Great addition to the tonic masculinity corpus! As a single dad (happily divorced for 3 years now), this really resonates with me. Parenting was tougher for me when the kids were very young -- a metaphor that comes to mind is having a toolkit full of drills and screws and hammers and nails and what not, and having to fix broken china or glassware with those tools: that's what dealing with toddlers felt like a fair amount of the time: like I had a set of tools that were poorly matched for the job at hand. Now that my kids are a bit older, I find my parenting role comes more intuitively and seems to work better. Now they're dealing with life on life's terms (or gradually starting to get their feet wet with it) and coaching them through that process seems to be a better fit for whatever toolkit nature gave me as a father. Anyway, this was definitely an enjoyable read. Thanks for writing it!
Feb 5, 2023·edited Feb 5, 2023Liked by Doctor Hammer
💬 mad social science just doesn't get the grant money.
This obvious fallacy in Doctor Hammer’s blurb blemishes author’s credibility somewhat 😝
--
ETA The remark sounds rude & stark when not embedded in due context. Sure I should have given this a transient thought before hitting Post 🤦 “Of great quality”: described once, described a thousand times 😊 Most indisputably true for what gets forged on heavy-duty Anvil.
Now that I’m done paddling through comments, my huge & solid takeway = each & every thread would be stoutly advised to procure their own [archetypal] devil's advocate(s) 😊 An essential role echoing—however distantly—that of either [archetypal] parent.
I like this allegory. I think it is reflective of common experience that flows as a consequence of certain biological generalities. We all need someone to fulfill these fundamental roles in our lives, or at least having someone, or even different people fill each of these roles help us develop into fully actualized human beings. I know I'm a lot more risk tolerant than my wife. I don't get nearly as nervous when my daughters go high on a swing, or fast on a scooter. It is therefore more natural for me to encourage my children to push their limits. On the other hand, this risk tolerance has downsides that are routinely offset by the vigilance and intrinsic risk aversion of mama bear. Having access to both hearth and wild correlates to some kind of cosmic balance we would probably all benefit from. Don't necessarily need to get it from mom or dad, but having exposure to both safety and challenge parallels our basic physiology down to the major divisions of the autonomic nervous system.
Editor's Note: I removed a long comment thread here. Not because anyone said anything particularly horrible or got in trouble or anything, it was just the result of some bad days interacting. I just pulled everything at the request of all involved, since it all got hugged out offline and we all felt a little silly.
This should see wider publication beyond Substack. I haven't seen an issue of Parent's Magazine in years, but I'm guessing it's far gone on the woke side and has been for a long time. Which means it's the perfect venue for this insightful essay, but would be scorned and rejected out of hand.
I think Letgrow.orghttps://letgrow.org/free-range-parenting/ may be the place to submit this much needed essay on the purpose and benefit for children to be raised by a mother and father to help them reach maturity and able to live life successfully on their own. Likely preaching to the choir, but hey, the choir needs to hear the good word, too.
Teaching our children to accept life on terms beyond the protective environment of the hearth is an absolute necessity. They need the freedom to build resilience and grit through trial and error and failure and mistakes, as much as they need a safe and nurturing home. The safety-ism in our schools and homes is not keeping our children safe or helping them thrive. It is making them soft, fearful, unimaginative and incapable.
Our culture must return to and recognize positive i.e., tonic masculinity for the sake of our children. Sam Smith and Dylan Mulvaney are examples of toxic masculinity and need to be recognized as such. I mean, have you seen the interview of Satan by the most trusted source of fake news, The Babylon Bee? Even Satan is distancing himself from the Grammy's. See it here: https://babylonbee.com/news/horrified-satan-distances-self-from-grammys
I was hoping you would make an essay of this Doc. Thanks.
I loved it!!
I’m woman and a professional, who put in 90% of the effort and guidance that all my children had growing up. I appreciate your essay very much.
Great addition to the tonic masculinity corpus! As a single dad (happily divorced for 3 years now), this really resonates with me. Parenting was tougher for me when the kids were very young -- a metaphor that comes to mind is having a toolkit full of drills and screws and hammers and nails and what not, and having to fix broken china or glassware with those tools: that's what dealing with toddlers felt like a fair amount of the time: like I had a set of tools that were poorly matched for the job at hand. Now that my kids are a bit older, I find my parenting role comes more intuitively and seems to work better. Now they're dealing with life on life's terms (or gradually starting to get their feet wet with it) and coaching them through that process seems to be a better fit for whatever toolkit nature gave me as a father. Anyway, this was definitely an enjoyable read. Thanks for writing it!
💬 mad social science just doesn't get the grant money.
This obvious fallacy in Doctor Hammer’s blurb blemishes author’s credibility somewhat 😝
--
ETA The remark sounds rude & stark when not embedded in due context. Sure I should have given this a transient thought before hitting Post 🤦 “Of great quality”: described once, described a thousand times 😊 Most indisputably true for what gets forged on heavy-duty Anvil.
Now that I’m done paddling through comments, my huge & solid takeway = each & every thread would be stoutly advised to procure their own [archetypal] devil's advocate(s) 😊 An essential role echoing—however distantly—that of either [archetypal] parent.
This is the best kind of heresy. How dare you get at the archetypal core of being human?
I like this allegory. I think it is reflective of common experience that flows as a consequence of certain biological generalities. We all need someone to fulfill these fundamental roles in our lives, or at least having someone, or even different people fill each of these roles help us develop into fully actualized human beings. I know I'm a lot more risk tolerant than my wife. I don't get nearly as nervous when my daughters go high on a swing, or fast on a scooter. It is therefore more natural for me to encourage my children to push their limits. On the other hand, this risk tolerance has downsides that are routinely offset by the vigilance and intrinsic risk aversion of mama bear. Having access to both hearth and wild correlates to some kind of cosmic balance we would probably all benefit from. Don't necessarily need to get it from mom or dad, but having exposure to both safety and challenge parallels our basic physiology down to the major divisions of the autonomic nervous system.
Editor's Note: I removed a long comment thread here. Not because anyone said anything particularly horrible or got in trouble or anything, it was just the result of some bad days interacting. I just pulled everything at the request of all involved, since it all got hugged out offline and we all felt a little silly.
Nice piece, dead on. The roles of the father and mother change a little with grandkids. Do you have any yet?
Beautiful and perfect in its simplicity.
This should see wider publication beyond Substack. I haven't seen an issue of Parent's Magazine in years, but I'm guessing it's far gone on the woke side and has been for a long time. Which means it's the perfect venue for this insightful essay, but would be scorned and rejected out of hand.
I think Letgrow.org https://letgrow.org/free-range-parenting/ may be the place to submit this much needed essay on the purpose and benefit for children to be raised by a mother and father to help them reach maturity and able to live life successfully on their own. Likely preaching to the choir, but hey, the choir needs to hear the good word, too.
Teaching our children to accept life on terms beyond the protective environment of the hearth is an absolute necessity. They need the freedom to build resilience and grit through trial and error and failure and mistakes, as much as they need a safe and nurturing home. The safety-ism in our schools and homes is not keeping our children safe or helping them thrive. It is making them soft, fearful, unimaginative and incapable.
Our culture must return to and recognize positive i.e., tonic masculinity for the sake of our children. Sam Smith and Dylan Mulvaney are examples of toxic masculinity and need to be recognized as such. I mean, have you seen the interview of Satan by the most trusted source of fake news, The Babylon Bee? Even Satan is distancing himself from the Grammy's. See it here: https://babylonbee.com/news/horrified-satan-distances-self-from-grammys
I came back, and read it again.