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outtamojo
Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]this issue is really the main issue on my life for the last oh, 35 to 40 years.
This is a big problem for a lot of guys, not just me.Perhaps you are familiar with Robert Bly, whose book, IRON JOHN, framed this societal problem back in the 1980s among us quasi men of “how do we become men”. a men’s awareness movement ensued, for guys who felt like they werent really guys.
More recently, “I LOVE YOU MAN”, a movie about a guy looking for a guy friend to be his best man because he only has women friends, and more recently that movie about the friendless dude who hires Kevin hart to round up some male guests for his wedding because he has no friends….i recll other movies in this genre as well..
… This issue is in the air, it’s in the culture. Women seem to know how to knit tight networks more efficiently than the lame portion of the men flock do.
i’m like paul rudd in I LOVE YOU MAN, the guy who suddenly desperately realizes men dont like him. Women generally liked me more, and I thought this was good, but realized indeed that it was a very very very bad sign.
Men need to be accepted by other men. their acceptance by women is not enough. it makes us neurotic. My dad was a nervous wreck. Still, even he had a lot more guy friends, and was “normal” and perceived as normal among the guys he hung out with, who also struck me as normal guys. He smoked cigars, he didn’t talk about weird stuff like me. he never had a doubt that he was a man, a regular man. the thought of him questioning his manhood is inconceivable to me.
So what the hell is my problem? I’m not sure. I think I’ve become a lot more like a regular man, or at least am a better simulation of one that is less identifiable as weird instantly, throught he process of raising 3 boys.
I was very scared to have boys, thinking, shoot, now I’m going to produce yet another generation of neurotic self-conscious males.
Either that, or they will be actual men,a nd will judge me harshly. Dammit. But it hasn’t turned out that way. They are for the most part extraordinarily more normal than me, and their confidence levels are orders of magnitude higher than mine were. Partly the process has brought me along, partly it seems like evidence that maybe I am a normal man, because I have raised young men who seem like regular men. they interact with other male peers not in an awkward way. That fills me with confidence in myself, oddly.
Maybe the problem is women;real men aren’t hungry to have women accept them. They just are accepted by men and therefore acceptable to women. trying to win women’s favor is unattractive to other men.
Ultimately, it is boy against girls, and I am guilty of not being fully on the boys team.
it seems so profoundly wrong to me to have women weigh in on how guys should act when they are together. THAT IS THE PROBLEM. I mean, imagine the reverse. What if I said, hey, I don’t like the way young women interact in sororities, or women’s chamber of commerce groups. I think you should behave differently. Youre promoting bad attitudes toward men. Your speech patterns are bitchy or mean. They would tell me to shut the hell up, right? they would say they need a place to be safe from the partiarchy or that they have been abused so long by men over history that a man is in no position to judge.
Because, they’d say, men are bad, it’s men’s fault the world is messed up, girl power.
And Ultimately, throughout my sad little feminized life, I think I bought that line… and if you believe that narrative, regular guys are NOT gonna like you.
So I am still guilty of being a dyed in the wool feminist. thats who i am. Women still like me and are most of my friends. I hate that. but it’s probably too late for me to change. I’m just glad i didnt make more of me.[/quote]
Maybe its the boobs I’m growing in middle age but I find myself preferring the company of women friends nowadays. I find myself not liking anymore to get together with a bunch of guys.
Participant[quote=CA renter]The drive to emphasize a person’s “masculinity” by engaging in rude or offensive behavior is interesting. Some of the most confident and masculine men I’ve ever known were absolutely not trash-talkers; they were kind, considerate, well-spoken people who knew when to be considerate, and also knew when to get aggressive with bullies.
For whatever it’s worth, teach your son to keep the “yo mama” jokes to himself when around African-Americans. I attended a junior high school in L.A. where a majority of the students were bused in from downtown, so we had a student population that was majority African-American. Whenever a kid dared to say the words, “yo mama,” it was a sure bet that he was about to have his ass kicked from here to Mississippi. It was serious business and, oftentimes, multiple other kids would join in the beatings as other students would link arms and form concentric rings around the fights so that the administrators and teachers couldn’t intervene.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that your son might think he’s pretty smart, but if he utters the wrong words in front of the wrong people, it could easily get ugly.
The other kid was fully justified in telling his parents about your kid’s behavior. There are a whole lot of people in the world who would not be okay with these comments, even if they were made “in jest.”
It’s good that you’re concerned about it, and I know that you want to do the right by your kid. As someone already mentioned above, we no longer live in a society where the wife-beating asshole wins. Teach your son to socialize with all kinds of kids: older kids, younger kids, black, white, brown, rich, poor, smart, not-so-smart, etc., and teach him to make friends with girls, too! There is nothing worse than a grown man who’s never learned how to socialize with women (and vice-versa). It is a HUGE handicap in life.[/quote]
Last year when my son was on the 7th grade basketball team the 8th graders would walk into the school gym as his team was finishing up practice and the 8th graders would start barking at them and fake throwing the ball at their heads and many of the 7th graders would be genuinely terrified of the older class. When my son’s 7th graders would walk into the gym as the 6th graders were finishing up, many times one of the 6th graders would toss my son a ball and challenge him to “come get some”. The littler ones found my son approachable and I felt good about that.
Which was why I was terrified when I was confronted with what my son was saying to the other kid – I was terrified he had turned into one of last year’s eight-graders.
I don’t think I have to worry about him talking smack or making yo mamma jokes to a complete stranger or some stranger who refuses to swim -he seems to know the code. He keeps saying he thought the other kid was a friend, and they spent a whole season together on the same track team. Nevertheless,on the advice of many ,I instructed him to completely cool it with the off color stuff when at school.
He does socialize with all kinds, including girls. On reflection, I think overall he is an ok kid. But you know, I just realized that being a parent will never stop and just because someone young may be “amazing” now doesn’t guarantee they will be the same later on in life. The hopelessness of it all has sapped my mojo 🙂Participant[quote=Blogstar][quote=outtamojo][quote=Blogstar]Yesterday I was at the gym with my eight year old son. We walked around the pool area looking for a man to do the swim portion of and upcoming triathlon relay. My son couldn’t believe I was going to walk up to complete strangers introduce myself and ask if they wanted to do the swim. I did it though, had a few nice conversations, that is an initiation. Of course, if they didn’t wan’t to do it, I said thanks anyway lil’ bitch.[/quote]
Not supposed to talk that way to strangers ( the lil bitch part). My son and the other kid had more history than that.
I can see now how new this is to you.[/quote]Not new to this at all. I went to middle school from the wrong side of the tracks in the wrong kind of town. I spent 6 years as an enlisted man in the Navy and worked in construction after. I have been on plenty of sports teams. I have two middle school boys beside the 8 year old. I don’t see the lil’ bitch and other stuff as constructive. Common yes, forgivable yes, not that big of a deal in many circumstances, all true.
I can understand your wanting to discredit my perspective though. For whatever reason , you think it will help your kid. If anyone is new to it , that’s you, after all you started a thread on Piggington’s about basic stuff.[/quote]As Andrew Luck would say, thank you for your kindness.
ParticipantHow about all roads necessarily lead to political threadjack. Dude! there’s already a what I like about trump thread.
ParticipantWell, they looked at each other but didn’t speak to each other yesterday. I kinda hope they patch things up but now may be too soon.
Participant[quote=Blogstar]Yesterday I was at the gym with my eight year old son. We walked around the pool area looking for a man to do the swim portion of and upcoming triathlon relay. My son couldn’t believe I was going to walk up to complete strangers introduce myself and ask if they wanted to do the swim. I did it though, had a few nice conversations, that is an initiation. Of course, if they didn’t wan’t to do it, I said thanks anyway lil’ bitch.[/quote]
Not supposed to talk that way to strangers ( the lil bitch part). My son and the other kid had more history than that.
I can see now how new this is to you.Participant[quote=Blogstar]The ability to hang with men, or making good decisions about when not to, comes from the child’s indoctrination to the world by their caregivers , what they need is confidence not vulgarity …and practice with peers counts, but lil’bitch is only good for practicing shrugging off and ignoring that kind of stuff. Where is it part of the adult world in an appropriate not immature or worse, hateful way? Maybe to vent in privacy or something. Profanity is the language of anger. To the degree kids are thriving in the mainstream culture,which I bet is what the OP wants, mastering lil’bitch comments and yo mama jokes has nothing to do with it. There are lots of amazing kids who are kind and are not embracing valuing that. Doesn’t mean they have to be humorless.
The other father was wrong to get hostile only because he didn’t teach his kid to shrug it off and tell him to decide on the value of the group , the activities they share, and the value of individual males for himself. Getting hostile about lil’bitch , because that’s the manly and tough thing to do is just as dumb as saying it in the first place.
But if I were the op I would drop the other dad from the discussion completely , Only his son’s role , his understanding personal responsibility in it , really matters.[/quote]
In my adult life I have seen more than enough meanness and cruelty from those who ALWAYS use socially appropriate language to know not to judge a person’s heart by how they speak. Some of the kindest people I ever knew use the crudest language possible. I personally despise those who hide their cruelty under veils of sweet social talk. As for my son, I am just trying to figure out if he was just joking or if he really is a mean person. Being mean using socially appropriate words is not acceptable in my book and worse imo than being crude.
I’d like to see some of those “amazing kids” under a little bit of pressure. Very easy to be “kind” when your world is controlled and needs and wants taken care of but in a world of scarcity how will they behave? I’d rather hold off the amazing judgment until then.Participanthttp://thoughtcatalog.com/raul-felix/2013/09/on-talking-smack/
Yah, this is the world I’ve known as a man. This excerpt from a guys’ guy I agree with too:
“Women reinforce social bonds by complimenting each other (but not really meaning it), whereas we men socialize by insulting each other (but not really meaning it).” -Tucker Max
So Andrew Luck socializes by complimenting and not really meaning it? Are social lies acceptable or would they fail the test?
Participant[quote=flyer]I’ve always thought it would be a really interesting social experiment if everyone was required to post their (verified) net worth publicly–much like Transparent California openly posts state employees salaries and pensions.
Perhaps this would provide at least one validating premise (or lack thereof) for the “in your face” attitudes we see in the world today.
I’m a firm believer in what our host on this site has posited: “In God We Trust. Everyone Else Bring Data.”[/quote]
I confused. What are you saying?
ParticipantThanks everyone for all your opinions – this has been eating me up all weekend.
Participant[quote=bibsoconner]Feel free to pass this one on to your kid. He sounds like a normal teenager to me.
“Yo mama is so fat that she sat on her iPhone and turned it into an iPad!”
-Dave
P.S. My politically correct disclaimer: Only joking. I have no opinion as to whether or not your mothers are fat or not. I don’t disrespect your mothers nor have I even met them. :)[/quote]
While I totally agree with the need for my son to speak more “appropriately, I don’t expect him to say to a kid wandering around ” Hi so-and-so, come sit with us over here, we’ll make you feel warm and welcome. I love your jeans by the way, they make you look really really super.”
Participant[quote=doofrat]Your son’s story doesn’t pass the smell test very well IMHO. So He’s buddy buddy with this guy, they’re horsing around like buddies do which includes:
1) Saying You little bitch (seriously we used to call each other this as a joke, no harm was meant and it was understood)
2) Saying yo-mama jokes to each other (We told off color jokes to each other when we were kids, didn’t go telling the parents about it)All this is good and fine, but for some reason the other kid tells his dad about him and his “buddies” good natured ribbing.
You see how this doesn’t pass the smell test very well? Middle school guys don’t go home and tell their dad about how their buddies horsed around that day, that makes no sense to me.[/quote]
Yeah, all my son talks about to me is what happened at practice- details about his social life we need picks and shovels to dig out. I have accepted that my son may not be telling the complete truth but I am confused too. When my son apologized to the other kid I was expecting to see or hear some residual anger from the other kid but all I saw was a wtf just happened look on his face and nothing incriminating at all in his voice, just a “oh it’s ok.”
Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]Yo mama jokes are intended to be traded and certainly aren’t insults.
Come here you little bitch, seems affectionate, if it doesn’t immediately lead to violence and normal interaction follows.
If your son is indeed telling the truth then I think the kid was acting like a little bitch by telling his dad.[/quote]
You and I must share a similar background 🙂
Still I told my son to cool it cause those kinds of words in the wrong hands will put him at the mercy of the establishment.
Participant[quote=flu][quote=outtamojo][quote=flu]You’re son probably isn’t a bully, but it doesn’t sound like the other kid is ok with receiving these jokes either. I guess my initial thought was if this other kid was fine with the horseplay, why isn’t he dishing it out himself, and why would talk to his dad about it? I mean, @ junior high, you are smart enough to figure out what is considered PC and what isn’t. So if this was really just horsing around, the last thing I would want is to share it with my parents. It would be like hearing a funny, yet crude sex joke in middle school, and then going home and sharing it with your parents. Ewe…
That said, it would probably be in your son’s best interest to lay off the “little bitch” and the “yo mama” jokes at school. Eventually, it’s bound to be overheard his female peers, and then he’ll be in deep shit with the school’s administrators.[/quote]
Yeah, I told him if he keeps this up and it gets to an administrator it could mean the end of his basketball career there.
As for the other kid, son says he kept coming back and trying to join their group; glutton for punishment or clueless? I mean why keep coming back to his group, there must be plenty of other better, more PC cliques or church group to hang with right?
I think I’ll tell my son to just say hi and bye and stay away from that kid for his own protection – my son has always been edgy and South-Park and I can’t totally trust him to resist off color behavior that may reach the wrong ears.[/quote]The problem with social media is that once someone takes a gopro and films someone do some uncanny behavior, it will stick with that person indefinitely.Also, in the ultra-PC environment we are currently in, the backlash is enormous. There’s plenty of examples of it that has happened. I’d suggest perhaps you might show some of those to your son as an example. I recall there was two guys at a tech conference that was making stupid sexual jokes privately. Apparently, some woman sitting nearby got all offended by it. But rather than confront the two guys, she took a picture of it, it and put it on social media, I guess as a mean of social shaming. And the backlash was enormous. First the two guys (who were just geeks making stupid jokes were both married) we subsequently fired. The woman, also fired from her job for eavesdropping on a private conversation and posting something supposedly private in social media (more likely because some hacker group broke into her employer’s system and threatened to publicly post her employer’s client list if she wasn’t fired).
As far as a sense of humor. Well, there’s nothing wrong with being a class clown. You just got to do it in a way that doesn’t piss off 1/2 the population, especially considering whe he’s in 8th grade, he’s going to be interested in that 1/2 of the population.
Meanwhile, tell him to go work and bulk up if he gets pushed around. Chicks will dig it once he gets into high school if he’s a buff jock. Take him to the gym yourself if you have to. I wish I learned that.[/quote]
Maybe too much if me us rubbing off on my son. I’ve always maintained those smiling assassins like Adria whom most consider polite company are actually the meanest people around. We had a family discussion about inappropriate language and little sister says yeah you should be more like Landon and his sister, they NEVER say bad words. Son says, OK so you want me to go and shoot innocent animals for fun on weekends too? ( they are church-going hunters) I had no answer to that and had to end with “just don’t be mean to people”…sigh.
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