Did anyone catch this program last night? (The “Men at risk” part wasn’t part of the name, but it was the main theme)
I forget what channel it was on, but it was based on a book called, well, “Raising cain”.
It was basically about men being at risk. I think I read an article around here before called “the war on boys” or something of that nature that this program reminded me of. It was two hours long, and basically explained why growing boys tend to worse than girls becuase of teachers/adults suppressing any activity that boys usually engage in.
In began with younger boys, in preschool and kindergarten. They went and showed how teachers took control of boys getting into little fights or scuffles in a regular, american preschool. The teacher just immediatly broke it up and told them it was wrong. But they then showed how the Japanese did it… the teachers just let it happen, and eventually the kids worked it out between them, or just decided that they wren’t going to interact with the people they fought with. Pretty interesting. There was more, but i wont go into a whole lot of detail about that part.
It then just followed up until high school, talking about pretty juch the same thing: any activity where boys just messed around with each other was construde as “bad”. It also stressed the importance of boys having a strong male role-model to show them what it was to be a man, and helped show that by going to inner city’s where many children dont have fathers… many of these kids were very violent and in gangs,(which most people could probably conclude by themselves) becuase they had no idea what it really was to be a man, so they fought and did drugs to try and prove themselves.
Anyways, it made me think quite a bit. Being sixteen years old, I often question what it is to be a man myself. I could relate to the kids on the show, becuase many were caught in between being a child and an adult, and are confused as to what to do in certain situations to prove it.
So, I pose a question to all you guys out there… what does it mean to you to be a “man”? What do you think changes boys to men? I’m curious to see what you guys say.
I often find myself thinking “what should I do in this kind of situation that would be the responsible, adult decision?”. The majority of times I think this is about fighting. never been in a fight before. Many people tell me i’m just likable, and I guess that makes it not surprising that i’be never fought anyone. I don’t really want to. But when, do you guys, consider it’s okay to hit someone? I’m stuck between two realms of thought; one being “Don’t take any crap from people and make sure they know you’re serious”, or “Just walk away and ignore it”. Never been in this situation, but i’ve always been curious as to whats the “right” thing to do.
Anyways, that was a lot of rambling, sorry. I guess it’s two questions in one, but, either respond to both or one, it’s fine with me. thanks for the time. : ) I suggest finding this program if you can, its teo hours long, and very interesting.