Posted on 08/20/2007 10:26:38 PM PDT by Coleus
PERHAPS YOU'VE HEARD of the hot new book, "The Dangerous Book for Boys." It has been a mad bestseller in England and is now topping the lists here, too. It was written by two British brothers who wanted to bring back the idea of free and unfettered boyhood, when boys were not tempered with excessive scheduled activities or indoor play. The idea of the book intrigued me, but I was afraid of it. Was this going to be like some junior version of the TV show "Jackass," where boys did stupid things like riding on a skateboard attached to the back of a truck? Was it a manual on how to freak your mother out?
My boys get plenty dangerous without literary aid. One recently burst out of church, started playing chase, and in just 20 minutes was being taken away in an ambulance. (He's fine.) One got rowdy in a friend's basement playing catch and broke his wrist. (Also fine.)
How to be dangerous
They stuff wads of paper up their nose, beat each other with swords and light sabers, zip around without a helmet on Heelys, climb fences and trees, and burn their fingers when they play with the dry ice that gets delivered with Omaha steaks. At various times in their lives I have stopped them from licking a sharp knife, putting bags over their heads, playing in a car trunk, and tying stuff around their necks. Do they really need a book to be more dangerous? However, not wanting to deny them the right to be the boyest boys they could, I got the book. I was quite surprised to see that while it is certainly a book for boys, it is more of a book for parents, or in truth, dads. It has all kinds of instructions on how to build the perfect paper airplane, how to tie certain knots, how to hunt and cook a rabbit. It includes stories of courage from various wars and ancient times, and poems, codes and Latin phrases all boys should know. It reminds us of all things masculine, even stuff you never really learned. It is absolutely a really cool book.
But it is, hilariously, a manual. It is a how-to compilation for parents in pressed khakis and Italian loafers, zipping around town in their GPS-guided SUVs and planning their next trip to an all-inclusive resort that suddenly screech to a halt and think in horror, "Holy Cow! I forgot to make a man out of my boy!"
Why we need it
We need this book, us parents. Not because there is anything wrong with our boys, or because there is anything wrong with us as parents. We need this book because these days we parents need a book for everything. We are so concerned about "doing parenthood right" that we second guess ourselves constantly. We seek advice about everything and worry that we are doing it wrong. As if there was a universally correct way to raise each child. We treat our kids like recipes: Put in the right measurements of values, education and healthy habits, bake for 20 years and we will be rewarded with a splendid dish. If we get one ingredient wrong, or if the oven gets too hot for a few minutes, then we will fail. Yikes.
Yet we all know kids raised in great families who grew up to be lousy adults. We know families in which one sibling "turned out great" and another just can never get it together. We know kids from awful backgrounds who have grown into terrific, successful adults. Obviously, we parents really don't control that much. "The Dangerous Book for Boys" reminds us that childhood can be an adventure, not just a recipe for success. We crave this for our children, but don't know how to give it to them, hence the popularity of the book. It evokes a boyhood that Teddy Roosevelt lived, and the rest of us fantasize about. But its essence is curiosity, courage and dreaming. Things that all boys, indeed, all people, need for a delightful life.
In our proscribed society, letting time unfold enjoyably, studying pirate flags or learning "useless" things like coin tricks or making a secret ink can seem frivolous. Or downright dangerous.
The word “we” is used 17 times here. More than “of”, “in”, “for”, or “boys”.
I think that says something... I dunno.
Thank goodness that this knowledge is still passed down from father to son and daughter, in my family, along with simple animal husbandry, how to house train cats, and how to train a field dog for upland game, how to build ones own house, and how to garden, how to bake and cook,how to shoot a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol;and how to hunt the grouse,deer,moose,trout and salmon, how to canoe, how to sail, how to dance and how to camp in the wilderness.
These things comprised the family activities we as children and parents enjoyed together, for all of these comprise the sacred memories of all our childhoods, both parents and children, as we had recieved them from our forefathers in a line of family wisdom.
And I pray, that within my family line, that they are never lost, and that we never have to resort to a book rather than the gun, axe, fishing rod and highland pipes.
But a book like this one is better than the nothing used by liberal moonbats. They have long forgotten the faces of their fathers.
Slainte!
Thank goodness that this knowledge is still passed down from father to son and daughter, in my family, along with simple animal husbandry, how to house train cats, and how to train a field dog for upland game, how to build ones own house, and how to garden, how to bake and cook,how to shoot a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol;and how to hunt the grouse,deer,moose,trout and salmon, how to canoe, how to sail, how to dance and how to camp in the wilderness.
These things comprised the family activities we as children and parents enjoyed together, for all of these comprise the sacred memories of all our childhoods, both parents and children, as we had recieved them from our forefathers in a line of family wisdom.
And I pray, that within my family line, that they are never lost, and that we never have to resort to a book rather than the gun, axe, fishing rod and highland pipes.
But a book like this one is better than the nothing used by liberal moonbats. They have long forgotten the faces of their fathers.
Slainte!
I own this book. It’s really rather good, and I know I will find it rather useful when my son reaches six or seven. In a way, it reminds me of my old Boy Scout manual.
This book should be banned along with bb guns, sling shots, .22s and reruns of the Rifleman tv show (starring Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford)
There already has been published a feminine counterpart to this book.
there is a fine line between raising boys that will be real boys vs raising spoiled brats that think they can do whatever they want.
Society changes. What you did in your youth may be valuable, or not. How a Spartan taught their child is probably not fine today, likewise, what we learned in youth may not be what is needed now.
Allow history to teach us that things change quite a bit and to embrace those changes. Core values are fine but how they are expressed may be different.
I don’t believe that kids should be force-fed what I learned experientally. They should be taught values and how they are expressed should be left up to them. They will form the experiences and then believe them to be the best for their kids....and so it goes...
I really liked this review from amazon so I’ll post:
A great book to help boys (and their dads) begin a guided transition......from the couch to the outdoors and, by working together to accomplish some of the simple projects, to slowly develop their boy’s judgment and risk-taking skills.
As the author has stated, “Boys need to learn about risk. They need to fall off things occasionally, or — and this is the important bit — they’ll take worse risks on their own.”
I think this comment describes perfectly the double-whammy nightmare of many modern parents: that their little prodigy will spend the early years of his childhood indoors as a sheltered and obese couch potato, engrossed in nothing more risky than plugging in his Playstation, and then — following the onslaught of puberty — he and his similarly-afflicted “stupid little buddies” will suddenly decide one day that it would be a great idea to get themselves on MTV’s “Jackass” show by videotaping their attempt to jump a bicycle off the roof into a backyard swimming pool that is covered with flaming oil. At that point new questions will probably arise, such as: “Hey, who knew that a femur could snap like that?”, and, “How long, exactly, does face reconstruction take?”, or the ever-popular, “Time of death? Gee, I don’t know; I forgot to look at my watch...”
(By the way, THAT’S why this book really isn’t needed by girls. The day that there is a female version of the Jackass show, I’ll eat my words, but I really don’t think there are any (or enough) girls in this world who are stupid enough to want to qualify. For further research, please refer to Don’t Try This at Home - The Steve-O Video)
That’s why this is a great book for parents to use in helping their boys to develop realistic judgment and problem-solving skills, so young men can determine how best to face and deal with realistic and worthwhile risks, or when it would be best to just walk away to a better project. This book is also helpful in providing good historical role models of heroic risk-takers (i.e., explorers, astronauts, etc.) who improved their real-world skills and their judgment/teamwork/leadership abilities to the point where they were prepared to take on high risk (and multiple failures) and still be able to succeed in the end.
I think that one of the most important values that a parent can teach is JUDGMENT. This book can help you begin to do that. In other words, a question such as, “Now that we’ve made this nifty little bow and arrow, O’Son-of-Mine, what should we shoot it at?” might be a good start. If the answer is “Mom” or “my little brother”, perhaps an opportunity for a hearty father-son discussion has just presented itself...
The single best thing that parents can do for boys is to never buy them a friggin video game console (or pooter games) and force them outdoors for at least 6 hours a day. Everything else will pretty much take care of itself with minimum supervision.
CC&E
The author of this piece seems well-meaning, but uneducated and maybe a little dim. She says partents want book on kids "these days," as if that's something new and novel. In fact, books about kids have been written and read for centuries -- probably longer.
In grad school I did a little research into so-called "conduct books" from the 17th and 18th centuries -- books with advice for kids and parents. The books I read were interesting and not as hokey or sexist as I expected them to be.
Like the onnes I learned in Tijuana?......
ping
While I agree with most of your post do not forget that many many children of my generation did not have the luxury of having a man present in their upbringing (due to feminist theory of the 70’s). Perhaps this will teach those men of my generation whos fathers were gone how to be better fathers themselves. Or perhaps the book is total crap, I don’t know, I haven’t read it.
Unfortunately, what is done at home is undone tenfold at school.
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