"Boys will be boys" - violent play in schools

[Sparkly]

Battling the Boys: Educators Grapple with Violent Play

(snip)

While some educators prohibit this behavior, other educators and researchers claim that banishing violent play from classrooms can be harmful to boys. It's a debate entangled in gender issues, since nearly all early-childhood educators are women, and they may be less comfortable than their male counterparts with boys' impulses.

While this behavior has been around far longer than toy guns and superhero movies - boys appear to be hard-wired for more active and aggressive pursuits than girls - many adults see this aggressive play being fueled by the violence portrayed or reported in the media.

(snip)

"There is no such thing as violent play," Thompson told LiveScience. "Violence and aggression are intended to hurt somebody. Play is not intended to hurt somebody. Play, rougher in its themes and rougher physically, is a feature of boyhood in every society on Earth."

(snip)

"We don't want to condone violence, we don't want to risk it getting out of control, and we don't want to deal with parents' wrath," Logue said.

Much more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/battlingtheboyseducatorsgrapplewithviolentplay

The article goes on to say that two researchers link an escalation in violent play to 1984 FCC deregulation of advertising to children (revised somewhat by the Clinton administration).

I see this in my work with children, as well, but am not aware of an escalation. Growing up in a family with four girls and no boys, I was always mystified by boys' penchant for "rough-housing" as my mother called it, and found it annoying.

Little story: When I was about 6, a new family moved into the neighborhood; the dad was to be my father's work colleague. My parents had them over for dinner. They had a boy my age, so we were sent upstairs to play. The boy, Jimmy, kept trying to fight with me, physically. "Stop it! No rough housing!!" I yelled at him, but he continued. Finally he knocked me down to the ground and kept wrestling me, so I took his head in both my hands and slammed it against the leg of the sofa. "Waahhhh!!!" The moms came running upstairs and of course, mine was shocked, not to mention embarrassed. So I got in trouble for it and obviously never forgot this terrible injustice! :)

Anyway, I do try to dissuade boys from pretending to use guns, and from behavior that is dangerous and/or distracting to what we are supposed to be doing. (I don't think such boundaries harm them, and I think people are way too afraid of boys being "feminized.") Otherwise, it seems there is something in the nature of boys that causes them to want to play-fight the way puppies do. I don't get it, but I no longer think it's just about conditioning.

Your thoughts?

[AngryAmish]

1. This should be good.

[seabeyond]

2. violent play in schools... says the big boy to the little boy

doesnt belong in the schools. kids want to do it out of school, fine. parental choice. but in school..... no.

i have a kid that was smaller and a kid that is damn strong.... nope.

[ejpoeta]

4. i agree. doesn't belong in schools. problem though is parents who think teachers shouldn't

be telling their kids what to do.

[GreenPartyVoter]

56. Our school had to institute a no-tag and no-touch rule. With a Pre-K to 8 building the

size differences in the kids are huge.

[seabeyond]

83. from what kids say, they would bring dodge ball back, play a while, then parent would complain

so they would stop for a while. try it again, and inevitably a parent would complain.

hardly fault of school

and yes, size various is great

[lolly]

84. As a former kid

I HATED dodge ball.

I wish my parents--or somebody--could have rescued me from that hell.

[justanaverageguy]

132. I loved dodge ball!!!!

We used to play a game called "burn ball" too. You'd stand 10 or 15 feet from a wall, throw a tennis ball against the wall as hard as you can. If the ball came back and touched you without you catching it first, you had to run to the wall and touch the wall before another kid picked the ball up and hit you with it. If your timing was bad and you hit a kid that managed to get to the wall first, then you had to stand at the wall and the kid would get a free shot at you with the tennis ball. We would come home battered and bruised for sure!!! ahhhhh good times.....good times.

[surrealAmerican]

95. The problem with games like dodge ball is ...

... that when they are not adequately supervised, kids will use them as a cover for beating up on the kid they don't like. In a gym class with continuous supervision, it can work; at recess, there are usually too few adults to keep the game from turning into an attack on the unpopular kid.

[ejpoeta]

3. i don't allow play guns or any of that stuff here in my house. yet kids were making

guns out of legos and sticks etc. i tell them i don't like that kind of playing. i have three girls and was watching my sister's kids... she has one boy and two girls. i don't necessarily think it is just some innate thing.... i think they see it and want to mimic it. also, as a kid i remember playing with toy guns and stuff and survived ok. but i don't like guns even toy guns. i don't like wa ter guns either. gave the kids spray bottles one year to play with.

[bluestateguy]

5. Let me just put it this way

A lot of the games we played out on the schoolyard 25 years ago have surely been done in by political correctness today.

[name not needed]

37. And you'd probably be in weekly meetings with the school counselor if it went on today.

[qb]

6. I think rough play is a good outlet for aggression. My 10-year-old likes rough play,

violent movies & video games, but he doesn't have violent behavior. His usually docile older sister is more apt to strike out in anger and frustration than he is.

[seabeyond]

7. then to the rest of your post.... i was talking to my very boy 15 yr old yesterday about gender

role. actually was a conversation with hubby and two sons 12 and 15. we were taling about the subjugation of women today and how it has shifted from second class of the 50's taking care of the man to the entertaining of man today. same thing, different form.

none of my guys buy into it. we were talking about how conditioning roles lead us to that. i was saying, being in sports environment all my life, a footing of equality, let me grow up feeling human, not gender. and that i raised the boys not per gender but as humans. it was that simple. so they see beyond the controlled roles

as far as wrestling? i have yet to meet a child, be it girl or boy, that did not enjoy wrestling. i would often get on floor and wrestle with my boys. and when nieces were around, they were right in it.

all kids liked playing gun, war ect.... no gender assigned. my rule in house, once i lefted the no gun rule, was never, never never point at me or gun goes in trash.

odd rule, but there are reasons and kids adhered to.

[Sparkly]

14. Wrestling -- not me! (As young Jimmy found out...!!)

My sisters and I, when REALLY furious, dog-paddled our hands at each other while looking away.

Didn't like wrestling; didn't understand why boys made that universal "dszch" sound with their dump trucks; asked them why they thought there was any buried treasure anywhere in the sandbox; and generally rolled my eyes at them. Still do, quite often. ;)

[seabeyond]

23. didnt you say you had ALL sisters? what was expected?

having had two older brothers just a year and two years different, i was allowed to play all the treasure hunt (not to mention a creative mom that loved inspiring those games) dump truck and the rest.

where was your experience with it at a young age, where it was as acceptable for a girl to do as a boy? were you taught to roll your eyes at "boy" play setting strong guide lines for girl play?

conditioning.

or maybe not you.

this is why it is so important to me to raise kids as human, not gender, and then what ever is within gets to come out instead of societal conditionings of who they are.

[Sparkly]

40. Yes, all sisters.

Boys were in the neighborhood, at pre-school ("nursery school"), then in public school.

I climbed trees and played ball games, but wasn't interested in dump trucks, or fighting.

You're right, though - I'm sure being raised with only girls had a lot to do with my puzzlement at boys' behaviors!

[seabeyond]

46. i call the fighting.... bullshit. my brothers, a year apart, fought all the time. my boys

almost never fight. the few times, when they were little, i jumped in the middle and threw one one direction and the other the other direction. much bigger..... the only thing that sets me off is if/when the boys fight. i wont have it. they rarely, rarely fight and does not go far if they do.

i hate it

it is not something that has to be between siblings. and boys dont get in fights in school. and they are not chicken. they always stand up for underdog, without fighting. so i call on all that. i have nieces that fight ALL the time. we sit in amazement when we visit the girls and watch them fight over everything, all the time.

it is what is allowed in the home. we dont want it. we dont live it. it isnt gender, it is environment one is willing to allow in the home or teach the child.

jsut to clear up the fighting crap, lol.

[yella_dawg]

8. I grew up when TV was hardly ubiquitous and movies were a rare treat.

We beat the shit out of each other pretty much constantly. We pushed, hit, dragged, stomped, and whatever else, pretty much as a normal, ongoing activity, pretty much anytime and anyplace where boys congregated. We seem to have turned out okay, for the most part.

[Jim__]

9. I agree that "boys will be boys."

I think boys do tend toward "rough housing." The world is a rough place, and childhood prepares us for the world. The "gun" part of it is imitating what is considered manly in our society.

Is there a similar tendency for "girls to be girls"? Are girls naturally more "cliquish" than boys? It seems to me that girls have a stronger tendency to ostracize someone than boys do.

I don't think it's at all surprising that children have a tendency to practice actions that they will need to be able to carry out in adulthood. Of course, a number of these tendencies are no longer appropriate in modern society.

[uncommon]

15. How can we know if it is inherent or learned though --

certainly self-preservation is natural, but the ways in which boys v. girls do it seems more likely to be socially conditioned than innate.

This is what bothers me - we shouldn't reward people for following their arbitrary social conditioning - we should be changing it.

[seabeyond]

21. i have seen about every little girl stand outside the circle of wrestling in hesitation. why?

cause they are never invited. they dont know how. i had one niece jump in. i had one niece stand on the outside. she wanted to. you could see. i was so proud of hubby recognizing, and bring her in. teaching her, and protecting her. insuring she didnt get hurt, and she had fun. every since those kids wanted to wrestle. but where was the opportunity with our precieved roles.

another consideration. boys dont get the cuddling and touching, the petting and caressing.... why? cause they are boys. but we ALL need the touching and connection. and boys use the wrestling to get what we naturally give our girls. many homes use the wrestling as the physical connection time

and so much more

[Jim__]

27. The way we change arbitrary social conditioning is by changing society.

I think it is far safer to change the way we, as adults, act and in that way change children's conditioning than to try to change society by beginning with the re-conditioning of children.

[RKP5637]

10. And some grow up to incite and wage war on others. Under the surface of humans is

violence, part of the survival of the fittest. Not that I condone it, it's just what I see going on... IMO it's nothing new. One positive thing is more are realizing (I think) that it can get seriously out of hand. There needs to be a balance point.

[LWolf]

11. There is a difference between "violent" play and

"active" play. Having raised two sons, and currently watching a grandson grow up, and taught young people for 27 years, I can say that, in my experience, while not universally true, boys tend to be more physically aggressive than girls overall.

That aggression is a kind of physical energy. My grandson is a case in point. From the time he could toddle, he LOVED to fall down. He fell on purpose. At the age of 4, he regularly THREW himself on the ground. It seemed like hard physical contact released some sort of tension or excess energy better than just running or climbing. He did a lot of running and climbing, as well. When he was six he scaled one of my fir trees beyond the point any of our ladders, or heavier adults, could reach him and laughed at us as we called for him to come down. We stood under the tree, watching with held breath, as he easily scampered back down to us.

He also loved, and loves, to hit things with sticks. It took a few years of conditioning to get him to leave the landscaping alone. He would find a stick and run around "sword fighting" with the trees and shrubs.

He likes crashes. He likes to make things fall down.

Yet he is gentle and tender with those smaller than he, and with creatures of all kinds except for some bugs.

I've always thought of aggressive play more as a release of tension than a love of violence. Is there a biological reason why more boys than girls seem to have more aggressive energy?

My boys, and my grandson, were not raised with a cultural expectation that boys behaved in certain ways. That didn't stop them from reflecting the stereotype of the active boy.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. What I've noticed over the years is that if you put a group of

girls together and a group of boys together without anything else to do, the girls will whisper and giggle, and the boys will start punching each other's ribs.

I have two younger brothers, born 18 months apart. As we were growing up, it seemed that no day was complete without the two of them fighting at least once.

[JHB]

12. It seems to me to be less a matter of good/bad but rather one of managment...

...clearly setting rules as to where "rough-housing" is not appropriate at all, and where it is allowable to make sure it doens't get out of hand (i.e., doesn't blur the line with bullying, doesn't turn into out-of-control fights, no ganging up on someone, etc. And, of course, leaving alone someone who doesn't want to play that way.).

Of course, we're talking about kids here, so the best plans tend not to survive contact...

[uncommon]

13. A small amount of rough housing is good for ALL kids, not just boys.

However, pushing boys into or allowing excessive rough play just reinforces that their bad behavior is acceptable, which it isn't in a civilized society.

[msongs]

17. evidently there is no such thing as a civlized society then nt

[uncommon]

25. We claim to live in one - therefore we should teach our children accordingly.

[seabeyond]

26. some of us are actually able to live it in our own personal environment.

i have lived in that environment all my life. i expect no less. and have received no less.

[GreenPartyVoter]

54. I'm female. I used to love to roughhouse on the floor with my dad and little brother. I did it

with my kids too, and even now that they are middle schoolers once in a while we still have little pillow fights. :)

[closeupready]

118. I played with Barbies as a kid. Rough play with girls would be okay with you?

?

[MineralMan]

16. It's an interesting question.

Not all boys are rough-housers, though. Remembering my own childhood, I was extremely physically active, but never aggressive toward others. And, I don't remember anyone trying to pick fights. We climbed trees, and did many dangerous things, but my friends and I never fought with each other. There were other boys, though, who did.

I'm not sure it's an across the entire spectrum kind of thing. Some boys also turn out to be athletes who love contact sports, while others engage in other activities. Individual differences seem to come into play in this, as well as in other things. There's a risk of stereotyping here, I think.

[LeFleur1]

18. NO ROUGH HOUSING AT SCHOOL

That should absolutely be OUT. If parents think it's fine to have a violent rough housing clod for a kid, let them do it in their own backyard against those who their parents think should be 'rough housed' against.

As for the threat of 'feminizing' boys...I'd rather have a feminized boy who didn't feel he had to hit, punch, kick and shoot to be a man than a boy who drags a girl into the woods and chokes her to death while 'rough housing'.

What is to become of us?

[Codeine]

28. We didn't really fight or wrestle much as kids,

but DAMN did we play "war" a lot -- toy guns, dirt clods, BB guns, rocks, whatever was handy. We all turned out peaceful and fine.

[seabeyond]

29. this was a no toy gun house until son was 4'ish. why did i allow?

the height of fear, war, 911, anger in this community thru religion. and i felt the kids needed it to work it out. we had rules and perimeters. odd reason to allow guns. then, i saw they play in it. just dont aim at me, by mistake or in play. i didn't like the feel.

now i see it wasnt a big deal. we have always used guns as respect and responsibility

[Dappleganger]

44. How we did guns.

Within the context of our home, we allowed toy guns as long it was a part of the kids (we have 2 boys and 2 girls) were defending someone. We also only allowed relic replicas, if that makes any sense. Now we have a Ruger .22 rifle and a .22 pistol for target practice, and the only context of using those is trying to shoot the bullseye target...no more and no less. Surprisingly, our 14 yr. old daughter really loves to target shoot (she was resistant at first, then saw how much fun I have).

As for "rough housing", we allow it as long as it's outside and the sides are mostly even. Schools have taken away so much recess that it's hard on little guys in particular who need to get rid of those ants in the pants throughout the day.

[MineralMan]

31. Lucky you didn't put your eye out, then.

Got my Daisy when I was 9. We did have BB-gun wars. Stung a bit if you got hit on bare skin, but we were usually far enough away from each other that any hit was pretty rare, and the BB was just barely moving. Dirt clods wars hurt, though, and Mom always knew what you'd been up to from the crap in your hair. Sometimes she even made you take a bath, for Jebus' sake! That was punishment enough to end that type of warfare.

[Codeine]

34. Eventually one of us did get hurt,

but that was when we had graduated to black-powder pipe bombs. Ahh, the life of a latchkey kid in the 80s! :rofl:

[MineralMan]

36. Imagine what free-range boys in a small town in the 50's got up

to. We didn't fight each other; we were too busy thinking up ways to destroy things. Our parents pretty much turned us out the door in the morning, fed us at lunch, then didn't want to see us again until supper time. We were glad to oblige.

[zipplewrath]

20. Different concepts being grouped together

There are alot of different issues stumbling over each other in that article. I'm worried about people throwing around and expression like "violent play". I grew up in a house of 5 boys, and a neighborhood of many more. We played a wide variety of games that involved ALOT of physical contact. I wouldn't categorize any of it as "violence". Many of them had awful sounding names such as "firing squad". There were snowball fights and games of "king of the hill". My brothers and I "wrestled" regularly.

But all these games had social conventions or "rules". No blood, no broken bones, faces were almost completely off limits. They were games of physical dominance for sure in which strength was often important. But so was "arm wrestling" or "thumb wrestling". There was a hand slapping game which was more about speed than strength. But there was no more "violence" to any of this than there is in break dancing. Could it turn into violent conflicts? Sure, fights break out in all manner of situations. Fights can break out over a game of Monopoly. But predominately they were "friendly" interactions and the "rules" were often designed to ensure an equity of the contest.

Parents and educators assuredly have to ensure that the games aren't used for bullying of individuals or groups. But the gods to honest truth is that there was far more violence and bullying in the gym class, in games orchestrated by the teachers, than anything I experience out on the playground. The cruelest thing I experienced on the playground was merely the god awful experience of "choosing sides". I have nothing but positive memories of snowball fights, "tag" football games, king of the hill, firing squad, dodge ball, red rover, and just plain "wrastlin'". Gym class, organized basketball, and little league baseball on the other hand were often angst driven expriences forced upon us by adults.

[Sparkly]

41. Sounds sane

and sounds like you weren't playing that way IN school.

I have to say though, I HATED dodge ball and red rover!! I have awful memories of those! :)

[zipplewrath]

42. Dodge ball

School/teacher run dodge ball was a nightmare. It was organized bullying. Kids who weren't "friends" or in the same social structures were thrown together. People ganged up on each other, kids who didn't want to participate were coerced into the game. Bad news all around. A dozen kids who CHOSE to play together can have a "ball". On more than one occasion I'd just "walk away" from a game because all my close friends were "out" and I wasn't interested in continuing. I just found red rover stupid personally. But if girls were involved.... well.... I could make exceptions.

[Sparkly]

45. It hurt, physically!

Some kids hurled that ball so hard, and I was a scrawny little kid. Same with red rover -- it hurt! -- but it was never cool to say so.

With boys, I did like the game of "war" sometimes called "capture the flag," where each side has territories, etc. I liked being captured by the boys. ("Oh help help... Now I suppose you'll have to tie me up, right?") ;)

[zipplewrath]

53. You were the one

You were the ones all the mothers warned their boys about weren't you? :9

[seabeyond]

50. i loved those two games, lol. nt

[JerseygirlCT]

116. My younger one has yet to join a sports team

We have a neighborhood full of kids his age, and if the weather is nice, they're all outside, making up games as they go. This summer saw a running kickball tournament ("we're coming up on the all-star break, Mom!") that has attracted not only our kids, but kids from blocks away. It's a riot.

They don't need formal rules; they agree on them among themselves. I think they get more from these impromtu games and play than the more formal, and as you say, adult-driven sports.

(Not that I'm averse to him joining a team when he wants to - I'm just not going to be the one to push it on him).

[bbdad]

120. I hear you about gym class;

in other words, the mandatory sports-centered P.E. that was imposed upon all students of the "baby boom" generation, including the nonathletic students who had no interest in sports (such as myself). All in the name (hypocritically) of physical fitness. (My point of view? I'm a middle-aged man who's been working with a personal trainer on a bodybuilding program for over two years. "bb" stands for "bodybuilder.")

I never so much as even heard the words "exercise program" or "bodybuilding" because these "physical education" classes were only about sports, and frequently didn't even provide any instruction as to how any of the games were played. The assumption seems to have been made that all boys were athletes.

These classes were hellish for boys who were physically weak (as I was when I was a boy) or overweight. I'm talking institutionalized bullying. An online friend of mine who resides in the UK related how terrible the British equivalent of mandatory sports-centered P.E. was for him as a nonathletic boy who had a scrawny build. Again, no exercise or bodybuilding programs were provided. His P.E. class once was divided into two opposing teams for a game of cricket. Mind you, he was forced to participate in this game, knowing all the while that he could not play cricket very well. When his team lost, he was blamed for their defeat. So, after the game one of his teammates smashed his face with a cricket bat and broke his nose. Instead of being sent to juvenile detention (if the British have such an institution), he was merely suspended for a few days. When he returned to school, he showed how remorseful he was by shoving my friend into a locker. (And they say sports build character?) I have two other friends in this country who were forced to take P.E., even though they were physically handicapped. They were bullied mercilessly by athlete classmates, and none of the coaches cared.

What's hilarious is that today I get more exercise in a single workout session than I ever did in an entire YEAR of mandatory P.E. I love working out at my health club. The difference between my boyhood mandatory P.E. experience and my health club experience today is as great as night and day. Lately there has been a movement to reform mandatory P.E. by providing genuine physical fitness classes for ALL students, including nonathletes. PE4LIfe is an excellent innovative program, which actually reduced bullying in a school district between "jocks" and "preppies." I've noticed that nonathletic boys who had to endure the sports-centered P.E. with its attendant humiliations and bullying were actually embittered and discouraged from becoming physically active. So, when I hear people who profess a concern for nonathletic children being physically unfit say that they should be forced to participate in sports (instead of providing programs like PE4Life), appalled at their ignorance, I feel like screaming.

So, I strayed from the topic a little bit. Oh, well ...

[seabeyond]

125. but the argument goes, that boy smashing the other boy in the face, is just being a boy.

the argument doesnt play well.

[bbdad]

133. You're right.

The fact remains that the other boy committed a CRIME; namely, assault. If someone walked up to you on a street and smashed your face with a baseball bat and broke your nose, you'd see him in court. But since this happened in a "physical education" class and since the assailant was athletic and the victim was a nonathletic kid, it didn't matter.

[bobbolink]

22. "Play, rougher in its themes and rougher physically, is a feature of boyhood in every society on

Earth". WRONG.

We are such an ego-centric society that we choose to believe that our behavior is always "human nature". It is NOT.

There ARE cultures that are NOT violent, and don't teach their boy children violence. Admittedly, aas we take over more and more of the world, we are changing that dynamic, but it doesn't mean that it is "human nature". It means that we are having undue influence and doing damage.

[Codeine]

30. Which culture features young boys that do not roughhouse? nt

[MineralMan]

32. Really? Can you name a couple of such cultures? I'm not aware

of them.

[bobbolink]

35. I thought I did. The Senoi is one.

When I am with my Indian friends, I don't see the boys acting like this.

[Codeine]

38. The Senoi? They are a misrepresented people.

Much of the popular view of their culture is based on nonsense dreamed up by one writer, none of which was ever substantiated.

By "Indian" do you mean Native American? Because I saw plenty of young native boys wrasslin' with the best of them as a kid in Oklahoma.

[MineralMan]

39. I looked around a bit, and what I found supports what you are

saying. There was a lot of bad anthropology going on back then. Much of it has been discredited. I found multiple arguments against Stewart's description of these people. I don't have time to fully research it, but it's not at all clear that they fit the criteria given by the other poster.

[chrisa]

24. Haha. I remember when I was like 11,

I kept tackling this younger kid at baseball practice, and he started crying and told his mom. I was dumbfounded, because I thought we were just playing, and I couldn't understand why he was sad.

I think it has to do with how you're raised, but biology also has to do with it.

[zipplewrath]

49. To some extent it is a "learned" behavior

I met my wife's son when he was 15. We hit it off well enough, but he was raised with himself, his sister, and his mother most of his life. Between that and being a bit of a book worm, he hadn't had much rough housing up until then. I was 28, he was 15, and we started rough housing. Nothing big, mostly pushing and shoving, the odd elbow here and there. Over the period of several months it slowly escalated. Bruises started to happen, rug burns, these kinds of things. His mother would complain, and on more than one occasion I could see a bit of confusion in his eyes. So when my older brother came for a visit, I let the son see us in action. Quite honestly I mentioned something about it to my brother, and so there was no small amount of intention in our subsequent actions. We started wrestling, all around the inside and outside of the house. And it was "adult" scale brotherly wrestling, many bruises, alot of dirt, and some carpet burns ensue. If you've never seen two "adult" brothers wrestle, it looks worse than it is. It really is more of a physical dominance thing, than anything about inflicting pain. Pain is just a "collateral damage" aspect to it all. If you ever do "pin" a brother, you won't "hold" it long, you'll attempt to shift their position to enact a new physical dominance and the most likely out come is he'll "escape" during the switch. Occasionally you'll declare victory, stand and walk away, and they'll come a runnin' for "round 2".

So the son sees all this and quickly "learns". From then on, not only was there no "hurt feelings" but he was a more than willing instigator, often to my own detriment (he was strong enough and had much better stamina than I). It is learned, but what is learned is the meaning of it all, and what the intent is. And in none of it is anything about violence. Quite the opposite, to expose oneself willingly to such actions, one is developing a sense of trust, because in many moments you CAN hurt them quite badly if you wanted, but you don't.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. Man, what a bunch of wimps.

[bbdad]

121. What's your definition of "wimp"?

[mkultra]

43. i think women should always decide whats best for boys and men

right fellas?

[seabeyond]

47. ya, cause it isnt like men have not been controllling and restricting from female, forever.... are

you suggesting a mother is not capable of parenting her son. then equally a father cannot be a parent to his daughter.

sounds like a mixed up world when they child has dominence over the parent

[mkultra]

58. no wonder you are always upset

you are able to make amazing leaps in logic. Well done superwoman. Watch, ill use the same idiotic methods:

I guess you think women should be allowed to control men now out of revenge?

[seabeyond]

59. upset? ALWAYS upset? assume much.

you are clueless yet assume i am upset, and ALWAYS upset. how does that work?

and no


i have never desired to own anothers power. it is theirs, as mine is my own.

again

another assumption

you made a snide snarky comment yet dont want anyone to respond. it was a stupid comment. aout the same as wanting to control as pay back

[mkultra]

66. sounds like we agree then

that sometimes, women know best what girls need to become women and men know whats best for boys to become men. I love agreement. :)

[seabeyond]

67. and sometimes women are as clueless as sometimes men are.

it is nice to agree.

it always works for me.

[mkultra]

112. :)

[TexasObserver]

48. Why can't little boys be more like little girls?!

Boys will be boys, and attempting to train the "boy" out of them and make them behave like good little girls is one place modern education has gone off the rails.

[JerseygirlCT]

63. What is good little girl behavior?

And what does "boys will be boys" mean to you?

My boys are kind and thoughtful, and not given to handling their emotions through violent behavior. They learned early to "use their words" as the daycare provider would say.

My son will happily spend all day, running around, playing games, competing with his friends. Friends who come in both genders, btw. The only real difference in the behavior of the boys and the girls is some cattiness that creeps into the girls when they get into a bad combination of personalities. The boys don't know what hits them then.

Otherwise, mine are happy, friendly, talented people, who will be a plus for society without ever having the need to hurt someone to do it.

[seabeyond]

68. jersey... agree totally. but you know, that cattiness is allowed thru the very societal

conditioning as this so called, boys must have violent play baloney.

i ahve brothers that physically fought always. they hate each other as adults. my husband and his older brother did too. he hates older brother cause he was always the one that got it.

my boys get along and like each other

hm.... a tough one on what works

nephews.... a household of three males pumping chest and fighting. has just gotten to ugly

and all those males that reduced it to fighting all say, just being boys.

[TexasObserver]

69. Ask the teachers and administrators who think "good little girl behavior" is the ideal.

Ask those teachers and administrators who want to medicate boys to make them less active.


"Boys will be boys" means that boys do not typically behave as little girls, no matter how much their mother or teacher may want them to do so. It means they will be more physical, they will be given to more physical play, and will embrace the conflict of play fighting more than girls. It means they will often be more rambunctious. Obviously, some little boys are more docile than the norm, and parenting probably plays a major role in that.

Many parents of young children think they've figured it out. Wait until the boys make it through middle school, high school, and college, and until they've become a successful adult before pronouncing them wonderful. My fully grown, self sufficient children are "happy, friendly, talented people, who (are) a plus for society without ever having the need to hurt someone to do it."

[seabeyond]

71. i think you sell girls short. in elementary school, i had a group of girls that anticipated the

ringing of the bell for recess to get the tether ball or four square court or jump rope or monkey bars, whatever our favorite was at the time. every. single. recess.

this is that very conditioning that we are talking about. girls are as active as boys. but our society tells us girls sit dociley by while the boys play.

how do you think all us women, that were very much active in our youth feel, being told by men, that we are not to be active, that we were not active or as active, that really, we dont know what we are talking about and really we are not as active as any given boy.

[JerseygirlCT]

78. Well, one is an adult

The other in middle school.

Not a violent bone in their bodies, and like their parents (modelling their dad is important, too) they don't problem-solve with their fists.

Boys *are* often more active, though I think part of that is early conditioning, too. In a couple of generations between my childhood and that of my younger son, I see a huge difference in how girls behave. Now they're fully expected to be athletic and competitive. It's not unfeminine behavior.

Likewise, boys who are raised to be fighters will more often than not be fighters. Boys who are told that violence is fun will - no surprise - like it.

Rough and tumble is one thing. And some kids - male or female - are more physically active. (One of mine is, one isn't). But I do not believe boys are chromosomally programmed to be violent.

[HEyHEY]

88. Absolutely correct it is bigoted as far as I'm concerned

[Kaleva]

51. I recall the recesses back in the 60's being pretty rough and sometimes bloody.

The older boys were even rougher as they played Cowboys & Indiand and Army with real guns.

[Sparkly]

52. With real guns?!?

[GreenPartyVoter]

55. I imagine cap guns as opposed to making a gun with your hand?

[Kaleva]

57. 22 rifles.

[Codeine]

85. I was given my own .22 rifle at eight years old.

Life in rural America just a few decades back would probably make half of DU faint dead away! :D

[Art_from_Ark]

92. Wow, where did you go to school?

I went to school in Smalltown, Arkansas in the '60s and there's no way they would have let us bring even fake guns to school. Not even cap guns. And the only "rough and bloody" recess play that I remember was in 1966 or 67, when a group of 7 boys decided to play "Super Bowl" by getting in a "dogpile" on the playground. A teacher thought they were fighting and all 7 were taken out in the hall and paddled. Even when they explained that were just playing "Super Bowl", the paddlings were still justified on the grounds that "someone could have gotten hurt". One reason why I usually hung around with the girls in those days.

[Gaedel]

98. In high school in the 50s

I don't know why, but for some reason a big chunk of the guys (including moi) got into a "thing" where we wore sport coats with shirt and tie to school with cap guns in shoulder holsters and spent the between classes in the halls gunning each other down. It lasted about three weeks before we went on to some other craze like having a yo-yo in our pocket at all times and constantly using it in the halls between classes. Fortunately, that school had a minimum of anal retentive teachers and administrators and we just had a lot of silly fun with nobody being hurt and nothing in the school broken.

[lumberjack_jeff]

60. "Play is not intended to hurt somebody"

Obviously spoken by someone who's never played committed an act of football.

There is something going very badly wrong regarding the education of boys, but I think turning normal boy behavior into a pathology is a big part of it.

[JerseygirlCT]

65. Who decides what's normal?

What's "normal" and how is that determined?

The boys who are raised to shoot guns and play football? To handle problems with raised voices or physical violence?

I think you confuse "normal" with an old stereotype that has long lost its usefulness to society.

[lumberjack_jeff]

72. A bunch of female teachers. n/t

[JerseygirlCT]

79. Perhaps

But I think that lets parents off the hook. And society at large. Who taught those teachers and parents?

We just need time to break out of the stereotypes, I think. Men who feel less manly if their sons aren't interested in football. Women who teach their daughters to be quiet and submissive, so they'll be attractive to boys... It all still goes on, and it's just going to take enough people who don't buy into all that to change it.

(I still get grief from some people about keeping my own name. And my husband can't make cookies without someone telling him to thank his wife for them. It's nuts.)

[bbdad]

122. "Men who feel less manly if their sons aren't interested in football ...?

Less manly? Let's see, now ... One of the most courageous men I've ever read about was the Swedish humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg, who was one of the greatest heroes of World War II (even though, ironically enough, as a citizen of a neutral country, he wasn't even a soldier). Wallenberg could speak at least five languages fluently. As a foreign student he earned a degree in architecture at the University of Ann Arbor in the state of Michigan. (Their Architecture Department was and still is, I assume, academically rigorous.) So, Wallenberg was a nerd!

When war had broken out, Wallenberg was running an import-export business with a Hungarian Jew, who informed him of reports of the worsening situation of the Jews in Hungary. Born to a wealthy and influential family, Wallenberg prevailed upon Swedish government officials to send him to Budapest under diplomatic cover to carry out rescue operations to save people's lives. Surviving several assassination attempts, Wallenberg repeatedly put his life on the line for many innocent people whose lives were threatened, as he dealt with German Nazis and their Hungarian fascist accomplices (the brutal Arrow Cross movement). He saved the lives of more than 10,000 Jews. Actually, many more than that.

As if his heroism during the war weren't enough, when the Red Army drove the Germans out of Hungary, Wallenberg and his chauffeur (a Jewish coal miner whose life Wallenberg had saved) were abducted by agents of Stalin's brutal secret police to a notorious prison in Moscow, where the two men disappeared into the Soviet gulag (where both of them must have died by now). According to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Wallenberg once was brought before the Soviet Foreign Minister, who offered release from the gulag in return for publicly denouncing the West. Remaining true to his principles (in spite of the fact that his government had forgotten him), Wallenberg refused the offer and returned to the gulag. The date of his assumed death is disputed.

In 1981 Wallenberg became only the third foreigner in the history of this country to be granted honorary American citizenship. The Congressman who introduced the bill to give him citizenship was the late Tom Lantos (Democrat of California), who had immigrated to this country after WWII. He was among the many Hungarian Jews whose lives Wallenberg had saved.

This courageous and compassionate man, according to his half-sister, "detested competitive team sports." No, I'm not saying that there is any virtue in not liking sports; but I am saying that those who use sports as a (phony) yardstick of masculinity, especially for the purpose of denigrating nonathletic boys (which is a very common practice in our society, whether you're willing to admit it or not), are dead wrong. So, Wallenberg was "unmanly" just because he didn't like sports? You get my point.

[bbdad]

123. Just for the purpose of providing information,

Wallenberg's rescue operations were funded in part by the government of the United States.

[JerseygirlCT]

61. Mother of two boys here

Physical is different from rough.

Hurting someone is not fun, is not a game, isn't something as you say, to be called "play".

No guns, no weapons, even on toys. No violent video games.

Running, playing ball, climbing, screaming outside? You bet.

My boys are sweet and kind. They learned to walk away when someone wanted to be violent or hurtful. Does that make them less than sufficiently masculine? I'm sure some think so. I think it makes them far more likely to be terrific parents and people.

(And for what it's worth, the girls in the neighborhood are just as likely as the boys to want to get physical... No real difference in their outside play. Inside, the girls are a bit more advanced for their age, but it shows in some iffy ways - being mean and deciding who is ok and not seem to seep into their behavior in the tween years. The girls have made the boys cry far more often than the other way around!)

[EFerrari]

70. Agree. Physical doesn't have to be violent.

My husband and the two boys used to have contests all the time but they were always laughing. It wasn't about hurting anyone.

On the other hand, since I wouldn't let them buy toy weapons, they made every one imaginable from Leggos. lol

[Odin2005]

62. Allowing violent behavior just encourages it.

[JerseygirlCT]

64. Yup

I don't equate violent with fun, and I haven't taught my kids to do that.

Imagine if we had a whole generation that didn't? Wonder what impact that might have on our society?

[Occulus]

76. We wouldn't end up with great video games like Bioshock or Dead Space.

What can I do with this one, Aphrodite? She won't! Stay! Still! I want to make them beautiful, but they always TURN OUT WRONG!!!

That one.... too ffffat! This one.... too tall! This one.... too symmetrical! And now...

Oh look, Goddess..... An intruder! He is ugly!

Ugly! UGLY! UGLLLYYYYYY!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkieBQv_0H8

"Entering zero gravity."

RRUUUAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHyPEuclZq8

:D

They're each a work of art unto themselves, too... especially Bioshock. An art deco metropolis the size of Manhattan at the bottom of the Atlantic filled with insane genetic mutants? Yes, please.

Dead Space is just scary as all hell, with several jump-out-of-your-seat scares. Loved it.

[Odin2005]

96. Bioshock is an awesome game, but it's not for 8-year-olds.

[JerseygirlCT]

105. It always annoys me

that movies can have a few four-letter anglo-saxon words and get an R rating. Or show a bit of lovemaking, or even the human body.

But somehow it's just dandy for kids to experience all sorts of violence in a PG-13 movie.

We've got some weird ideas about what's ok for kids.

[Odin2005]

106. Yup.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

103. Oh, the impact is just horrible. Why won't somebody think of the children?

[HEyHEY]

89. No it doesn't

Allowing actual violence does. Trying to engineer the natural behaviour of children is FUCKED UP.

[Odin2005]

97. We are probably using different definitions of "violence" here.

In actual kid play "fighting" kids are not supposed to get hurt, that's why it's PLAY. If the kids start hurting each other something is wrong. When I was little I would pretend to be a knight or wizard and do role-play "fighting", nobody was to actually HURT another.

[aikoaiko]

73. As long as rough play is mutally assented to, then it shouldn't be a problem

When I was a boy, we loved to beat each other until someone said, "uncle".

[AnnetteJacobs]

74. K&R

:kick:

[Mendocino]

75. Oh boys will be boys

and the world keeps having wars. Hmmm

[HEyHEY]

90. That has fuck all to do with anything. But thanks for blaming men again

Forget about Helen of Troy, Isabella of Spain, Margeret Thatcher and all the other women who at the helm of a country during wartime.

[Mendocino]

94. You're Welcome.

[Mendocino]

111. Oh I almost forgot ,

Helen of Troy is a mythical character. Daughter of Zeus

[Withywindle]

77. I keep getting tripped up on a definition of "violence."

I tend to think of "violence" as a nonconsensual activity where pain or damage or taking something away from someone else is the object. Bullying of smaller kids; ridiculing the "different" kids; ganging up on someone; those things are on the spectrum of violence that, at its far end, also includes hate crimes, rape, and murder.

But consensual rough play that's really enjoyed by everyone involved, where the "sides" are sort of equal and no one's getting degraded or humiliated or robbed? Not in the same category. Even if bruises and bloody noses ensue, I have trouble calling it "violent."

Also, I realize that there is some hard-wiring in gender, but I really REALLY hate gender essentialism. Male and female people have as much individual variance WITHIN the group as between the two groups. There are plenty of rowdy tomboy girls and quiet bookish boys--both of whom are likely to feel ostracized and frustrated if their individual personalities aren't recognized or taken into account.

[Posteritatis]

80. A school in my town tried to define "violence" as "any physical contact period" awhile back

Someone fell down, someone else helped them up, the principal suspended them both for fighting. So on and so forth through a third or so of the student body. It was ridiculous.

[Withywindle]

81. Yeah, I think that's sick and twisted.

Some adults really, really want to see the worst in kids and assign them evil motives that MUST be repressed, no matter what the situation.

[Posteritatis]

82. Pretty much. Students' reaction was beautiful though..

After one semester of it, in which one third of the students were suspended at least once, they decided they'd had enough. So one day after the principal resumes his power trip, the entire remaining student body just walks, followed shortly after by another nearby school, and they stayed out until the school agreed to redo the disciplinary policy. These were seventh through ninth graders!

The principal got reassigned to some broom closet someplace, too.

Every other year or so another school around here tries to implement the same sort of ridiculous policy, but to this day they get pretty ugly reactions from the community, rarely last, and never go as far as that first one did.

[AzNick]

86. Being bullied turned me into an angry youth... just saying...

I was the polite, well-groomed kid, the one who seemed to have a future, therefore I got beat up by the kids who probably lived in a violent home, failed at school and had to redo the same grades several times.

Over the years I ended up sending one to the hospital, as I turned into someone else.

I became so angry and so violent that they had to kick me out of school and I spent 2 years in a place where you don't want to send young kids.

I had beaten one of my ex-bullies when I realized I had grown into a stronger and bigger kid. It looked like I was the bully. Indeed, I was. Every bully is a victim turning the table on someone else.

In that new place, I became even more violent. I could tell stories... Found out I should not.

As a young adult I had to start playing rugby to get it out of my system and spent some time wearing a uniform.

Now 40 some, I am still struggling with my demons, and if I don't work out regularly, I may be on edge.

I swear, my life would have been much different and for the better had the school staff paid more attention and taken care of these bullies early on.

[HEyHEY]

91. Yeah, but that's bullying, this is playing.

[JerseygirlCT]

108. Sometimes it depends on the perspective

The bully may honestly feel it's just playing, while the person on the receiving end doesn't think it's so much fun.

[HEyHEY]

87. I think discouraging young boys from their natural behaviour is disgusting and discriminatory

When I grew up we used to play wrestle all the time. There's nothing wrong with it, I haven't punched anyone since I was 17 and that was in self-defense. Asking boys to not rough--house is contrary to their nature and hence their natural development. This kind of play is part of their healthy mental development, it gives them confidence, stimulation and triggers competitive urges, which all men have and need to survive no matter what some fucking hippie says.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of young boys being sacrificed in our society. In Canadian schools it's proven that the style of teaching is detrimental to boys and they can't learn as well... but that's never changed.... cause fuck them, they're boys. No one fights for their rights. And it's really the fault of men.

If it was a reverse situation, women would stand up for little girls. But men don't stand up for little boys.

[RandomThoughts]

93. If Men would not stand up for boys, those men should not exist.

That simply is not true. I think many adults of both genders stand up for children of both genders.

[HEyHEY]

109. I think young boys are shit on way more than young girls in society.

In our society anyway and I don't think there's enough people looking out for their interests. It's actually really sad. People just expect boys to be boys and go about their business.

[JerseygirlCT]

113. That's part of the problem

Boys will be boys is meaningless. Individual boys are quite different in their behavior and desires.

When all people are treated as individuals and not as some sort of gender-defined ideal, we'll all be in better shape.

And no, boys are not treated more poorly than girls. You're just seeing it from one perspective.

[bbdad]

124. Agreed!

Men are a rather diverse group -- which shouldn't surprise anyone, considering that we're roughly half of the human race. But boys are expected to put on a strait jacket of mindless stereotypes, as defined by authoritative fonts of wisdom such as Esquire Magazine, which in a particular issue in 1969 or 1970 featured a cartoon picture of the New York Jets quarterback and fine role model named Joe Willie Namath escorting a little old lady across the street while dressed in a Superman costume, nonetheless. The actual reality was a bit different. During the summer of 1970, on The Late Show with Johnny Carson, I heard Namath announce to the entire world that "Women are only good for sex," with not a single word of protest from the audience. I must say that as the father of two daughters, I really do appreciate that comment today (sarcasm definitely intended). I liked the immediate response of my mother, who watched this illuminating program on TV: "Why, he's not even good-looking."

[seabeyond]

127. +1. nt

[JerseygirlCT]

136. Welcome to DU!

and yes, exactly.

I don't want my sons to grow up to be like that, that's for sure!

[bbdad]

142. Thank you!

[DatManFromNawlins]

99. Virtually every mammalian species on the planet roughhouses as youngsters

Do you really expect children to be any different?

[Odin2005]

107. Physical does not equal violent.

[DatManFromNawlins]

100. Virtually every mammalian species on the planet roughhouses as youngsters

Expecting children to be different?

[JCMach1]

101. Bring back RECESS!!! there is something to get behind in education!

[seabeyond]

102. my kids have had recess thru 6th grade. and 7th adn 8th they have time after lunch.

i dont know about schools across the nation

[JCMach1]

104. They are lucky... recess has dwindled to next to nothing in Florida schools

you might lost that valuable 15min. of test prep time! :grr:

[JerseygirlCT]

115. Agreed

Kids - boys and girls, btw, need that time to play and to move around. It's important to their social and physical and mental health.

[bbdad]

126. Please provide genuine physical fitness classes for ...

... the nonathletic students instead of hypocritically subjecting them to the institutionalized bullying of mandatory sports-centered P.E., which should be retained for the school athletes and those students who want to participate in sports as an ELECTIVE. (See my first post way above.) When are people going to realize that different students have different physical fitness needs? For example, an obese child is not going to lose weight by being forced to play, say, baseball. An overweight child needs to engage in constant movement as exercise in order to lose weight -- a fact that seems to be lost on all those people who can't tell the difference between participating in a sport and starting an exercise program.

[JerseygirlCT]

140. I've never been an athlete - at least in the usual way it's defined

Competitive sports (as a player, at least) do nothing for me.

I was a dancer, however. And biked - a lot. Probably in better shape than a good number of my classmates. But gym class was mostly about sports. (One teacher did work in some dance and gymnastics, which was a nice change).

I've never been one to see the sense of doing almost anything just to catch a ball... What, and hurt myself for a ball? Why? LOL... just not made that way, I think.

[moc]

110. My advisor in graduate school believed in a "gun gene"...

Okay, she was joking - sort of. For what it's worth, she studied gender differences in play as her dissertation, although she didn't do gender-differences research when I studied with her. She is also the mother of three (almost grown now) boys, so she has a world of practical experience plus her scientific knowledge as a developmental psychologist.

I think it's funny parents of boys who swear they don't let their little boys play with guns. Sure, you can keep toy guns out of your house, but what are you going to do when little Johnny bites the corner out of his belgian waffle and flips it over to use as a "gun", uses a pencil as a "gun", or, god forbid, just uses his index finger to point and shoot? What are you going to do? Hover over your kid and admonish him everytime he does something "gun like"? I think it draws way too much attention to it and probably exacerbates/extends the behavior beyond its natural lifespan.

Personally, I think it's more effective to set appropriate boundaries for "gun play" - no "shooting" people who aren't playing with you, like siblings or other kids. Nothing physical. I think gun play has a natural peak around age 4-6, when cognitive developments mean kids' imaginations are really taking off and they start realizing how big the world is (hence, the concomitant peak in nightmares too). I see gun play/super hero play as boys' attempts to feel powerful in a world in which they feel small and vulnerable. In my own 8yo boy, the gun play has really waned in the last couple of years. It's pretty much limited to water guns in the pool.

[JerseygirlCT]

114. Mine didn't have any great desire to do gun play

Maybe because they learned from the get-go that "guns" and "play" do not go together - ever.

In fact, my older son loved action figures, but happily opened them, disposed of the weapons and enjoyed playing with them.

I do not believe boys are necessarily inclined to play with guns. I think our society teaches them that gun play is not only acceptable but normal.

Hurting people is not fun. Teaching children that it is is wrong, IMO.

[closeupready]

117. I never had much of a problem with bullying, because I lifted weights in high school

and was built, so nobody messed with me. But I do know people who did, and supported then and now defensive acts, like throttling or calling the police, if necessary.

[bbdad]

128. When I was a teenager being picked on at school and also ...

... had low body self-image, I wish somebody had sent me to a gym to start working with a personal trainer on a bodybuilding program. I would have gained a lot of self-confidence; and much of the bullying, I believe, would have stopped. Bullies frequently target classmates who seem to lack self-confidence, as I did. I'm not engaging in the "blame the victim" mindset, as Izzy Kalman and so many others do. I'm just pointing out a fact. As I said in my first post above, I've been working on a bodybuilding program for over two years now. Although I haven't yet reached the point where I'll be satisfied, at the age of 60 I already have the chest muscles of a young man!

[seabeyond]

131. my oldest was scrawny, but he did have the confidence and didnt cotton to bullies. he stood up to

them. and as pathetic as those bullies were, and courageous as son was, there was not a whole lot of bullying because of it. he is 10th grade now and well defined, with a sport and lifting weights. he has built and defined his small frame, but it is still a small frame.

and still he stands up to the kid that thinks it would be a hoot to pick on him, thinking he will cower. he doesnt. it pisses him off.

i was concerned about this with him from the youngest of years, but he has figured out how to handle it.

i am sorry you did not have a parent that could help you figure out how to do this thru your school years.

[bbdad]

135. Fortunately, all of my bullying was verbal, not physical ...

... (although it got to be quite old in a hurry). I did not cower. I just tried ignoring them, which didn't work. I now wish that I had been in the position of being able to "meet" my worst tormentor after school. In other words, learning boxing would have helped. Bullies are pathetic. More than ten years after we had graduated from high school, a friend of mine (who had graduated from high school in another district) happened to encounter two of my former bullies at a cocktail party. They had never met him before and certainly did not know that he was a friend of mine. So, the two of them started talking about the good time they had in high school supposedly making my life miserable. Imagine that, bragging to a stranger about picking on someone whom (chances are) this stranger had never even heard of. When I heard about this incident, I felt vindicated. First of all, I was miserable, especially during my senior year in high school; but the bullying was not the cause. The reason for the misery had originated outside of school. But even more than that, I had assumed that my former bullies had forgotten about me. I had assumed that they had more important concerns in life, such as career and family. But apparently what really gave them pleasure and still occupied their minds more than a decade later was something they did in high school. Their lives were that small. I laughed.

[Phentex]

129. I was a short, scrawny girl and never had a problem with bullies...

but I had an overdose of self-esteem. I never dealt with gun or knife wielders, though.

Sometimes size doesn't matter. ;)

[Evasporque]

119. I lived through the "Power Rangers" Era...

Every little boy 3-6 was running around jumping and kicking other kids.

I guess that some grew up into cage fighters.

[seabeyond]

130. but that is the thing. some young boys were kicking and hitting the other boys. and the other boys

werent so thrilled to being hit and kick.

my boys just wouldnt play with those boys. and

they were no less "manly" bacause of it as they have grown up very active and athletic, very much their own "manly" and all without hitting and kicking at 5

[TwilightGardener]

134. Jesus Christ, why don't we just have them neutered at age two--

so that we delicate females don't get upset watching them rassle, tackle, and turn everything into a gun, sword or light sabre. Stupid shit.

[JerseygirlCT]

137. I think it's curious that

so many seem to equate masculinity with violence.

I don't.

[bbdad]

138. I don't, either.

When my sister was a college student from the fall of 1961 through the spring of 1965, her friends (although she wasn't a sports fan) included several of the campus athletes. One of them, who had suffered psychological abuse during his childhood, was on both the hockey team and the football team. He was a formidable competitor, but off the ice rink and the playing field he was a pacifist out of religious or philosophical convictions. His pacifist convictions, which were the basis of his anger management, were so strong that he never got into a fight. Smaller men on the campus would try to make him betray his pacifist convictions by provoking him with insults to get him to lash out at them, but he always remained true to his convictions. When he wasn't playing hockey or football, he truly was a nonviolent guy. I wish that I had been able to meet him, but the campus was out of state.

[JerseygirlCT]

139. Sounds like a terrific man. nt

[bbdad]

141. I wish my sister had married him. He would have been ...

... a great brother-in-law. I'm not sure what happened between them.