Boys will be boys—and should be, to become true men

  • Thread starter Thread starter JimG
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Yawn?

Maybe spend time at a children’s hospital with a traumatic brain injury unit.

One incident of a brain injury can leave a child permanently disabled.
 
Boys will take physical risks, whether it’s in organized sports or in individual, unsupervised activities.

Perhaps cheer should be banned too, since it’s more physically hazardous than football.
 
Last edited:
prayerrider said:
All sports have risks, particularly contact and collision sports.
Click to expand...
I was never good at contact sports or most team sports. But I was very good at running, especially long distance running where I was usually ahead of most other students and would come in second or third.
 
I read the article posted by the OP and agree with a few things the author says. I found what he said about reading to be kind of interesting:
I used to say that we feed the boys a diet of Little Women and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm , and then we are surprised to see that they are not terribly interested in reading. How about giving them tales of adventure, such as the Leatherstocking novels of James Fenimore Cooper or the classic boy-to-man story Kim by Rudyard Kipling?
Click to expand...
As a boy, I’m sure I would have been much more interested in reading Kim than Little Women or Rebecca of Sunnbrook Farm. I liked Robert Louis Stevenson’s books Treasure Island and Kidnapped. I also loved the westerns by Zane Grey like Nevada or Riders of the Purple Sage which usually had cowboys, gunslingers, cattle rustlers and a few damsels in distress in them. And it was the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolken that really got me reading in the 6th grade. Before that, I wasn’t much interested in reading. But I was never a big fan of James Fenimore Cooper’s books and now when I see him name, I can’t help thinking of the little essay that Mark Twain wrote about him in 1895, “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses”:
Cooper’s art has some defects. In one place in “Deerslayer,” and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.

There are nineteen rules governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction – some say twenty-two. In “Deerslayer,” Cooper violated eighteen of them. These eighteen require [only the first five are included below]:
  1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. But the “Deerslayer” tale accomplishes nothing and arrives in air.
  2. They require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. But as the “Deerslayer” tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the episodes have no rightful place in the work, since there was nothing for them to develop.
  3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the “Deerslayer” tale.
  4. They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. But this detail also has been overlooked in the “Deerslayer” tale.
  5. They require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. But this requirement has been ignored from the beginning of the “Deerslayer” tale to the end of it.
Click to expand...
The full essay by Twain which is pretty funny can be found online.
 
I agree with everything the author says. Men need to step up and model real, virtuous masculinity. Every boy vitally needs a strong, unapologetically heterosexual and chivalrous masculine role model in his life who models justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude.
 
I’m female and wish we had been assigned Rebecca or Little Women. I remember plugging my way through most of your boy stories list and never found the stories very satisfying.

And don’t get me started on History! Men and wars and dates! I hated history for years after HS and it wasn’t until later in life …and newer authors that I discovered a love of history. We were lucky if they mentioned a wife’s name!😂

My son was a good reader but didn’t like to read. He wanted to read comic books and that was fine by me, as long as he was reading. My daughter is like me and read voraciously and still does, as do I.

Our challenge now is the ADHD girl that is almost two years behind in her reading skills yet above proficient in math. I might try private tutoring this summer.
 
puppson said:
I agree with everything the author says. Men need to step up and model real, virtuous masculinity. Every boy vitally needs a strong, unapologetically heterosexual and chivalrous masculine role model in his life who models justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude.
Click to expand...
Some of what the author says or at least implies is more fantasy than fact:
It is not just that we do not give them the strong food their souls need. We give them what is downright toxic. The boys are made to celebrate, against their nature, what is sick and what must put the vulnerable at risk by sick and destructive suggestions. For many boys are vulnerable. They are the slender ones who have no father at home and no coach at school. They are the late bloomers who are overshadowed by the boys who have matured earlier and who doubt their manhood. They are the ones who have “graduated” from the ordinary pornography — evils according to nature — to the dis-ordinary — evils against nature. They are the ones who so long for masculine affirmation, they will seek it wherever and however they can find it.
Click to expand...
Boys don’t become gay because they don’t have a father or a coach and are slender, late bloomers who “long for masculine affirmation [and] will seek it wherever and however they can find it,” including by “graduating” from “the ordinary pornography — evils according to nature — to the dis-ordinary — evils against nature.” Homosexuality isn’t caused by a longing for “masculine affirmation”.

I had a great dad when I was growing up who modelled all the qualities that you mentioned and I’ve been very close to him my whole life. He took me bike riding and camping and encouraged me to join the cub scouts and bought adventure books for me like Treasure Island and gave me a Winchester rifle and taught me how to shoot. He even tried to teach me to split wood with an axe which we had to do every year for our wood stove. But I still turned out gay and ever since I came out to him when I was 21, he has always treated me the same as before with unconditional love and acceptance.
 
Last edited:
Now back to the article. The author is absolutely right that not only are many boys not being taught manliness, but they are being indoctrinated into believing that unnatural sexual sin is good. They are being taught that “two dads” and “two moms” is good. 😡
This culture is sick, sick, sick and the acceptance of sodomy and masquerade same sex “parenting” as normal and good is a most wicked development.
 
Last edited:
puppson said:
Every boy vitally needs a strong, unapologetically heterosexual and chivalrous masculine role model in his life who models justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude.
Click to expand...
I’ve been thinking a little bit about this list of attributes that you listed as being important in a father, and although I don’t believe that a father must be “unapologetically heterosexual” or super “masculine,” I think that the others attributes would be desirable. But what I can’t understand for the life of me is why so many people who I’m sure think that these qualities are important in a father, don’t seem to think that they’re very important in a president even though I would think that a president should also be a good role model for children.

And yet, I’m sure that many of these people who want these qualities in a father nevertheless voted for Donald Trump who is the very antithesis of some of those qualities. For example, far from being chivalrous towards women, he calls some of them “dogs,” “fat pigs,” “slobs,” “bimbos”, etc. And he calls his opponents names like “Crooked Hillary” or “Lyin’ Ted” or “Low Energy Jeb”. Does that sound chivalrous? And could anyone seriously describe Trump as being prudent?
 
Last edited:
People saw Trump as the lesser evil and Hilary might have good manners, but what she would have done is what’s important.
 
Not to mention President Trump is irrelevant to this thread. That said, I voted for him and will be happy to do so again. I predict he’ll win.
 
I think this is relevant to this thread, however. It’s a year old but I just now learned about it. I hope this grows and I love their shirts!

From the article: "“With the growing amount of gender confusion in our world today, the Troops of St. George offers Catholic boys and their dads a deep, fully Catholic experience in the outdoors with sacraments, adventure, and authentic masculinity.”

“Sacraments, adventure, and authentic masculinity.” That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

www.patheos.com

Bishop Approves Alternative To Boy Scouts As A Catholic Apostolate

The following press release landed in my mailbox a short time ago: Thousands of young men and their fathers across the country found their prayers
www.patheos.com www.patheos.com
 
Last edited:
Thorolfr said:
And yet, I’m sure that many of these people who want these qualities in a father nevertheless voted for Donald Trump who is the very antithesis of some of those qualities.
Click to expand...
This thread was going so well.
 
Norseman82 said:
Humor break:
40.png
Sarcelle:
In my case when I played with a Barbie, I beheaded her. I was obsessed with the French Revolution at the time and was fascinated by the guillotine.
Click to expand...
Lea101 said:
I used batman action figures to behead my barbies!
Click to expand...
Youse two must be fun on dates…
Click to expand...
I have a Marie Antionette doll modeled off of the old black and white Addams family show. The one Wednesday had.

Last date I went on we started with a ghost tour. It was quite fun.
 
And nothing necessarily wrong with boys loving pink and wearing lots of lace and tights…as those were the height of masculinity not so long ago (as still evidenced by certain traditional priestly orders).

I strongly believe in distinct gender roles…while recognizing that “masculine” vs “feminine” attributes are highly variable from time to time and place to place. A mere 120 years ago, mothers frantically prepared pink nurseries for their little boys and blue nurseries for their little girls. These stereotypes evolve very rapidly.
 
Last edited:
twf said:
A mere 120 years ago, mothers frantically prepared pink nurseries for their little boys and blue nurseries for their little girls. These stereotypes evolve very rapidly.
Click to expand...
Back in the day, pink being a shade of red, was considered to be a vibrant, passionate color more suited for masculinity while blue was tranquil and peaceful and was associated with the Blessed Virgin who is the epitome of femininity.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top