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 he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning’s live 3-D reenactment of “Invasion of AstroMonster.” This is what they’d say repeatedly:
“You know! Boys will be boys!”
“He’s just going through a phase!”
“He’s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!”
“Oh my god! Girls and boys are SO different!”
“He. Just. Can’t. Help himself!”
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’t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, “What red-blooded boy wouldn’t knock it down?”
She built a beautiful, glittery castle in a public space.
It was so tempting.
He just couldn’t control himself and, being a boy, had violent inclinations.
She had to keep her building safe.
Her consent didn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like she made a big fuss when he knocked it down. It wasn’t a “legitimate” knocking over if she didn’t throw a tantrum.
His desire — for power, destruction, control, whatever- - was understandable.
Maybe she “shouldn’t have gone to preschool” at all. OR, better if she just kept her building activities to home.
I know it’s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.”
Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s 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. How much of the boy’s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the “rules” his parents kept repeating?
There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother 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’t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.
There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. 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’t make this stuff up.
Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he’s older, say, at college, drunk at a party, mad at an ex-girlfriend who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respecte, “No, I don’t want to. Stop. Leave.”
The “overarching attitudinal characteristic” of abusive men is entitlement.
(Source: lastlifeinuniverse, via iamlittlei)
(Source: liveandletlive, via a-skilled-sailor)
Gordo: setting the bar impossibly high for men since 2000
(Source: freecocaine, via a-skilled-sailor)
| how i imagine the beginning of the fiftieth anniversary going | |
| eleven: | hey rose |
| rose: | if you are the doctor after my doctor and not that much time has passed, where the hell did i go? did you leave me on some planet? did i die? did i get eaten by something? or worse, did you leave in some parallel universe where i have to wait for you and i go dimension jumping and i cause your regeneration to start, but then it stops and you send me BACK to the parallel world with a copy of you? |
| eleven: | |
| eleven: | |
| eleven: | |
| eleven: | nope, not at all. |
Imagine your favorite character barging into your room this moment, grabbing your hand, and taking you with them into their world
Lets be honest though most of us would be dead within a week
But it would be a bloody brilliant week
(via runningfromthisreality)
I wonder how many minutes of silence was observed by America in their memory. Or was American time too precious to be wasted in the names of these brown bodies?"
Neha Ray
Panjwayi Massacre. Don’t forget.
R.I.P.
(via araberber)
(Source: neharaysays, via when-lions-meet-the-sea)
Claude Monet » Water Lilies
(Source: detailsdetales, via when-lions-meet-the-sea)
thegrlnxtdoorandhergingerfriend:
My AP euro teacher wouldn’t let our class watch Les Mis so we barricaded the door and screamed “VIVE LA REVOLUCIÓN” when he tried to get in.
that is the face of a man who is 24601% done
(via veni--vidi--dormivi)
nicki in the background
oHMYGOD taylor’s like “i feel you bro you call them out on their shit” and nicki’s like “gurl he means you”
does anyone else see the guy way back there. that guy that suddenly appears and points at taylor
(via men-in-trench-coats)
Dear Yahoo,
If you would like Tumblr users to like you, remove the post limit and word limit on messages.
If you place ads on our dash or charge for use every month, there will be a war. You have an army. We have a hulk.
Regards
Tumblr Users
(via men-in-trench-coats)
