Posted on 03/03/2013 6:04:59 AM PST by Kaslin
This past week an episode of Sesame Street set off a firestorm of debate over whether a boy muppet named Telly should be ashamed that his muppet friends caught him playing with dolls.
In one corner "traditionalists" who called out the episode as gender and sex confused. In the other "modern feminists" who were offended by almost everything the traditionalists said and believe.
In light of these op-eds and arguments I decided to do a bit of personal surveying for myself.
I popped the question to my bride and her best friend as the two couples were headed to Gramercy (in Manhattan) for dinner on Friday night.
"What do you think about boys playing with dolls?" I asked.
"If the dolls are laying around (belong to another child), then it's unlikely to bother me," one of them replied. "If they happen to pick it up, if they are at friend's homes that are girls then it's almost unavoidable."
"But would you ever buy a doll for your young son?" I followed up.
"NEVER!!!" came the reply.
The fervor with which they answered the second question intrigued me. In essence it boiled down to the reality that boys are boys, they are designed to do boy things, and grow from boys into men. Throwing feminine play into the mix delays, interrupts, or intrudes on the development of masculine identity.
In one article Caryn Rivadeneira, writing for Christianity Today, in her even more boldly titled piece, "God Made Boys To Play With Dolls," she argues that: "When we say baby dolls are for girls, that only girls should cuddle and coo dolls, we claim that babies are women's domains, that only mothers should rock and coo and play with their children."
Even though I disagree with her premise, I also disagree with her comparison, and the implied conclusion.
She is arguing that boys should play with dolls because men should become the primary or equal caregivers for newborns? Really?
In a world where abject fatherlessness already exists. In a world where that fatherlessness has single-handidly created the largest welfare state in American economic history. In a world where discernment and wisdom about appropriate sexual behavior is threatening the very well being of our children's future...
Do we really need to question whether or not women are--by nature--designed to be--better at nurturing children?
There is a fascination with the theological and political left in America to appear to have an absence of judgment against immorality, while simultaneously attempting to judge the theological and political right so as to win popularity with the culture, to appear to be intellectual, and to imply that God would love it all.
But to be candid, we are entering "stupid territory" now.
I even confessed to the girls last night that I imagine it won't be all that long into the future before someone writes an article for Christianity Today on the idea of allowing the man to carry the baby to term (since it appears to be medically possible) and that in some way some person will write an article defending it as the ultimate sign of feminist justice.
Meanwhile God sits and laughs at us.
Why? Because we are going to such great lengths to go the other way around the universe to arrive at a simple conclusion: "What's best for children?"
No God didn't make boys to play with dolls. God created boys to grow up and become strong men who would provide for their family and would protect them from the harmful elements of this life. That is the true core of manhood at it's most basic element.
But men that I know personally who excel in that, also generally tend to be some of the most tender-hearted fathers I've ever seen. Fathers whose children feel their love, appreciate their sacrifices, seek diligently to obey or to make them proud, and even desire to pass on a similar legacy when they become parents themselves.
Sometimes the modern feminist (someone who believes in "sameness" between men and women and NOT "equality") ties themselves into pretzel-like knots to argue something foolish to replace something traditional--almost always for no good reason.
In life children are a blessing. In training them to become responsible for their own behavior and consequences it is important to groom them with truth. And the truth is few boys who ever became great fathers ever "played with dolls."
Taking responsibility for your future, owning your actions and behaviors, understanding the choices you make in this life will affect those you love, and preparing them to be ready for it, is what our young men most need to learn.
Miraculously... Having affection for their flesh and blood, learning to be tender with them when they are little and can't sleep, and loving them with all their heart comes much more instinctually to fathers than most feminists would like to believe.
And I should know...
That humility, affection, tenderness and love grew deeper with all three of my sons, and I never played with dolls.
i understand what you are saying... and there was a time when i did care... however, i only have so much fight in me, and i have to choose my battles... that so many conservatives continue to send their children to the cesspool knowing what goes on there, yet claiming their local school is "not bad," has taken it's toll on my caring about it... my energies, angst and outrage go elsewhere at this time... there may come a day when i care again...
I didn't like it because it was on the same time as the Price is Right. "A new car!"
oh how did those girlie boys ever get through child hood , I mean how did all the men in the world get through riding our bicyles with no helmets, oh the horror of not wearing one,
ARF
or in some girlie guys head a guy can wear spandex, tight tight tops, and a helmet makes a guy!!!
spandex on men is plain wrong, just so wrong wrong wrong, my wife woudl leave me if I wore them and I have a decent athletic body and rightly so for her too.
This wearing a helmet, well I; not sure if it is in my state as 99% of men do not wear helmets nor do the kids in my neighborhood but those men which do begs me to ask , how did they ever get through childhood with out all their padding, helmets etc?.
Next we’ll have mothers raising their boys and watch them play Barbie and tell others that it;s OK to do.
No wonder real men are disapearing.
Sorry, JC, but that statement would make a nanny-stater proud. I and all, and I mean ALL, of my friends rode our bikes everywhere, all the time, and we never once wore a helmet. Guess what? Not one of us ever got hurt, even when we crashed.
And please don't respond with something liberal like, "If it saves only one child....."
I grew up before PBS and don’t recall dolls for boys, or action figures, or stuffed animals etc, my toys were largely WWII objects, knives, guns, bayonets, cigarette lighters, rope and books and rocks, and snapping turtles, I had a water filled pit that we kids dug to keep the turtles and the one alligator in.
I could carry a lighter and a pocket knife to school and carry my twine. I remember using a 15 to 18 inch German bayonet for show and tell.
There was almost no adult interference in my life, outside of the house and the school, we seemed to be able to do anything as long as we stayed away from the adults, which was easy to do back then, boys seemed to be allowed to live in their own private world of whatever boys do outdoors from sunrise until dark.
exactly.
We did jumps, cross country, skids, tricks etc , fell off many times, even went head first off the front but to say brains being spattered on the road and we shoudl wear helmets is a little drama.
Boys are being treated like little girls today, get them pads and helmets for sports all the time, bandaids for their little boo boos , ice pack for a scratch ARF.
The way some mothers raise their boys today only adds to my opinion why many boys today have become little sissies.
and spandex should be outlawed on men LOL.
I think he meant this:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_v_-zbrQbNac/SMfJClyMJdI/AAAAAAAAADY/mOiPG-UHmEE/s400/Kerry+on+bike.jpg
Rather than this:
http://cycling.lohudblogs.com/files/2009/01/distinctly-bush_wolf2.jpg
Hence the “girly” moniker. . .
I guess the dilemma for feminists continues in the home computer age, beyond dolls and such. We constantly hear of the affect of war games and assorted violent computer games on boys. Maybe girls also play computer games, but if so, it gets very little news mention.
The young of each sex still seem to pick the type games they prefer for the most part.
As for all the controversy in this thread over boys playing with "girl" things, it never was an issue for me growing up. When I was a boy, we always played with boys and girls and never really thought too much about it. I'd play "house" with my sister and her friends but just as often, she'd be joining me and my friends for stickball and touch football (we always played on concrete so tackle wasn't a good option). I say let kids be kids. Back in those days, we were always out of the house playing outside. For if we ventured indoors, our parents would tend to put a broom in our hands and put us to work - and none of us wanted that!
So I pretty much spent my entire childhood out of doors (winter and summer) and remember mothers passing peanut butter sandwiches and Kool-Aid out the windows to us for lunch so we didn't have to go indoors and "mess up" their houses. We'd hang out on picnic benches listening to Top 40 music on "transistor" radios and playing board games like Monopoly and Risk for hours on end, when we weren't tearing up the neighborhood on our bikes and gorging on penny candy from the local mom-and-pop variety store.
It's definitely different today. I go out in my neighborhood on a nice day and there are no kids to be seen. They are all indoors playing video games, watching television or texting each other. If they do go outdoors, they have "helicopter parents" watching their every move.
> I didn’t like it because it was on the same time as the Price is Right. “A new car!”
LOL!!! Sounds like as good a reason to any.
To the collectivists that inflicted Sesame Street on the world, you must be one of those materialistic capitalists.
To me, you’re somebody who has his values correctly oriented.
:)
“But would you ever buy a doll for your young son?” I followed up.”
GI Joe, He-Man, Superman, Captain America, Green Lantern, Batman, Robin, the list goes on......
I remember back in the early 50s, I was about seven when mom bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. I sat down on the floor next to the bookcase and started reading. I have never stopped reading.
I never played with "dolls", however I did have a teddy bear with buttons for eyes, a bit of yarn for a mouth, and patches on his legs where his fur was worn away from the attentions of my three older siblings. His name was "Slow Poke" and there were many nights when we talked each other to sleep. I gave him back to my eldest brother when he got married and adopted two boys.
Regards,
Gandalf
PS I bought a Barnes & Noble "Nook" e-reader. I don't use it all that much, there is just something about a real book...it's comfort food for the brain.
“a doll is barbie and though GI Joe can be called a doll it certainly is not a girlie thing.”
manc kinda has a point here. Say 1000 years from now archaeologists dig up a Barbie or a GI Joe what would they call it? They would more than likely call it a “doll” from an extinct era just like Native American Indian dolls that are often found. Think about it.
spandex on men is plain wrong, just so wrong wrong wrong, my wife woudl leave me if I wore them and I have a decent athletic body and rightly so for her too.
= = = = = = = = = = = =
I, for 73, also am in good shape.
OF COURSE, one must concede ROUND is a shape.
I played football BEFORE the mandatory ‘face mask’ and when they got around to it, it was just a plain single bar AND it seemed to interfere with my vision (sure that was just my mind saying ‘how stupid it was’)
Also in baseball the ‘batting helmet’ was 2 pieces of plastic held together with a couple strips of elastic type material...
In going along to get along I will say that I was saved from at least a good shiner when batting with the helmet in place, I was squared around to bunt and turned my head on an inside pitch, the force of the ball hitting the ‘helmet’ sent it flying — although I recall ‘we’ did sort of wear it as high as possible so it could be easily thrown off after hitting the ball.... Naturally the ‘helmet’ impeded ones ability to run.
I think it was mandatory in Little League but not in HS or Babe Ruth League.
I have 3 standing rules.
If you EVER see me with a back pack or book bag ON, shoot me on the spot. (I have considered ‘changing’ my mind on a fanny pack as that is (or could be) an excellent place to carry concealed).
If you EVER see me put luggage on top of my SUV or use one of those ‘bumper extenders’, shoot me on the spot.
If you EVER see me in Spandex, AFTER you stop laughing, shoot me on the spot and as a favor to all, SHOOT the SOB that either sold it to me or gave it to me.
THANKS...
“Sorry, JC, but that statement would make a nanny-stater proud. I and all, and I mean ALL, of my friends rode our bikes everywhere, all the time, and we never once wore a helmet. Guess what? Not one of us ever got hurt, even when we crashed.”
Great. I’ve seen plenty of accidents and some of them pretty gruesome. I’ve seen a friend crippled for life who’s in a wheelchair now and his folks look after them.
No, I think he means being a man means you have to go without protection because it’s ‘cool’.
I bet he thinks hardhats are girly too since real men don’t prepare themselves appropriately.
What’s wrong with a backpack?
1) 10 years ago my wife and I were at a friends of ours house late in the evening. We heard a loud crash. A teenager had managed to run into the back of a parked car that was under a burnt out street lamp. He was thrown through the back window. When we got to him he was unconscious and suffering severe head trauma. From the top of his head to his chin it looked like hamburger. A helmet would not have prevented the accident but it would have reduced the severity of the injuries.
2) My wife was riding her bike in a local park on a paved road. A branch lodged in her spoke and she flew over the handlebars. Broke her nose, right elbow, left wrist. I believe the helmet saved her life at worst or a concussion at best.
3) Three years ago at a triathlon I was in a deer ran out of the woods across the road and collided with a cyclist. The cyclist was thrown over 15 feet. he suffered road rash on the side of his face and a broken collar bone, but no other head trauma thanks to the mandated helmet.
I won't get on my cycle with out a helmet. BTW I am 52 weigh in at 200 lbs and wear spandex when training or racing.
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