Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

it doesn't always work. nothing always works.

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, November 2, 2017 9:38 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yup

yelling has diminishing returns. usually i feel like shit after yelling and no one is happy. it depends a lot on the tantrum or the behavior in question

xpost my mum is quite an angry person for various reasons. my dad would be less likely to blow up but when he did it was quite a lot of anger.

i guess it did make me feel fear if someone yelled at me but i was prob testing my parents' patience anyway - i feel p okay that there were times as a child in which i was a dick and maybe an escalation had to happen to stop me behaving that way. i don't think it's had any negative effects on me - i've never felt like it has and i've talked a lot about my parents in therapy over the years.

ambushed by realness itt

in some ways it's easier to yell (you can just shut your brain off) but you get much better results by enrolling them in what you want them to do. it's a lot more emotional work but it's more effective. ime the most important thing w/ kids (not that it's easy to do) is to have near infinite patience. sometimes it helps me to remind myself that they're just children ("she's just 6yo and she's acting like a child why am i expecting something else?") or reminding myself that i [gag] love them and am responsible for their well being. sometimes tho it's true that you're just exhausted after a long day and it's really hard to bring your full awareness + creativity to getting them to do things (like eating dinner, using the bathroom, brushing their teeth, getting into pajamas, going to sleep). at this point i've kinda broken myself of yelling (i'll occasionally raise my voice but i never swear at them or say mean things to them) but i will sometimes just shut my brain off and stand there and wonder why my repeated entreaties to do stuff are getting ignored. there's a concept in chassidus called the long short way and the short long way. the long short way is using fun and creativity to get stuff done - long to get yourself in a state where you can do it, but short bc it works and is effective. the short long way is shutting off and yelling or just being passive bc they're so easy to do but you'll ultimately never get it done.

i've done jobs for over 20 years that have required me to display infinite patience - dealing with challenging behaviours where it would be professionally unacceptable (and usually immoral imo) to start yelling at people or displaying anger or frustration. so i've learnt to be pretty good at this, if i say so myself, and it still doesn't automatically transfer over to my own children. sometimes you're just v tired and i think nobody ever knows how to push our buttons better than our loved ones. but i don't think i've ever yelled at my own kids and felt like that was a productive bit of parenting afterwards. and i've usually felt guilty as hell when i've lost my temper, especially in the longer term context that my daughter had a v explosive temper growing up and i often wonder how much of that i inculcated.

i've been thinking a lot about what remy wrote about real biological difference creating real social difference esp wrt my marriage atm. my SO is nursing which means that a) she's constantly up at night w/ the baby, b) which means she's often tired, and c) cannot really go anywhere without bringing the baby with her. by contrast i can go anywhere, can sleep through the night, feel rested, etc. this has real social consequences - she has less patience with doing work around the house, or other childcare bc she's so tired. so as a man [who doesn't nurse] i've tried to contribute more to the housework than usual, taken care of more of the other childcare duties than usual, etc. also try to be solicitous, make sure it's okay with her when i do go out, try to encourage her to take advantage of social opportunities that appear, let her nap as needed, etc. i'm not always perfect at this but i do see making my wife happy as part of my duty as a husband/man. nb that i don't mean to exclude ppl who have nursing SO's who are not males, just that for me personally this is a part of my obligation as a male.

Cool cool. I think the important thing for our partners in the micro view is that we support them and provide the needed resources. In the macro view of what is masculinity etc, maybe the important thing is to work to uncouple some roles from gender, which I think you clearly sort of started to do, Mordy, by purposefully using inclusive language ("people who...are not males") showing that each of us knows that our experiences aren't universal.

i try to speak in a way that my audience will be receptive

^^ words to live by

I am only receptive to complete sentences fyi

although also sort of sinister!
everything is sinister when it's run through the "picture donald trump saying it" filter

donald trump clearly does not care about persuading ppl who don't already agree w/ him tho

every time i've yelled at our kid i felt terrible and it just led to worse behavior from him. any short term benefit that comes from shutting down bad behavior via yelling is probably canceled out by a long term low-level detriment.

ever since i started getting down to his level more and asking questions about how he was feeling at the moment and trying to figure out where he's coming from it's worked wonders. he listens about 10x better (because i listen better!)

aren't there just times where there's no time except to yell or coerce? eg due to danger, situation, a deadline of some kind or a refusal to cease whatever behaviour?

unfortunately ime yes

i yell every night when dinner is ready. i yell FOOD! it's my daily yell.

I am only receptive to complete sentences fyi

fwiw some things - core moral beliefs like that fragmented sentences are preferable - i will not compromise on

aren't there just times where there's no time except to yell or coerce?

This is kind of a cop-out answer but: depends on the kid.

One sometimes might need to yell/shout/forcibly relocate a child to communicate extreme disapproval of something totally unacceptable. Two examples that come to mind are biting someone, or running into the street.

For normal tantrums/naughtiness/mess-making, not so much. Tends to backfire.

We went through a rough patch this summer where pretty much every bowl of cereal ended up on the floor somehow; every drink was spilled for fun; every puzzle was dumped. Every unattended crayon got used on a wall; there was a toilet paper roll completely unspooled every few days. Sister's hair was pulled. People were getting scratched and kicked. This is a first-grader with toddler-level behavior.

As I got steadily more exasperated, I admit that my approaches started getting scattershot. I imposed consequences, took away privileges, I yelled, I sternly communicated strong disapproval. I grabbed-and-relocated. We had time-outs and sticker charts and and and.

The only thing that worked was time, and school restarting. He'd been bored and frustrated and out of his routine.

^^^

the Fuckin Fours

when Judah is tired after a long day of school, his behavior goes out the window and there's just kinda nothing you can do about it except try and get him to bed (often a mammoth struggle)

for us it's pretty rare that we have to raise our voices but when we do, we a) apologize but also b) explain why we did it. we always try to explain the situations in which we raise our voices and why we have to do it. usually this is mostly in dangerous situations yeah..

ime anger and being a male parent are not connected. my mom & my wife get angry long before my father and me. same for my boy & my girls. this may be biological but lots that’s biological is individual.

Oh yeah no I'm not saying anything about feeling anger, just being allowed to display it or enact it on others--that was reserved for men, in my world.

oh ok yeah when I said get angry I meant act angry. but iirc you and my wife come from similar bg west MI and her mom doesn’t get angry but rather hurt where she’s like “why do you treat me this way” it’s not as effective as yelling bc my s-i-ls (who I think you sorta knew at C@1v1n ?) ignore that and act out accordingly (yes still as we’re all at/nearing 40)

my mum's way of quietly getting upset and disappointed was much more effective and guilt-inducing than my dad getting angry. anger is increasingly ineffective as kids get older and realise they have all the cards and their parents' authority is a phantasm

i struggle a lot with anger, i definitely yell, usually when i'm tired. in general i think i am a good, patient, involved father to my sons but when i'm tired i'm kind of a shitty, irritable parent and it's something i'm working to rectify.

i always apologize after i yell, which is something that basically never happened when my dad yelled at us growing up (i don't have a single memory of him apologizing for anything really) and that helps i think send a message that i'm fallible and make mistakes and that it's important to own them and take responsibility. it still sucks though.

and yea ymp otm yelling at a kid in a tantrum never works

my dad used to grit his teeth and pout a lot, it drove me crazy. he wasn't fooling anyone by seething quietly.

Tbh when a child or any person's behavior is harmful to others or harmful to the well-being of the family or community, disappointment and grief is not an unreasonable reaction--but it has to be about something that's direct and real, like "I'm sad because when you lie to me, it means in the future I can't believe you" or "Your sister is sad because when you bite her, she learns that you're someone who likes to hurt her and she doesn't want to play with you anymore." Not like "I'm sad because I gave birth to you and you treat me this way" etc etc guilt stuff.

West MI is seriously so repressed and fucked up. As in many things, I largely blame Calvinists. For the rest of it, I blame a culture of taciturn Swedes.

As a child my behavior was MUCH more motivated by fear of disappointing my mother (and the resulting guilt) than fear of angering my father and having him yell.

When I'm angry about my son's behavior, it's because my parental toolbox is otherwise empty. I'm frustrated by my inability to gently influence him away from naughtiness. I'm hurt and confused that his love for me doesn't lead him regulate his impulsiveness. Which is crazy, I know.

feeling a lot of these posts

he wasn't fooling anyone by seething quietly.

maybe he wasn't trying to fool anyone. maybe he was trying to moderate his actions down to quiet seething in order not to do worse. after all, it's pretty hard not to feel your emotions. they rise up and there they are, whether or not you want them. it's what you do with them that matters most.

i guess you probably know him better than i do

hey we're back on topic! :D

We're back where we were a few days ago anyways

so I just had a round of first-hand experience at (maybe) counteracting sexual assault, I'm too viscerally upset to detail it right now but let me tell you the experience has left me all kinds of fucked up

wtf Simon

all I feel comfortable saying is, I ended up facing off against a male friend (previously unbeknownst to me) of a fairly close female friend of mine, who took off his shirt and got in bed with her after she was passed out and clearly unresponsive. (we'd all had a lot to drink.) I tried to gently urge him to get out (she has/had a roommate asleep in the next room and I wanted to avoid a scene if at all possible), but he instead repeatedly informed me that I was "retarded" and "lacked social cues" because I was watching over "two normal people" like a "creep." he doubled down a few more times, and eventually the roommate woke up and called the cops on both of us (thank god tbh; I didn't know where my phone was; I still don't have it, I assume it's back in that apartment somewhere) because she didn't know/recognize either of us, at which point I tried to physically remove him in the hopes we could avoid having to deal with cops. this didn't work; the cops showed up. I left immediately but waited outside to make sure the other guy got removed; on the elevator ride down with the cops he gave a smirk, which the cops failed to find amusing. when I got home around 6:30 (an hour ago) I sent her as full an account as I could. I hope to speak to her later today.

I'll sidestep all of the other things that upset me deeply about the situation and say what really struck me now and in this moment were his attempts to gaslight me into thinking this was all completely fine

Sounds like you handled that very well. It's a good thing you were there.

Absolutely, well done man. Must be really nasty to witness.

That takes a lot of guts and you handled it in the best way possible.

if I could do it over I'd have proactively flagged down the roommate early instead of letting her call the cops and potentially get treated as a suspect myself (not to mention needlessly prolonging the whole thing) but you know not exactly a time for super great hyper lucid thinking

The thought of being gaslighted in that situation is scary, especially if I’d been drinking. I hope that it wouldn’t disrupt my better judgment long enough to let something bad happen, but who knows?

"a fairly close female friend of mine..." "...because she didn't know/recognize either of us..."

This is confusing, are you saying that she was so drunk or groggy that she didn't recognize you?

he's saying the roommate didn't know either of them

yes, that.

anyway I spoke to her today, she's ok, I'm still pretty freaked out. the dude apparently sent some awful texts afterwards (no shocker there)

OK, missed that.

The thought of being gaslighted in that situation is scary, especially if I’d been drinking.
the term gaslighting was not popular during my teen/youth years but i am pretty confident saying every close female friend i have has experienced being gaslit in that situation while drunk :(

it is scary!

not that identical situation obvs -- but one similar in >1 way