No way to raise a boy

MercatorNet.com ^ | Friday, 3 August 2007 | Kevin Ryan

[Finny]

Setting firecrackers off at the town's movie theater matinee. That was always good for a lecture from the owner. As a girl, I didn't take part. As the little sister of four older brothers, I was often sent to the corner store to buy cartons of cigarettes "for my mother," as the lady behind the counter would never sell a carton to any of the brothers. Wicked, wicked boys, SMOKING!!! The horror!

These poor damned kids today can't have any fun.

[Mr. Silverback]

BSA Bump!

[Mr. Silverback]

I loved the story arc where Calvin builds a model of an F-4, and tells Hobbes that “instructions are for sissies.” Hilarity ensues.

[flaglady47]

“Just because a male is a sissy doesn’t mean he isn’t a man. That’s God’s truth. And it’s why I’m eternally optimistic with regard to boys and men.”

Even during the Revolutionary War, about 1/3 of the population didn’t give a darn as to the outcome. A sissy, is a sissy, is a sissy, whether man or woman. Just hope there are enough others with the right stuff to come through when the sh*t hits the fan, which it has already started to do for quite a few years. We really need men, that’s real men please, to put their foot down and start fighting back, and not only verbally, but by action. In particular, younger men who can make a real difference by the careers they choose, and the efforts they make politically. Sooner than later, please.

[TChad]

but all in all lots of good “boy things”.

Those "boy things" are now treated as though they were symptomatic of a disease. I think that one of the worst problems is excessive (paranoid?) parental devotion to the elimination of physical risk for their boys.

These days, it's "Bobby, you must wear knee pads! Precious Bobby must not scratch his precious knee! And a helmet! Don't go outside without your helmet! Stay in the back yard and don't move! If you don't move, you won't get hurt!"

Where it used to be, "Bobby, you're a mess again. Here's some soap and band-aids, clean yourself up, you know the routine. You'd better soak those pants in cold water to get the bloodstains out. Dinner's in 15 minutes."

[The King of Elflands Daughter]

That book is probably The American Boy’s Handy Book: What to Do and How to Do It by Daniel Carter Beard. It’s available in a couple of reprints now. An amusing compendium of boy lore. An excellent book for boys.

—tkoed

[Northern Yankee]

Excellent article!

[Northern Yankee]

I cherished my boyhood.

One summer we threw tires on a burning fire next a dog food plant, as a prank.

The fire department was summoned (Because of the billowing black smoke.) The fire department responded, put out the fire, and got a good laugh at the prank. (We saw it from a distance, well hidden of course!)

Today the EPA would be summoned, and all hell would break loose.

[hinckley buzzard]

but the kidnapping and NAMBLA dangers are very real

This is a leftover from the "stranger danger" myths and utban legends of the late '80's /early nineties. Your boy is in no more danger of being kidnapped than being hit by lightning--possible but just barely--unless he has a noncustodial parent who can't leave it alone. In any case just teach him what we all were taught fifty years ago--don't talk to strangers. Ain't nothing new.

[hinckley buzzard]

Boy's books are nothing new

True. I grew up with "Boy's Life" and the Boy Scout Handbook. Taught me everything I needed to knwo about living in the woods.

[cyclotic]

Right on! On all counts.

My homeschooled Scout boys are being raised the old fashioned way too. Very little TV, no cable, no video games, no I-Pod, big yard with a park behind us.

Read what a former US President had to say in an essay on boys in the early 20th Century.

What is a Boy?

You can absolutely rely on a boy if you know what to expect.
A boy is nature’s answer to the false belief that there is no such thing
as perpetual motion.
The world is so full of boys that it is impossible to touch off a
firecracker, strike up a band or pitch a ball without collecting a
thousand of them.
Boys are not ornamental, they’re useful.
If it were not for boys, the newspapers would go undelivered and unread
and a hundred thousand picture shows would go bankrupt.
The boy is a natural spectator; he watches parades, fires, fights,
football games, automobiles and planes with equal fervor.
However, he will not watch a clock.
A boy is a piece of skin stretched over an appetite.
However, he eats only when he’s awake.
Boys imitate their Dads in spite of all the efforts to teach them good
manners.
Boy’s are very durable.
A boy, if not washed too often and if not kept in kept in a cool quiet
place after each accident , will survive broken bones, hornet’s nests,
swimming holes and five helpings of pie.
Boys love to trade things. They’ll trade fishhooks, marbles, broken
knives and snakes for anything that is priceless or worthless.
When he grows up, he’ll trade puppy love, energy, warts, bashfulness and
a cast-iron stomach for a bay window, pride, ambition, pretense and a
bald head and will immediately say that; “boys aren’t what they used to
be in the good old days.”

Herbert Hoover

[PinkDolphin]

I taught my kids not to yell “mom” if anyone ever grabbed them, but to yell “FIRE” People look when you yell FIRE, but someone could think it was just a bad boy if he yelled for his mom.
And also if anyone ever grabbed them, to make themselves heavy and just drop toward the ground, anything to make it difficult for someone to drag them away. Ever tried to pick up a kid that was trying to stay on the ground? A 75 lb kid weighs about 235 then. haha
And to not worry about proprieties, but to go for the eyes and jam the nose, bite, anything.
Never came to that, thank God. But i made sure they were prepared to fight.

[PinkDolphin]

I think I’ll start a Culture War on Boys ping list

I’m a charter member. Anyone else want on??

[Kirkwood]

I didn’t say finding info in a book was new... the Boy Scout Manual has been around for a very long time as well. I said it was ironic.

[HungarianGypsy]

One of my favorite Calvin & Hobbs strips comes to mind, where Calvin is on the phone to the library to ask if they have books there that will tell him how to build bombs. Shocked, they tell him no. He wonders, "What good is the library, then?"

When he was a kid, my husband learned to build bombs from watching MacGyver.

[HungarianGypsy]

Boy's books are nothing new. My husband has a superb boy's book from the early 1900s with incredible illustrations. There are instructions in this book for everything from making a winged sail for when you're ice skating, to "Taxidermy for Boys."

We have that book. My boys were disappointed in a lot of it. We live in the city, so many of the things in the book we can't do. :(

[dcwusmc]

BUMP for boys that grow into men!

[wintertime]

this is why Boy Scouts of AMerica exists. BOYS NEED IT·······································

I am the proud mom of an Eagle Scout!

[television is just wrong]

and you should be proud. Eagle Scout is something that is worth accomplishing.

Good for both of you.

[plan2succeed.org]

Kevin Peters, the author of the article, can someone get his attention? I have a question for him. He says the Dangerous Book for Boys could turn a boy's life around by, it seems, getting a reluctant reader to read.

What advice would you, Kevin Peters, give for getting reluctant boys to read? Would you give them sexually inappropriate material to read? The American Library Association recommends doing this, going so far as to give awards to quite a lot of sexually inappropriate material just to ensure the widest possible dispersion in accordance with its policy to take a leadership role in ensuring children get access to sexual material and against the US Supreme Court decision it lost in 2003 called US v. ALA.

School districts nationwide are following suit and recommending sexually inappropriate reading for public school children. And the school administrators are doing this in defiance of the local communities. They often claim they have to "balance" everyone's concerns. Exactly what is the "balance" between following ALA policy to give children inappropriate material and US Supreme Court and community policy to keep it away from them? Murdering is wrong, but certainly we can find a "balance" that allows that crime, right?

What, Kevin Peters, do you recommend for reluctant boy readers? What do you think about recommending sexually inappropriate material? What do you think about the ALA doing this? What do you think about schools doing this? Do you have advice for communities that have schools that refuse the citizenry to ensure children maintain access to sexually inappropriate material?

These are not idle questions. These issues are going on right now nationwide. I can provide links if you wish. Please help.

SafeLibraries.org - Are Children Safe in Public Libraries?