{"id":7666,"date":"2017-02-21T05:49:37","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T05:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/2017\/02\/21\/evanescentanathema-yencid-ozziescribbler\/"},"modified":"2017-02-21T05:49:37","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T05:49:37","slug":"evanescentanathema-yencid-ozziescribbler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/2017\/02\/21\/evanescentanathema-yencid-ozziescribbler\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

evanescentanathema<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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yencid<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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ozziescribbler<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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ami-angelwings<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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gettingahealthybody<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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redofthehood<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.<\/p>\n

No matter how many times he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning\u2019s live 3-D reenactment of \u201cInvasion of AstroMonster<\/a>.\u201d This is what they\u2019d say repeatedly:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know!\u00a0Boys will be boys!\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just going through a phase!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOh my god! Girls and boys are\u00a0SO\u00a0different!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe. Just. Can\u2019t. Help himself!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn\u2019t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, \u201cWhat red-blooded boy wouldn\u2019t knock it down?\u201d<\/p>\n

She built a\u00a0beautiful, glittery castle<\/a>\u00a0in a public space.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was so\u00a0tempting<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

He just couldn\u2019t\u00a0control himself and, being a boy, had violent inclinations<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

She\u00a0had to keep her building safe<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Her consent didn\u2019t matter. Besides, it\u2019s not like she made a\u00a0big fuss when he knocked it down<\/a>. It wasn\u2019t a \u201clegitimate\u201d knocking over if she didn\u2019t throw a tantrum.<\/em><\/p>\n

His\u00a0desire<\/a> \u2014 for power, destruction, control, whatever- – was understandable.<\/em><\/p>\n

Maybe she \u201cshouldn\u2019t have gone to preschool<\/a>\u201d at all. OR, better if she just kept her building activities to home.<\/em><\/p>\n

I know it\u2019s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don\u2019t \u201cget raped\u201d and this child, Boy #1, did\u00a0not\u00a0learn the preschool equivalent of \u201cdon\u2019t rape.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Not\u00a0once<\/em>\u00a0did his parents talk to him about invading another person\u2019s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning. \u00a0How much of the boy\u2019s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the \u201crules\u201d his parents kept repeating?<\/p>\n

There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize. That probably wasn\u2019t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.<\/p>\n

There was a third child. He was\u00a0really smart<\/em>. He asked if he could knock her building down. She,\u00a0beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes\u2026 but\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0after she was done building it and\u00a0said it was OK<\/em>. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can\u2019t make this stuff up.<\/p>\n

Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he\u2019s older, say, at college, drunk at a party,\u00a0mad at an ex-girlfriend<\/a>\u00a0who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respecte, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t want to. Stop. Leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201coverarching attitudinal characteristic<\/a>\u201d of abusive men is entitlement<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is so brilliant. We learn things from socialization process. What our parents, friends and peers do, media and all. I think perhaps rape is because parents think boys will be boys, they bully, fight and destroy things, it\u2019s their characteristics so they don\u2019t bother to stop them. But it manifests in them, knowing or unknowingly, they will just think, because I\u2019m a boy and boys tend to do these, so it doesn\u2019t matter even if the girl hates it, says no, because I\u2019m a boy.<\/p>\n

Just reblog this, this message is really powerful. For parents and future parents.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What\u2019s also interesting, is if you frame this as about spoiling your children, and about spoiled children, people tend to agree and get it. They\u2019ll agree that children whose parents lay down no boundaries for them when they hurt others, who let them have whatever they want at the expense of others, and justify away the harm they do, will probably grow up thinking they can do this to others (usually weaker than them, or they perceive as weaker) as adults.\u00a0 But if you mention the word \u201cprivilege\u201d, \u201centitlement\u201d or anything relating to gender, everybody freaks the f- out and will deny up, down, back, forth, and sideways that how you raise a child, what you allow them to get away with, or training them that their hurtful behaviour will always be justified, can affect them at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

ALL OF THIS.<\/p>\n

Obligatry read FOR EVERYONE<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Problem with \u2018Boys Will Be Boys\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

THIS<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

evanescentanathema: yencid: ozziescribbler: ami-angelwings: gettingahealthybody: redofthehood: For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion. No matter how many times … Continue reading <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}