho man view of a male growth spurt. Yes he will become stronger than most women, but it’s not a given he will become much stronger, or that he’s a sports guy. I didn’t work out till I was well into my 20s and you could hardly call me strong even compared to women.
Grrr man strong, need break things, intellectual sponge, need other testosterone figure to understand confusing body. Like dude wtf 😂. We had completely opposite male childhood experiences apparently. I was intellectually stimulated, physically weak, and don’t particularly remember needing to ask my dad what was going on with my hormones.
makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world 1 week ago
artificialfish@programming.dev 1 week ago
She actually doesn’t say he has toxic male role models in his life, he has conservatives in his life, who she admits are not good sex-advice-givers or puberty-talk-havers. She doesn’t say they are Nazi’s or wifebeaters or something. The assumptions I’d make from this is he has conservative trad-marriage role models, which I had too. These people teach you a distorted view of sex, but also a lot of the best male role models in my life live as conservatives.
Anyway, no I don’t really think that male role models are as important as we like to think. This is kinda a “what is wrong with our youth” take on modernity. A good female role model to a man can be almost more influential. Her being a good mom is going to influence his views on women a lot more than any dudebro with no relation to him, especially if she calls him on misogyny he may pick up.
A man who loves women has healthy female role models. That’s more important than anything in developing their views on women.
Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Yeah, it’s definitely not an “every male” thing. But other than that, it does contain good advice if it does end up being relevant. And if non-conservative males are tough to find in her area, odds are higher that her son could be encountering those types of influences outside the home.
I was a “relatively” weak guy growing up, videogames with no exercise or weights, I did do some physical chores and participated in most of my gym classes, lol, but I was for sure still way stronger than my mom, and she had a manual labour job. It is unfortunately very likely to be the case even if you grow up a nerd as a guy. And, in the potential case of him growing up athletic with a non-athletic mom, it can indeed be a huge difference. Not quite a shrek and fiona thing… but not as far off as we’d hope.
It can be a reasonable fear as a single mom to a teen guy growing up in a conservative area. And while it isn’t a description of every guy, if the description is sounding like it fits, then those are valid concerns and things that should be addressed and headed off before they can’t be.
My brother wasn’t very athletic either, but a little more than I was. And he wasn’t very rebellious, but a little more than I was. Only once did he ever hurt our mom physically, and it was when he was 13 and treated her the same way he would treat his friends in a heated argument, just gave her a shove… they both learned very quickly that a different approach was needed. That was with a kid who felt bad that he hurt his mom… we had friends(temporarily) that didn’t feel bad about that… those friends stopped being friends pretty quick and are mostly in jail or dead now.
We live in a small town, not super religious or conservative, but I would guess about half and half. And it was about 10% of boys that this advice applied to. In a place where conservatism or religion are further entrenched, that percentage doesn’t just go up linearly. The less sources of proper behaviour you see to counter the argument that people should behave “naturally”… even the nerds eventually succumb.
Be glad you had a childhood where this advice comes across as ridiculous.
artificialfish@programming.dev 1 week ago
“If the description is sounding like it fits”
Where in OP did it sound like it fits?
I get the impression the guy I’m replying to is working with troubled youth. Even then, most men and boys are taught to defend their moms as a point of pride, not the opposite.
Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I’m not saying it “does” fit. I’m writing that to her. As she gave no indication or contraindication to whether it applies. Other than asking what our experiences were and what relevant advice would have fit our experiences… these are experiences that were had, and the advice that would go with them.
artificialfish@programming.dev 1 week ago
I’ve just followed this revolving door of male self improvement advice for a long time now. It actually started for me at church, those guys hate a young man without a “role model”. Then people started blaming the lack of role models and we got Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate, when honestly the biggest problem facing men in society was capitalism and overwork not male lack of self improvement. Then people were like, no not THOSE role models, and now people are blaming young men for Trump voting etc, when again it’s role models themselves that are making these kids fail to see their issues in relation to labor.
What if, instead of teaching men to be followers we taught them to be leaders and free thinkers. Women too. I never once woke up as a kid and was like, man I wish I had someone to look up to. I had people to learn from but I was imminently aware of other people’s flaws and the fallacy of emulating success.