Raising a Woman ~ Part 2

Tags

fathers, mothers, raising girls

Outward appearance and having some basic living skills are important, but are relatively  easy to teach our girls.  They are skills that are fairly easy to demonstrate.  What must also be taught is inward refection and how this will color her relationships with others.

1. Teach her personal responsibility.

All children need to learn this, obviously, but girls today are often given a pass in this regard.  They become a parent’s little princess to be coddled and sheltered from their own actions.  In an effort to teach girls to be strong, independent and empowered our cultured has forgotten to teach that our actions have consequences.  A girl needs to learn that real strength comes from the ability not to put her back up and give someone a piece of her mind, but from being able to analyze a given situation and realize the consequences of her actions in reacting to it.  When your girls make a mistake, she must face the ramifications.  Sheltering her from them is not helping her or doing her any favors.  If she punches her brother and he hits her back (probably harder than she hit him), she needs to learn that that’s a natural reaction.  Not that he did something wrong.  If she does poorly on a test, it’s not that big bad teacher.  She needs to study more.  If she treats her courter with disrespect and disdain, then she can expect the same treatment in return or worse, indifference.  Girls should not be sheltered from the realities of the world.  It does them a great disservice.

2. Teach her about her innate nature.

Girls should be taught about their solipsism, hypergamy, and their proclivity to rationalize.

Hypergamy – While outright defining and identifying this might be difficult (and unnecessary) while a girl is young parents can definitely influence these impulses.  I think a girls father is going to be the one to do this.  Girls work to impress and win their fathers attention and pride just like a girl will want to do this with men when she is ready (or not ready).  A girls father can teach her what she should be focusing this impulse on and her mother can mirror the proper use of this impulse for her.  A girl will learn that a good, confident, dominant, and simple man (simple in terms of his possessions, job, etc) can fulfill all of her needs and make her incredibly happy.  Or conversely, the parents can teach her that only money and possessions can fulfill this need and eventually she will wonder why she feels as if something is missing and why she is so unhappy.  Hypergamy can very much be influenced by parents teaching how it should be channeled.  While the nice house and car might still be a temptation for her, it will feel small in comparison to finding a true leader to be her husband.

Solipsism – Beginning to teach what this is can start very young.  It is evident that young girls tend to personalize everything.  When this happens, it is easy to point out that not everything that is being said is about her in particular.  She can start to think about what situations actually apply to her and which do not.  Little girls can also begin to watch how their mother uses her own solipsism to care for the family.  Mothers are innately concerned for their own.  This is a good thing in that it can be a counter balance to her husbands innate desire to go out into the world and explore, influence and conquer.  While her husband will be the counter balance to the mother’s proclivity to think only of home.  This balance is an important thing for any child to witness.

Rationalizations – Mothers are going to be much better than fathers at identifying this, mostly because we recognize it from ourselves.  Little girls are surprisingly good at rationalizing their behavior or spinning their words to get what they want.  Parents should identify this and simply make their girls state the real reason for doing or asking for what they want.  “Daddy, may I please have a cookie because I am cranky and that will help me to behave.  It’s the only thing that will make me happy!”  No.  Tell me why you really want a cookie and we’ll see.  And, no.  You are not going to get away with being cranky and get a cookie to pull yourself out of that. Pull yourself out and then we’ll see.  “Mommy, I think we should all go to the gym today because I know how much you like working out!”  Thank you, sweetheart, but if you want to go play with the kids at the gym, just say so, please.

Don’t accuse them of lying (unless it is a blatant lie).  Many times, girls actually believe what they are saying because whatever they choose to say could be an actual reason for what they want.  It just might not be the reason.  Try to make them voice the reason so that this becomes the habit.  As they get older it will be harder (hopefully) for them to believe rationalizations over their true reasons.  I do not call out every single rationalization my girls make because I think if it is done too much it can hinder a woman’s ability to apply feminine wiles.  But it will help her choose what she says and how she says it in different situations.  The goal is not to teach her to think like a man so man so much as it is to have her identify this problem and rectify it so as to be respectful to those around her and to identify the truth of things for herself.

3.  Teach her that her emotions do not equate to the truth.

Women are emotion based creatures. We just are.  That does not mean that we should be allowed to hide behind our emotions and use them to manipulate others or the world around us.  Teach your girls about criticism early.  Criticism, when done well, is a good thing.  Without accepting it, we cannot learn.  During school and debates/conversations that we have around the kitchen table, we criticize our children or people they may have learned about in school or elsewhere.  Their history lessons come up quite often and we will discuss the people they are learning about.  We will ask their opinions on different matters and then explain why we think they were wrong or right.  Sometimes, hearing they are wrong, upsets them.  We use this time to teach them that while the criticism might hurt, how much more would it hurt later in life if we didn’t properly teach them just because their feelings were hurt?  What might they miss out on?  I also try to point out that just because they might feel hurt, that doesn’t mean that is what I an trying to do.  It is my job to teach them and that means that I cannot always be “nice”.  That, in fact, it would be incredibly wrong of me not to teach them the truth (of whatever it is we are talking about) just because they didn’t like what I had to say.  I then ask, would it be right of me to let you think something is true when it’s not, just because you didn’t like how it felt?  They are getting this and they are learning.  Our dinner conversations are amazing partly because of this.  They can take an idea counter to theirs without much difficulty and think it through.  This also begins to teaches them not to hide behind their feelings which does no one any good.

Girls should be able to look at the following and laugh at it’s ridiculousness (H/t Free Northerner)

4.  Teach her the gifts that she can bring to her marriage.

I think girls should be taught from a young age that they need to make a decision about marriage.  Do they wish to marry or not?  If they do, there are things that wives need to know.  To expand on a couple of ideas, girls need to learn to respect their men.  This starts in watching how her mother relates to her father.  She will watch you intently.  But also, both parents should talk about it’s importance to help solidify the idea in her mind.  It will mean more to her when she practices this on her father and he corrects her wrongs and praises her rights.  But Mom can be play a big part in guiding her in when to do and say (and not say) certain things.  Mom can help her to learn to love serving the men in her life and find the joy in helping out in every way she can.  In my experience, girls beam when they have the chance to help and serve their fathers.

Also, girls need to learn and understand the gift of their virginity.  This is hard to understand because many of the explanations for it’s importance are lacking today.  Religion tells us to wait because it’s right.  Well, why is it right?  Our parents tell us to wait because we should value our bodies.  Okay, but Susie isn’t a virgin and she’s doing great.  Also, look at all the attention she is getting!  What’s the big deal?  Women just can’t really relate to these reasons because we can’t feel it.  We cannot feel the disgust at the thought of marry a high N girl many men feel because we know that there is a double standard.  We just don’t understand it.  We need to help our girls feel it.  I have posted this before and I find it quite helpful.  It’s a comment from Carlotta at Alpha Game:

I showed them some jewelery that I was saving for them to wear on special occasions when they are older. I then told them that they had to wait to wear it, but every single other person I could find would get to wear it, break it, steal a piece and throw it in the mud…but eventually they would get the diamond necklace.

Neither wanted it.

“Good, that is how a good man will feel about a women who has let every Tom, Dick and Harry feel up her goods around town.”

This evokes a feeling in a girl that will help her to understand.  However, since this comment has been made, Danny has come up with an analogy that can really help send home the idea of a high N girl that girls and women can much better relate to (while I absolutely love the key/lock analogy, it elicits little feeling beyond anger (and how clever it is)).  Used bubble gum.

marrying or committing to a slut is like finding a piece of chewed bubble gum on a park bench and deciding that it’d be a good idea to put it in your mouth.

This is visceral.  This we can feel and therefore, better understand.  Once she can feel this, explain that her virginity is a gift to her husband.  Something that she can give to him.  It is more concrete and therefore makes more sense to a girl than being told it is just the right thing to do.   It may or may not give her the countenance she needs but it will give her a much better understanding of one of the reasons to wait.

Girls need to learn to look inward and digest what they see.  Our innate nature is not wrong, but some of it will need to be fostered and some of it will need to be controlled.  Girls and women can do this, when taught how.  Start them young.

Raising A Man

Tags

boys, fathers, mothers

A woman blogger (the blog is now defunct) asked the question of how she could raise her son to be an alpha.  She was especially worried as she is a single mom.  There are many different definitions of alpha floating around the manosphere so let’s just say we really want our sons to grow to be Men.

I was intrigued by this question as these days we are taught that it is the women who knows best in raising the children.   Her word should be law and “Mommy knows best”.  For some things, I think this is true in many homes.  Most of the time, I am the one who decides how sick the children are and if they need to go to the doctor.  I make most of the small and many of the large decisions when it comes to school.  In these areas, I do know best often enough.  However, it’s not because of some magic Mommy power that I possess.  It’s simply that I have far more experience in these matters.  Some will want to call it intuition, but it’s not as I didn’t have this skill until I had the experience to back it up.  (By the way, having the experience to make the decision does not always make it mine.  Maritus is the head of our home and the final decision is his.  This is something very important for boys to realize).

I do not have any experience in what it is to be a boy, much less a Man.

Boys need their fathers (girls very much do as well, but this post is going to be about boys).  If there is a situation where this is honestly not best or not possible then boys need to have some time with Men.  Time alone to do Man things, time to see how these Men relate to women, how they relate to their mothers, how they relate to the other Men around them and how they relate to the world.  This is probably the biggest influence in teaching a boy to be a Man.  He absolutely must be with other Men.

This can be bitter sweet for a mother, yet she should know how important this time is.  However, those apron strings can have an awful hold sometimes and it is hard to let go.  It is especially hard to not say anything to the Man doing the teaching when what he is teaching goes against every fiber of our beings.  What we need to keep in mind, is that even though it may be against our nature, it is not against theirs.

This is how Men may very well teach a young boy a skill (watch it till the end.  It’s worth it).

It can be scary as a mother watching this, but if we want our boys to grow up into strong and masculine Men, this is what will bring the confidence that comes along with accomplishing something for real.  It’s not a trophy that everyone wins for participating. It’s a real and true task that was learned and learned well by the boy himself.  That cannot be replaced by false words of praise.  Kids do know better.  Much better.

It reminds me of the beginning of the movie A River Runs Through It.  Norman narrates:

But it was a tough world, too.  Even as children we understood that and admired it.  And of course, we had to test it.  I knew I was tough because I had been bloodied in battle.

I think there are some things that mothers can do as well in helping their sons along the road to manhood.  First and foremost is showing respect and admiration to his father (or to whomever the Man is that will be spending time with him).  He can learn from you what a good wife and mother can be and it will help him in his search later in life, should he choose to do so.  Mothers can be a powerful influence on their sons and I think they will search out a woman who is very much like the woman who treated the man he most looks up to with respect and love.  He will also want to emulate the man who was able to inspire that in a woman.

Second, I believe that mothers should let their sons game them.  I say “let” as when they are little you are very likely to see it while it’s happening and realize what’s going on.  Don’t make him stop because he gives you that look.  You know the one I mean.  The mischievous look with the glimmer in his eye.  Respond positively to it.  That look comes from confidence.  Don’t take that away from him.  Now, obviously, if he is trying to use it to steal your car keys then you put the kibosh on it.  But, if your sons are anything like mine, then he uses that look often and many times it is hysterical and should get a positive laugh, smile, treat, what have you because of it.  Let him use his confidence to sway you in a positive manner.  It will serve him well later on.

Thirdly, let him be a boy.  He’s going to get hurt, dirty, and into trouble.  In some ways, your should encourage this.  If he falls, if there’s no blood then tell him to rub some dirt on it and get back out there.  If he has a bone sticking out his leg, eh, then maybe think about taking him to the doctor.  But let him be a boy.  Never discourage this.  He needs to learn some control over his boyhood, but nothing more as this will lead him on the path to being Man.