Good evening NLers.

I was surprised when I learnt yesterday/Wednesday was the International Day of the Girl Child. I remember that March 8 is International Girls Day.... excluding the recurring mothers' day, women's day etc.

While it seems these recurring days to celebrate women are highlighting their importance and spurring them to aim higher, the boy child is left behind again.

Why again?

In the past, we have screamed that boys and by extension men were not taught how to treat/respect women and make their marriages work apart from footing the bills. I know how old RCCG women's fellowship is and when the men fellowship was birthed; I know the ratio of women programs in churches and mosques to men programs. We know how women were/are always admonished to keep their homes.

Yet we have just done same thing in different forms...

Several women empowerment programs; all sorts of educational boot camps for young ladies; grants and all sorts of funding for women businesses; skill acquisition programs for women etc.

Have we sat down to think that men make up 50% of the human race? Do we acknowledge that almost every woman apart from lesbians will be in intimate relationships with men?

DO WE ACKNOWLEGDE THAT WE NEED THE SUPPORT OF MEN TO EXCEL AS WOMEN?

Interestingly, men realized they needed the support of women and engineered them to provide that support. We women are behaving like we can do it alone which is why it seems progress is slow.

In Saudi Arabia that is draconian towards women, some men still taught their wives how to drive. Some men still supported their wives quest to be able to drive. Some men still reasoned with their leaders to lift the ban.

When you train your daughter to be all she can be without men who are trained in a corresponding manner, do you realize she will marry/mingle with that pool which will frustrate her efforts?

Imagine a high flyer married to a man who believes a woman's ambition should not be past a certain point.

For instance, we say there are few women presidents and CEOs...

Do you think it is because more are not interested in it?

How many men will support their wives to be presidents and CEOs? How many men are ready to pay the sacrifices that come with such and other similar positions?

We women need the men to support us 100% which would not happen until we stop over emphasizing the girl child and recognize her partner and support: the boy child.

Boys need to be prepared too. I agree wholeheartedly. It is an interesting topic. I hope more people will contribute so we can learn and I hope that the insecure ones will stay away and not make a show of their toxic understanding of masculinity to cover their insecurities.

Bukatyne, any literature on the topic?

Mindfulness:
Boys need to be prepared too. I agree wholeheartedly. It is an interesting topic. I hope more people will contribute so we can learn and I hope that the insecure ones will stay away and not make a show of their toxic understanding of masculinity to cover their insecurities.

Bukatyne, any literature on the topic?

Nope, just stumbled on the day and decided to put down my thoughts.

bukatyne:


Nope, just stumbled on the day and decided to put down my thoughts.

A lot of research has already been done on the topic and there is enough literature but I have never taken the time to delve into it.

Mindfulness:


A lot of research has already been done on the topic and there is enough literature but I have never taken the time to delve into it.

I know that some women like Christina Hoff Sommers, Danielle Crittenden and Iris Kravsnow write about it.

I once read where association of Catholic mothers were lamenting the quality of men available for their precious daughters.

Mindfulness:
Boys need to be prepared too. I agree wholeheartedly. It is an interesting topic. I hope more people will contribute so we can learn and I hope that the insecure ones will stay away and not make a show of their toxic understanding of masculinity to cover their insecurities.

Bukatyne, any literature on the topic?

Thanks at first paragraph.

Hopefully, people whom the discussion is above them will stay away.

CAPSLOCKED:
SIMPLY BRILLIANT!

I HOPE THESE INTERNET SELF ACCLAIMED FEMINISTS AND WOMEN RIGHTS ADVOCATES REALIZE THAT FEMINISM IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT EQUALITY AND COOPERATION BETWEEN BOTH GENDERS.. AND NOT ALL ABOUT CAUSING MORE DAMAGE AND DISUNITY BY POSTING DEROGATORY ARTICLES AND COMMENTS ABOUT MEN AND ENGINEERING YOUNGER GIRLS TO FOLLOW SUIT.

WE CAN'T EXIST WITHOUT EACH OTHER.

Thanks

Truly, we can't exist without each other.

A very interesting read.

How to raise boys in the 21st century
Twenty-five years after his first bestselling parenting guide, Steve Biddulph has some powerful new ideas on how to raise happy, well-adjusted young men
Steve Biddulph

Can you remember that moment? Holding your baby son in your arms for the first time? As you gazed down at his soft little face, I bet you hoped with all your heart for just one thing. That he would travel safely through boyhood, grow to be his best, and become, one day, a wonderful man. It doesn’t seem too much to hope for. Yet we all know of so many boys and young men who have come to grief, and ended up being harmed or causing harm to other people. Compared with a girl, a boy is nine times more likely to end up in jail, three times more likely to use drugs, three times more likely to take his own life or die in a car crash. Those are terrible figures, and we shouldn’t just think “that’s the way it is”. There has to be a reason and a cure.

Twenty five years ago, I wrote an international best-selling book on raising boys, and today I’m pleased to say we know far far more, and raising sons is easier and is getting better. We are making some wonderful men. We know how to do it right. So let me set out some of the most powerful new ideas . . .

The first thing in raising a son is to decide what kind of man you want to make. Sometimes, at my seminars on parenting, I ask my audiences to call out the qualities they think make up a good man. You can guess what they shout – things like kind, gentle, safe, trustworthy, strong, caring. Someone will joke “sober” or “looks like George Clooney”. But I sum it up in just two words: backbone and heart. Strong, reliable, and trustworthy, on the one side. And warm and loving as well. It’s not enough to just have one side, without the other. A friendly drunk is no use. A strong but cold dad won’t win the hearts of his sons or daughters. It has to be both.

Creating that good man means understanding the boy you start with. Are boys different to girls in some fundamental way? Yes, and no. Forty years ago, when I started out, the best thinking was to do away with gender differences altogether. We urgently needed equality, the misogyny that had kept women down and out for centuries had to end. We thought that if we raised boys and girls the same, then we would eliminate sexism. Same clothes, same toys, same games, it was a worthy and admirable effort. I totally supported this and I still do – perhaps the best known take-home message of my books is teach your son to cook. And that girls need to be loud, and messy, and feel free to climb trees and jump in puddles.

Risk factors
But we have to do more than that. Those risk factors unique to boys, and to girls, have to be worked on. While we know now that gender is on a continuum, and every child is unique, the science is getting clearer that for most boys, and most girls, there are glaring differences we have to address.

Most boys show distinct patterns of development, even in the womb. Their brains grow more slowly from the moment they start producing testosterone at just a few months’ gestation. And that difference persists – many boys are up to 20 months behind girls in some aspects of brain development at age five. Not only that, but boys vary a great deal within their gender too. Sampling umbilical cord blood at birth shows that some boys are high in testosterone, and some low. And the high-testosterone boys have much more trouble with reading and speaking. Boys overall are three times more likely to be problem readers than girls. And those are mostly high-testosterone boys.

Now the last thing we want to say about that is “boys will be boys” as that is really the weakest of cop-outs. It means we have to say “right, let’s switch this boy on to reading, by telling him stories, reading bedtime books to him, and keeping on chatting to him and listening to him as we go about our day. Don’t just plonk him in front of a TV or screen. The world doesn’t need men who can wrestle buffalo any more, but every boy and man needs to be able to communicate. We can help our sons to catch up with girls, and get along well with them.

We can also make the world, and especially school, more boy-friendly. Most boys at five (and some girls too) aren’t ready to sit still – in fact it harms their brain development if they do. And they aren’t ready for rote learning or being forced to read and write. In countries where children start school at six or seven, they do much better. Moving about a lot, playing, being active, suits most kids but especially those active boys who positively need it.
And that’s only the start.
There are stages of boyhood which girls do not have. One is the “full-on fours”, when luteinising hormone floods their bodies, setting up the puberty hormones far in advance. When I wrote about this in my Facebook community, which has many Irish mums and dads as well as from all across the world, they immediately knew what I was talking about.

Activity, rambunctiousness and noise
Parents of four-year-olds notice high levels of activity, rambunctiousness and noise. It’s a relief to know this isn’t naughtiness. (Though any sudden change in behaviour is worth getting to the bottom of in case something bad has happened). But it’s totally normal for little boys (and some girls) to be exploding with energy, and our job is to find ways they can run it off – just as we would if we had a sheepdog in the house, they need their exercise. You can do this through lots of chances to get outside and move about and have adventures. And some gentle but clear help with knowing when to put the brakes on. If we make a boy feel he is bad for being a boy, then we trigger an anxiety about being loved, that usually comes out as anger and the beginnings of a problem man. You can put boundaries on, and ask him to calm down, but do it kindly.

Another stage of boyhood – called adrenarche – was discovered just last year by researchers at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital in a long-term study of 1,200 children approaching their teens. Adrenarche comes along at eight to nine years of age. It’s a rise in hormones called adrenal hormones, and shows up on brain scans, too. I call this the “emotional eights”, because that describes it usefully. Your son will be more prone to get upset, or anxious, or fly off the handle, and generally not be his usual self. It will bewilder him as much as you. Adrenarche is the first stirrings of puberty, though outward signs won’t show for another three or four years.

Girls are so different in this regard. Their emotional phase mostly comes right with puberty, and is often two years sooner than with boys, and (thankfully) is all over by 14, when they reach their full height and are fully fertile. Boys may not catch up in height or maturity until 16 or 17.
But most boys end up larger or stronger than girls, and eventually, larger than their partner. So it’s absolutely vital that we teach them to never hit or hurt, or even disrespect or be rude to girls or women, starting with their mum or their sisters. Dads and mums together have to reinforce this message, sitting down with them and being clear what a good man is like, and that they expect this and will never go along with anything different. Again, not heavy or hard, just friendly, but crystal clear. To turn into a good man, a boy has to hear exactly what that means in practice (and of course, see it carried out by the men he grows up around).

Recently in Australia, something great happened. A champion surfer was attacked by a shark, and disappeared out of sight behind a wave, while thousands watched from the beach and on TV. He miraculously reappeared safe and sound a moment later. But interviewed on the TV his friends were crying, and saying how afraid they had been for him. And how much they loved him.
A big new breakthrough in what we want in men, and have to teach our boys, is how to have an open heart. Affectionate dads who hug and cuddle, show their own feelings easily and can say “I’m sad” or “I was scared” raise mentally healthy boys. The old-style man kept his feelings bottled up, only to explode when he was drunk, or things just reached overload.

In the new version of my book, we explain the whole chemistry of why human beings cry, and how this heals the brain after loss, and prevents violence (as most violent people are actually in fear and grief rather than anger). It’s essential that boys are able to cry at any age, and be vulnerable. As social researcher Dr Brene Brown argues in her excellent TED talk, nothing good ever happens without vulnerability. Love, friendship, parenthood, creativity, learning new things, closeness and intimacy all involve being vulnerable. Making mistakes, and risking rejection. Being brave enough to fail, and not be crippled by shame, is essential to being a dad, husband, or friend.

What if you’re a single mother or in a same-sex relationship?
A word here is important for single mothers, who raise about a third of all boys. Let me absolutely reassure you: mothers can raise wonderful men, and they have done so for thousands of years. The single mothers and women raising children without men that I have worked with extensively over 40 years have taught me two key secrets. They made sure that their sons had good men somewhere in their life – school teachers, grandads, uncles, sports coaches, family friends. They chose these with care.

And these men stepped up so that each boy “knew what a good man looked like”. In my talks, I ask the dads there to think about the fatherless boy among their son’s friends, and be sure to invite him along on trips to concerts, fishing or camping, or art galleries or whatever is your thing.
The other secret of single parenthood? Be sure to have some time for yourself to have fun, rejuvenate, and have friends. Don’t do it in any kind of martyr attitude. Be proud of yourself, and reward yourself for the great job you do.

A story of my own
When my dad was dying, I spend the last couple of weeks at his side. We hadn’t always been close, and now I didn’t want to waste a second. One day, he told me a story of my babyhood. A few days after I was born, my mum was very tired, and so he put me in the pram to go for a stroll. Entering the high street – this was 1953 – he noticed people looking at him oddly, even scornfully, and some children danced along behind him jeering. At this point in the story he paused. I asked him, what were they saying? “Your dad’s your mum.” He remembered it all from 50 years ago. He looked teary. A shy man, it had all proved too much, and he ducked, with me and the pram, down a side street and went home.
Today, dads with prams are a normal as a rainy day. Young fathers are affectionate, and capable.

We’ve got a revolution happening in fatherhood, and chances are strong that girls and boys will turn out better as a result.
The new understanding of boyhood, and the better kind of man we can create, is going to change our world. We know that every boy is different, and you have to get to know your own unique version. We know that the genders overlap, and you can have a macho girl and a sensitive quiet boy, and they are both valuable and needed in the world of tomorrow. We know that if you embrace the differences, and work with them, then an equal world is just around the corner.

Explaining pornography to boys

There are new things affecting boyhood, especially the teen years, which weren’t around much when we were kids. The worst of these is probably online pornography.
Mums and dads need to sit down with pre- teen boys and tell them: you’ll get to see some yucky stuff from friends or online. You’ll naturally feel curious about it, but some of it is horrible and mean. And it’s not how love really works. Sex is really great when it’s friendly, kind, funny and respectful. Porn sex is different to real sex in four ways:

1 Real lovemaking is personal. Your heart and mind are making love too. In porn you are just a body, with no personality or feelings.

2 Real lovemaking is slow, it takes time to trust, and explore and every part of it feels good. In porn, it’s just a rush to “get it done”.

3 Real lovemaking can be intense, but it’s always kind. You treat someone the way you would like to be treated. Porn is routinely degrading, uncaring, and hurts or humiliates women. In real life, women would not like that or like you if you did that.

4 Real lovemaking feels good afterwards. You get closer, you want to be together. You want to talk and trust and open your heart. Porn is cold and you are disposable. Your feelings don’t count. You end up not liking yourself. You have trouble getting along with real girls.

It’s a daunting thing to talk about this with our kids, but we have to do it. They want our help, and they will be lost if we don’t give it. It’s a big relief to be able to be open about sex, and for our kids to know it’s normal, and great, and able to be talked about.

Raising Boys in the 21st Century, by Steve Biddulph, is published by Harper Collins

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/parenting/how-to-raise-boys-in-the-21st-century-1.3481486


Cc: Bukatyne

@ Lalasticlala

Modified: Thanks for the Front page and pictures

Mindfulness:
A very interesting read.

How to raise boys in the 21st century
Twenty-five years after his first bestselling parenting guide, Steve Biddulph has some powerful new ideas on how to raise happy, well-adjusted young men
Steve Biddulph

Can you remember that moment? Holding your baby son in your arms for the first time? As you gazed down at his soft little face, I bet you hoped with all your heart for just one thing. That he would travel safely through boyhood, grow to be his best, and become, one day, a wonderful man. It doesn’t seem too much to hope for. Yet we all know of so many boys and young men who have come to grief, and ended up being harmed or causing harm to other people. Compared with a girl, a boy is nine times more likely to end up in jail, three times more likely to use drugs, three times more likely to take his own life or die in a car crash. Those are terrible figures, and we shouldn’t just think “that’s the way it is”. There has to be a reason and a cure.

Twenty five years ago, I wrote an international best-selling book on raising boys, and today I’m pleased to say we know far far more, and raising sons is easier and is getting better. We are making some wonderful men. We know how to do it right. So let me set out some of the most powerful new ideas . . .

The first thing in raising a son is to decide what kind of man you want to make. Sometimes, at my seminars on parenting, I ask my audiences to call out the qualities they think make up a good man. You can guess what they shout – things like kind, gentle, safe, trustworthy, strong, caring. Someone will joke “sober” or “looks like George Clooney”. But I sum it up in just two words: backbone and heart. Strong, reliable, and trustworthy, on the one side. And warm and loving as well. It’s not enough to just have one side, without the other. A friendly drunk is no use. A strong but cold dad won’t win the hearts of his sons or daughters. It has to be both.

Creating that good man means understanding the boy you start with. Are boys different to girls in some fundamental way? Yes, and no. Forty years ago, when I started out, the best thinking was to do away with gender differences altogether. We urgently needed equality, the misogyny that had kept women down and out for centuries had to end. We thought that if we raised boys and girls the same, then we would eliminate sexism. Same clothes, same toys, same games, it was a worthy and admirable effort. I totally supported this and I still do – perhaps the best known take-home message of my books is teach your son to cook. And that girls need to be loud, and messy, and feel free to climb trees and jump in puddles.

Risk factors
But we have to do more than that. Those risk factors unique to boys, and to girls, have to be worked on. While we know now that gender is on a continuum, and every child is unique, the science is getting clearer that for most boys, and most girls, there are glaring differences we have to address.

Most boys show distinct patterns of development, even in the womb. Their brains grow more slowly from the moment they start producing testosterone at just a few months’ gestation. And that difference persists – many boys are up to 20 months behind girls in some aspects of brain development at age five. Not only that, but boys vary a great deal within their gender too. Sampling umbilical cord blood at birth shows that some boys are high in testosterone, and some low. And the high-testosterone boys have much more trouble with reading and speaking. Boys overall are three times more likely to be problem readers than girls. And those are mostly high-testosterone boys.

Now the last thing we want to say about that is “boys will be boys” as that is really the weakest of cop-outs. It means we have to say “right, let’s switch this boy on to reading, by telling him stories, reading bedtime books to him, and keeping on chatting to him and listening to him as we go about our day. Don’t just plonk him in front of a TV or screen. The world doesn’t need men who can wrestle buffalo any more, but every boy and man needs to be able to communicate. We can help our sons to catch up with girls, and get along well with them.

We can also make the world, and especially school, more boy-friendly. Most boys at five (and some girls too) aren’t ready to sit still – in fact it harms their brain development if they do. And they aren’t ready for rote learning or being forced to read and write. In countries where children start school at six or seven, they do much better. Moving about a lot, playing, being active, suits most kids but especially those active boys who positively need it.
And that’s only the start.
There are stages of boyhood which girls do not have. One is the “full-on fours”, when luteinising hormone floods their bodies, setting up the puberty hormones far in advance. When I wrote about this in my Facebook community, which has many Irish mums and dads as well as from all across the world, they immediately knew what I was talking about.

Activity, rambunctiousness and noise
Parents of four-year-olds notice high levels of activity, rambunctiousness and noise. It’s a relief to know this isn’t naughtiness. (Though any sudden change in behaviour is worth getting to the bottom of in case something bad has happened). But it’s totally normal for little boys (and some girls) to be exploding with energy, and our job is to find ways they can run it off – just as we would if we had a sheepdog in the house, they need their exercise. You can do this through lots of chances to get outside and move about and have adventures. And some gentle but clear help with knowing when to put the brakes on. If we make a boy feel he is bad for being a boy, then we trigger an anxiety about being loved, that usually comes out as anger and the beginnings of a problem man. You can put boundaries on, and ask him to calm down, but do it kindly.

Another stage of boyhood – called adrenarche – was discovered just last year by researchers at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital in a long-term study of 1,200 children approaching their teens. Adrenarche comes along at eight to nine years of age. It’s a rise in hormones called adrenal hormones, and shows up on brain scans, too. I call this the “emotional eights”, because that describes it usefully. Your son will be more prone to get upset, or anxious, or fly off the handle, and generally not be his usual self. It will bewilder him as much as you. Adrenarche is the first stirrings of puberty, though outward signs won’t show for another three or four years.

Girls are so different in this regard. Their emotional phase mostly comes right with puberty, and is often two years sooner than with boys, and (thankfully) is all over by 14, when they reach their full height and are fully fertile. Boys may not catch up in height or maturity until 16 or 17.
But most boys end up larger or stronger than girls, and eventually, larger than their partner. So it’s absolutely vital that we teach them to never hit or hurt, or even disrespect or be rude to girls or women, starting with their mum or their sisters. Dads and mums together have to reinforce this message, sitting down with them and being clear what a good man is like, and that they expect this and will never go along with anything different. Again, not heavy or hard, just friendly, but crystal clear. To turn into a good man, a boy has to hear exactly what that means in practice (and of course, see it carried out by the men he grows up around).

Recently in Australia, something great happened. A champion surfer was attacked by a shark, and disappeared out of sight behind a wave, while thousands watched from the beach and on TV. He miraculously reappeared safe and sound a moment later. But interviewed on the TV his friends were crying, and saying how afraid they had been for him. And how much they loved him.
A big new breakthrough in what we want in men, and have to teach our boys, is how to have an open heart. Affectionate dads who hug and cuddle, show their own feelings easily and can say “I’m sad” or “I was scared” raise mentally healthy boys. The old-style man kept his feelings bottled up, only to explode when he was drunk, or things just reached overload.

In the new version of my book, we explain the whole chemistry of why human beings cry, and how this heals the brain after loss, and prevents violence (as most violent people are actually in fear and grief rather than anger). It’s essential that boys are able to cry at any age, and be vulnerable. As social researcher Dr Brene Brown argues in her excellent TED talk, nothing good ever happens without vulnerability. Love, friendship, parenthood, creativity, learning new things, closeness and intimacy all involve being vulnerable. Making mistakes, and risking rejection. Being brave enough to fail, and not be crippled by shame, is essential to being a dad, husband, or friend.

What if you’re a single mother or in a same-sex relationship?
A word here is important for single mothers, who raise about a third of all boys. Let me absolutely reassure you: mothers can raise wonderful men, and they have done so for thousands of years. The single mothers and women raising children without men that I have worked with extensively over 40 years have taught me two key secrets. They made sure that their sons had good men somewhere in their life – school teachers, grandads, uncles, sports coaches, family friends. They chose these with care.

And these men stepped up so that each boy “knew what a good man looked like”. In my talks, I ask the dads there to think about the fatherless boy among their son’s friends, and be sure to invite him along on trips to concerts, fishing or camping, or art galleries or whatever is your thing.
The other secret of single parenthood? Be sure to have some time for yourself to have fun, rejuvenate, and have friends. Don’t do it in any kind of martyr attitude. Be proud of yourself, and reward yourself for the great job you do.

A story of my own
When my dad was dying, I spend the last couple of weeks at his side. We hadn’t always been close, and now I didn’t want to waste a second. One day, he told me a story of my babyhood. A few days after I was born, my mum was very tired, and so he put me in the pram to go for a stroll. Entering the high street – this was 1953 – he noticed people looking at him oddly, even scornfully, and some children danced along behind him jeering. At this point in the story he paused. I asked him, what were they saying? “Your dad’s your mum.” He remembered it all from 50 years ago. He looked teary. A shy man, it had all proved too much, and he ducked, with me and the pram, down a side street and went home.
Today, dads with prams are a normal as a rainy day. Young fathers are affectionate, and capable.

We’ve got a revolution happening in fatherhood, and chances are strong that girls and boys will turn out better as a result.
The new understanding of boyhood, and the better kind of man we can create, is going to change our world. We know that every boy is different, and you have to get to know your own unique version. We know that the genders overlap, and you can have a macho girl and a sensitive quiet boy, and they are both valuable and needed in the world of tomorrow. We know that if you embrace the differences, and work with them, then an equal world is just around the corner.

Explaining pornography to boys

There are new things affecting boyhood, especially the teen years, which weren’t around much when we were kids. The worst of these is probably online pornography.
Mums and dads need to sit down with pre- teen boys and tell them: you’ll get to see some yucky stuff from friends or online. You’ll naturally feel curious about it, but some of it is horrible and mean. And it’s not how love really works. Sex is really great when it’s friendly, kind, funny and respectful. Porn sex is different to real sex in four ways:

1 Real lovemaking is personal. Your heart and mind are making love too. In porn you are just a body, with no personality or feelings.

2 Real lovemaking is slow, it takes time to trust, and explore and every part of it feels good. In porn, it’s just a rush to “get it done”.

3 Real lovemaking can be intense, but it’s always kind. You treat someone the way you would like to be treated. Porn is routinely degrading, uncaring, and hurts or humiliates women. In real life, women would not like that or like you if you did that.

4 Real lovemaking feels good afterwards. You get closer, you want to be together. You want to talk and trust and open your heart. Porn is cold and you are disposable. Your feelings don’t count. You end up not liking yourself. You have trouble getting along with real girls.

It’s a daunting thing to talk about this with our kids, but we have to do it. They want our help, and they will be lost if we don’t give it. It’s a big relief to be able to be open about sex, and for our kids to know it’s normal, and great, and able to be talked about.

Raising Boys in the 21st Century, by Steve Biddulph, is published by Harper Collins

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/parenting/how-to-raise-boys-in-the-21st-century-1.3481486


Cc: Bukatyne

Hmmm

Quite a read so I wanted to take my time.

I so much agree with this article. The difference between boys and girls should be noted and he isn't the first highlighting that the formal school system produces docile boys. I wonder what they had prior to now.

I also admire him highlighting two stages boys' differences stand out: Ages 4 and 8. Parents armed with this info are better equipped to handle their boys and girls at that age.

While praising single moms, he still hammered what every other person said: A boy needs a good father figure to turn out well.

Also guiding kids inline with their risk factors is very important too.

Due to the nature of my Job I have made certain observations

that a lot of people have refused to acknowledge.

Do you know that there are more female bankers than male?

Infact in majority of the financial institutions women are higher

in number than men. Please don't assume it's because they

successfully scaled the recruitment process, no! But from some

HR managers I have spoken to its more like a rule (maybe

written or unwritten) that during recruitments more females are

taken compared to males.

If you doubt me go to Lagos Island during close of work period

and you'll clearly understand cause it's so obvious.

This has somehow reduced the amount of eligible men to start

a home. Infact in a lot of homes today women are the bread

winners and in most cases it's not cause the men are lazy.

of course, there has been too much campaign on empowerment of the girl child, yet they feel oppressed. the campaign should rather be educating the boy child to become responsible. are the male kids taught how to respect the female kids? the issue of rape and others can be reduced if the boy child would be raised up with the right attitude. The bible says, train up a child in the way he should grow, and when he is old, he will never depart from it. if you train up sons to think its their right to be served, then they will grow up thinking females are the weaklings. enough of all this female gender empowerment and focus on teaching the male child manners.




Dingbang from Port harcourt.

Hmmm

Trash. So many contradictory points of view.are you worried that women need the support of men and wont get it or that men would be left behind?. Because i know you are worried about men but framing it like your worry is about women. I know your own agenda is just jealousy that women are now being appreciated and more importantly taught that they can survive on their own. Like you really want us to give credit to Saudi Arabian men? The most oppressive country for women in maybe the world. A country that actively encroaches on human rights? Even funds and encourages violence against anyone who stands in their way. Some nairaland men have lost it.
You men have had centuries of literally worship. Women have had less acess to education and self sufficiency than the son of slaves in some cases. And here you are condescendingly telling us the the programs to improve our lives would be better if the focus was also on men? You think we are idiots?
We are not begging for your support in achieving our independence. If you do not bend you will break. The world is changing and independence for women is here to stay. You guys can take the back sit for once. Women have done it for centuries and the sky did not fall.

Good

I said something similar sometime ago, feminists, women rights advocates are not working to create gender balance, which you will agree with me is what we all need. But these people are working to make every situation a woman finds herself a 50/50 gain for her.


There are so many women empowerment programs here and there. Organizations, churches and governments always have something for widows and nothing for widowers. A woman in a financial problem is 10x more likely to get help from people than a man but the good news however is that the neglected male child will join a terrorist organization out of frustration, use his untapped talent to design a powerful bomb and blow the shit out of the empowered girl.

God please dont give me a girlchild

Abeg make nobody quote me......Purge dey worry me

Nice one.

Let's live the way God/Nature has it!

Can't agree less. boys need as much monitoring and care as girls. advocate should be for children as a whole cos we must get it right with them for a better future.

dingbang:
of course, there has been too much campaign on empowerment of the girl child, yet they feel oppressed. the campaign should rather be educating the boy child to become responsible. are the male kids taught how to respect the female kids? the issue of rape and others can be reduced if the boy child would be raised up with the right attitude. The bible says, train up a child in the way he should grow, and when he is old, he will never depart from it. if you train up sons to think its their right to be served, then they will grow up thinking females are the weaklings. enough of all this female gender empowerment and focus on teaching the male child manners.




Dingbang from Port harcourt.

You wrote this to court the attention of the small girls on this forum right? SMH at the kind of things people like you write on this forum

This a gender neutral viewpoint, one many will steer clear off since it hinges responsibility on both genders’ shoulders.
I will come up with a detailed comment and post here. For now I’m still letting the write up sink in slowly.


[UPDATE]
I may veer off point but this response is one of both an intellectual and emotional nature.
Both sexes need to shoulder the burden of aiming for a better society as a whole. Humans especially in developed nations are taught to live independently as children, why does society then pressure us as adults to live with opposite gender spouses? I don't get it. I believe we should learn right from childhood to share, in expectation to deal with future marriages.
It is assumed on average [my opinion] that the male will learn the needed confidence to survive on his own in the world. His female counterpart is not as confidenct hence she needs a bigger backup from society. As such she gets reminded right from childhood that the world is difficult and she has to strive hard in order to scratch the surface of benefits a man-made-man-run world has to provide.

My only grouse is the fact a woman's enemy is never ending, both real and imagined. Give women equality and they will always push for more. If given the chance they will demand for artificial pe-nises and an ability to f-uck the male partner rougher than he does her.
I see the equality argument continuing into in the next hundred of years regardless of men bowing to meet every woman's needs or her eventually becoming the superior gender.

Women just love to view themselves as a VICTIM of whatever And the constant celebration of the girl child over the boy child, will in years put a stop to the VICTIMIZATION of girls-future women I suppose.

tracyfemmmm:
Trash. So many contradictory points of view.

please kindly point them out or forever hold your peace.

Thank you.

Grupo:


You wrote this to court the attention of the small girls on this forum right? SMH at the kinds of things people like you write on this forum

dont be silly.

Nice thread. I think it all started when the girl child was at extreme disadvantage. Which I honestly do not think is the norm in the average Nigerian home, recently.

My dad for example was the one that had to drop out from school and hustle, for his sisters to continue.

On that Girl Child Day, I asked my friend. "While this is a good cause, is the average girl child denied education?". Except in some really backward and misogynistic societies, do most enlightened parents actually deny their daughters education and all?"

There should be a balance in all. Focus too much on the girl, ignoring the boy. Same girl would be stuck with the deficient boy. The cycle continues.

Interestingly, men realized they needed the support of women and engineered them to provide that support. We women are behaving like we can do it alone which is why it seems progress is slow.

@ bukatyne -- You've spoken well, in my opinion.

'Ndi Igbo si na obu onye bu igu ka ewu na ESO'..when money talks all women including feminists bow..money is the second in command after God,money turns feminists into good house wife materials ,money turns religious leaders to puppets.wat else can I say..with all these trash written above all our men needs is money not a lazy and ungrateful specie of humans called women..who them EPP

I have been waiting for a thread like this for ages.

Grupo:


You wrote this to court the attention of the small girls on this forum right? SMH at the kind of things people like you write on this forum

Why are your replies on post always dumb? No hard feelings bro