Weird article. I agree with it in principle ... but those were some weird examples to make the point.
I’ve never been accused of being feminine, excessively gentile, or pandering to my kids. But, I’ve knealt to speak to my son ... particularly when I’m scolding him. Its about being eye-to-eye with the boy, not symbolically getting on his level. I don’t pick him up to talk to him ... he can stand on his own.
As for whispering, I’ve found a lower voice typically gets more attention than shouting. You want to put the fear of God in a kid ... learn to growl while whispering. Hell, sometimes I don’t even need to say anything. A look will suffice.
I would agree in principle that people don’t toughen their kids up enough. I don’t think the kneeling and whispered-tones are a very good example, though.
SnakeDoc
"...He rarely swore at us (his favorite insult whenever he was really angry with us, was to call us “Dumb Bunnies”. To this day we have to giggle a little amongst ourselves at this…”Dumb Bunnies…why on earth would he call us Dumb Bunnies, and what the heck is a Dumb Bunny anyway?” His voice always had a timbre to it that demanded our attention. He required that we look him in the face and say “Yes Sir” or “No Sir”. He expected us to respond to our Mother with “Yes Maam” and “No Maam”. Then he might flail at us with his belt while we squealed, but would never really connect with it. It was all show. We didn’t know that though. We really thought he was trying to hit us. The truth be told, we feared my mother much more as a disciplinarian. She had the Mediterranean emotion, and you could never be sure just how far you had pushed her. And we did push her on occasion. Looking back, it was all pretty predictable fare. In this light, I had a memorable encounter with my dad. It speaks volumes to me about my father, but at the time, was most puzzling because of its nature.
When we lived in Virginia, I was about 7 years old, and had walked a couple of miles to a candy store that was in a part of our town that was much poorer, and predominately black. When I came home, my dad asked me where I had been, and I said, “Oh, I just went over to Niggertown to get some candy…”
In a very swift motion, my dad grabbed me, one big adult hand around each skinny seven-year-old bicep, and drew me towards him so that my nose was probably less than a foot away from his nose. The term today for this was “In my face”. This was very close, and VERY unusual. He never dealt with us like this. I will never forget the look on his face, it wasn’t anger, and I didn’t know what it was. And the tone of his voice when he spoke was a tone I had never heard before. There was something else, not anger, but something. I didn’t know what it was at the time. My father looked at me, directly in the eyes, with his eyes the unwavering steely blue that they were, with this very foreign, strange and unusual look in them, a sharpness or brightness that was totally unrecognizable to me at that age. He gave me one shake, not a hard one, a gentle one, and said to me in that odd voice:
“Don’t ever think that you are better than someone else just because you were born with a different color skin.” He released me, stood up to regard me for an instant then walked away without another word. I remember just standing there totally confused about this strange encounter. I had never seen him look at me that way or speak to me that way. I remember it as clearly as if it happened this morning.
Now that I am older, I think of that encounter and I know with certainty what the look he had in his eyes was. I know what the odd tone of his voice was.
It was passion. My dad had passion, and never, ever showed it to us as kids. But just that once, when I was a child, a door had cracked open (I am sure quite by accident) and I had seen the light that escaped. Before I could go and look inside, the door had snapped shut and sealed tight. I never got a chance to see into the room sealed by that door until many years later. By then, I was no longer surprised by what I saw. I had made the transition from viewing my father as a parent to viewing him as a person.
It is no surprise to anyone that I hero-worshipped my dad. I wanted to be him, my whole life. I never aspired after baseball players or presidents. I wanted to be my dad. I wanted to look like him. I would go over to the building across the street where my dad worked, and watch him walk down the halls, his feet sounding like the voice of authority itself. Then, I would try to imitate him so my footsteps would sound the same. I wanted to wear a uniform and serve my country like him. I wanted his values. I wanted to be a patriot like him. To this day, I wish I could emulate his life, and no other..."
When he bent to put his face level with mine, there was nothing feminine or unmanly about his manner in addressing this issue with me. But as you can see, it made a profound impression with me.