Thank you TierDoc, I appreciate you taking the time to write that very much, and I hope your children appreciate you taking on the load like that. I can hardly imagine being able to shoulder that much of the load myself, it is not a one person job!
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.
Hah! In all fairness to you, it is a really obscure Girl Genius reference, the big about mad social science not getting the funding. These days there is way too much money going into it, although one could argue whether it is proper mad science or just really bad politicized science. I usually expect more mad cackles and screams of “Fools! I’ll show you all!” With proper mad science.
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.
Thanks so much! I probably have at least 14 years before my kids start having any grandkids, with any luck at least. Interesting that you see the roles switching around with grandkids, could you elaborate a bit on that?
I found you through John Carter and the whole tonic masculinity buzz. Good stuff.
I've said this a million times but I don't think we've met so I'll say it again. I'll be 59 soon, married to the same woman for 38 years, and we have eleven children, nine boys and two girls. We homeschooled them all and have a couple college graduates. Lol, when we started homeschooling 35 years ago, we were accused of raising wolf children and threatened with legal action. Times have changed.
I've run a small construction company for the last 25 years and have about 10 employees. We currently have 20 grandkids but my youngest son just turned 10, so we've got a long way to go.
Grandkids and grandparents get along so well because we have a common enemy. But seriously, the main difference is no discipline. I don't mean we let them run wild, but we aren't involved in the day to day do your chores, behave, doling out punishments, etc. You're older and hopefully wiser and you get to impart that to your grandkids. You get to explain the rules instead of enforcing the rules. You get to show them the best you know and you have the patience to do so. I'll chime in from time to time with more, but I gotta go. Take care.
What you write makes a lot of sense. Grandparents are sort of parent adjacent for most children, almost like a best friend who outranks your parents in some cases. I remember my dad saying "Your mom is a lot more lenient with [my nephew] than she ever was with you kids. Or me, for that matter." But as you say, that leaves a lot of room for influencing about the rules, instead of just enforcing them. Plus, grandparents are a little removed from the normal day to day, so they retain a bit of mysticism and a special pedestal. "Don't do anything you wouldn't want your grandma seeing" was a fairly common saying where I was a kid.
It probably also helps that grandparents are a lot less worried about screwing up their grandkids than the parents are! I know we had a big change in the general "oh shit, I'm going to kill it!" angst between kid 1 and 2, and by kid 3, you know, we had a few spares...
Thanks for elaborating for me, I appreciate it! Both my grandfathers died before I was born and we lived a bit distant from my grandmothers, so I have often seen the grandparent thing from the outside as much as anything until me and my sister started having kids. Glad you made you made it over from John's red planet!
I never really knew my grandparents or my parents for that matter. Both were alcoholics. When I was 14 I pointed a shotgun at my dad when he was beating my mom and I told him to leave. (No sympathy needed, lol, long ago and water under the bridge.) So I never saw it either and I had no idea how much fun it is to be a grandparent. I always heard kids were a blessing but I had a hard time believing it, lol. Now I know you put up with the kids for the grandkids.
Good point about the mysticism and pedestal. I think a grandfather is a little girl's first crush. So you definitely want to model how a man should treat a woman. And you do have that responsibility that they look up to you. Think of all the best things you do with your kids without the bad stuff. They know when they see Grandma and Grandpa they're going to do something cool.
I've heard if you raise your kids right, you get to spoil your grandkids a little, but if you spoil your kids you wind up raising your grandkids.
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
Thank you for the kind words! I will check out Let Grow when I get the chance this week. As you say, there’s some value in preaching to the choir, if only to apply the ideas in new ways to novel situations! Thanks for the tip!
I was hoping you would make an essay of this Doc. Thanks.
Thank you :)
Excellent piece, I concur. Very glad this got expanded into a full post.
I loved it!!
Thank you, Baba :)
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.
Thank you TierDoc, I appreciate you taking the time to write that very much, and I hope your children appreciate you taking on the load like that. I can hardly imagine being able to shoulder that much of the load myself, it is not a one person job!
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.
Hah! In all fairness to you, it is a really obscure Girl Genius reference, the big about mad social science not getting the funding. These days there is way too much money going into it, although one could argue whether it is proper mad science or just really bad politicized science. I usually expect more mad cackles and screams of “Fools! I’ll show you all!” With proper mad science.
Mad is in the eye of the beholder ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Mad science proper ftw!
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.
I was able to rehome the rhino.
Nice piece, dead on. The roles of the father and mother change a little with grandkids. Do you have any yet?
Thanks so much! I probably have at least 14 years before my kids start having any grandkids, with any luck at least. Interesting that you see the roles switching around with grandkids, could you elaborate a bit on that?
I found you through John Carter and the whole tonic masculinity buzz. Good stuff.
I've said this a million times but I don't think we've met so I'll say it again. I'll be 59 soon, married to the same woman for 38 years, and we have eleven children, nine boys and two girls. We homeschooled them all and have a couple college graduates. Lol, when we started homeschooling 35 years ago, we were accused of raising wolf children and threatened with legal action. Times have changed.
I've run a small construction company for the last 25 years and have about 10 employees. We currently have 20 grandkids but my youngest son just turned 10, so we've got a long way to go.
Grandkids and grandparents get along so well because we have a common enemy. But seriously, the main difference is no discipline. I don't mean we let them run wild, but we aren't involved in the day to day do your chores, behave, doling out punishments, etc. You're older and hopefully wiser and you get to impart that to your grandkids. You get to explain the rules instead of enforcing the rules. You get to show them the best you know and you have the patience to do so. I'll chime in from time to time with more, but I gotta go. Take care.
Congratulations on a life well lived!
What you write makes a lot of sense. Grandparents are sort of parent adjacent for most children, almost like a best friend who outranks your parents in some cases. I remember my dad saying "Your mom is a lot more lenient with [my nephew] than she ever was with you kids. Or me, for that matter." But as you say, that leaves a lot of room for influencing about the rules, instead of just enforcing them. Plus, grandparents are a little removed from the normal day to day, so they retain a bit of mysticism and a special pedestal. "Don't do anything you wouldn't want your grandma seeing" was a fairly common saying where I was a kid.
It probably also helps that grandparents are a lot less worried about screwing up their grandkids than the parents are! I know we had a big change in the general "oh shit, I'm going to kill it!" angst between kid 1 and 2, and by kid 3, you know, we had a few spares...
Thanks for elaborating for me, I appreciate it! Both my grandfathers died before I was born and we lived a bit distant from my grandmothers, so I have often seen the grandparent thing from the outside as much as anything until me and my sister started having kids. Glad you made you made it over from John's red planet!
Gotta few minutes waiting on my wife...
I never really knew my grandparents or my parents for that matter. Both were alcoholics. When I was 14 I pointed a shotgun at my dad when he was beating my mom and I told him to leave. (No sympathy needed, lol, long ago and water under the bridge.) So I never saw it either and I had no idea how much fun it is to be a grandparent. I always heard kids were a blessing but I had a hard time believing it, lol. Now I know you put up with the kids for the grandkids.
Good point about the mysticism and pedestal. I think a grandfather is a little girl's first crush. So you definitely want to model how a man should treat a woman. And you do have that responsibility that they look up to you. Think of all the best things you do with your kids without the bad stuff. They know when they see Grandma and Grandpa they're going to do something cool.
I've heard if you raise your kids right, you get to spoil your grandkids a little, but if you spoil your kids you wind up raising your grandkids.
Beautiful and perfect in its simplicity.
Thank you :)
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
Thank you for the kind words! I will check out Let Grow when I get the chance this week. As you say, there’s some value in preaching to the choir, if only to apply the ideas in new ways to novel situations! Thanks for the tip!
I came back, and read it again.