OT rant aargh!

Penny S wrote:

Shawn Curry scrawled in bright red lipstick:

Corvus Corvax wrote:

"Penny S" wrote


getting waaay ot here now, sorry I even brought it up.


Penny, you are sentenced to watch "Fight Club" five times in a row.
Dismissed.

CC

If she did, she'd realize its not so much about "Being a Man" as it is
about our consumer oriented society driving one man crazy.

Shawn


Haven't seen it yet. Does Brad Pitt get naked?

Penny

One scene IIRC, he's shirtless, but promptly gets beaten to a bloody
pulp by a mobster. It's O.K. though, he enjoys it.
You should see it. Its truly a great movie (not IMHO, 'tis indeed a
fact ;-)

BB says:

I've always heard it as "bumfupt"

I believe the accepted spelling is "Bumfuq" ;-)

On 20 Sep 2003 19:08:44 GMT, Stephen Baker wrote:
BB says:

I've always heard it as "bumfupt"

I believe the accepted spelling is "Bumfuq" ;-)

Funny, a google search returns more hits on Bumfuq, New Mexico and Bumfuq,
Texas. Google wants to know if I meant to search for "bumfun", but I
definitely don't want to go there!

--
-BB-
To reply to me, drop the attitude (from my e-mail address, at least)

Monique Y. Herman wrote:
On Sat, 20 Sep 2003 07:13:11 -0700, Penny S penned:

You are generalizing about the raising of girls now based on your personal
experience. I know plenty of families whose girls hunt and fish, shoot
guns, and are generally allowed to experience what ever they want, within
reason, without embarrassment. There are many families that give their kids
equal opportunity without shame for many things, and it has nothing to do
with "equality", just parenting style.


Fair enough. There are also many families that don't.

I guess I was lucky, then. I went hunting and fishing, carried a
pocket knife, owned and was a dead shot with a Wrist Rocket slingshot
and only played with dolls when my cousins came over. I lusted after a
BB gun, which I never got - "You'll shoot your eye out" - but I couldn't
really complain because my dad taught me to use a .22 pistol, a shotgun
and an old handgun he'd inherited from his grandpa... Potentially lethal
if you shoved it right up against something and pulled the trigger, but
otherwise useless. The bullet would not go where you pointed it. That
was the only gun I've ever seen that could shoot around corners.
It *might* have gone differently for me if I'd had a brother - if my
father had had a son - but I don't really think so. Those kinds of
things were considered kid stuff, not boy stuff.


One of the neat things we get to do as adults is that when we become
parents, we can make a choice to do things differently.


Screw them up differently =P


Just curious, why would someone be punished for knives, guns or fires?
Were they taking them to school or something?


Well, let me restate what I think I was trying to say -- in my
experience, and apparently not just in mine (I read a really interesting
book on how girls are socialized differently from boys recently, but I
can't recall the title), boys are often allowed to engage in antisocial
behavior, while girls who do the same are dealt with much more harshly.

Bull****. As a parent and a teacher, I can tell you that's not true.
Girls tend to be less physical in their dealings with each other, but
I'm here to tell you that the little ****s can inflict far worse pain on
each other that way than boys ever do in a scuffle. But we come down
hard on boys for the very reason that their conflicts *do* turn physical
and in this day and age, that's not tolerated. These are hard times for
young boys.

The parents of the boys I hung out with were very much of the attitude
that destruction of property was just part of the "boys will be boys"
thing ... whereas my parents, well, no. Then again, rethinking matters,
I don't think my parents would have approved of destruction of property
for any reason ... so maybe my friends' parents were just incompetent,
or oblivious ...

I wasn't talking about using knives to whittle wood -- more like,
practicing throwing knives in a finished room of the house.

Holy cow. That kind of crap should earn a kid of *either* gender a
smack upside the head. Or maybe a dose of ritalin. Or both.

The book I read wasn't about destruction, actually, but did talk about
how boys are often rewarded for boisterous behavior while girls are
reprimanded. Even in classrooms where the teacher is trying not to do
so. Even parents who have a child of each gender on soccer teams --
the daughter being chastised for being so loud, while the boy crows on
and on about his goal, etc.

Book stuff. And OLD book stuff, at that. Those things are governed by
the adult's personal style, not the gender of the child. I've learned
that there are boy teachers and girl teacher, and I'm not talking about
the gender of the educator, I'm talking about their style, and who's
most likely to be successful and appreciated in that classroom. And woe
be unto the rowdy "typical" boy who winds up in a girl teacher's
classroom. Among parents of sons, the highest praise, the best
reference you can give a teacher is "She likes boys".

My parents always told me that I could be president when I grew up --
that anything I wanted was in my power. But when they said "anything,"
they didn't mean dressing in baggy clothes, choosing not to shave (ooh,
my mom hated that one! marched me out of a dress fitting one time for
embarrassing her in front of the seamstress by daring to have hairy
pits!), using padded swords made of foam and pvc piping to spar with the
guys ...

Geeze. I could see getting upset if you were stinky or something, but
if it's just a question of baggy clothes and au naturel pits...


Okay, that's a little too much personal revelation for one morning ...


Kathleen

Kathleen wrote in message:
...

Very true. Until I had a son, I had no freakin' idea how different boys
truly are. I had no brothers, no male cousins close by, and I was
pumped full of the same feminist crap Penny got, and I just knew that
gender differences were the result of upbringing and environment. My
daughter was always a tomboy, which I approved of, having been much the
same myself. So I thought I had a handle on the whole thing.

And then along came Julian. My father and my husband assure me that the
stuff he comes up with are just normal guy things, and not a result of
that time when he was two months old and rolled off the couch and landed
on his head. And so while we still insist on an across-the-board set of
standards for both kids relating to basic human decency and courtesy, on
a lot of Julian-specific issues, I defer to his father's judgement, just
as he defers to mine in regards to our daughter.

I'd be interested to see how Monique's POV evolves once her parenting
experience progresses beyond the theoretical.

I think there are many different ways to take on the job of parenting,
and many different ways to do a good job. I've raised 2 grown sons and
1 grown daughter and now I have a grandson and 2 granddaughters, and I
find myself agreeing with most of what Monique says.

I think it's important for children of both sexes to see role models
of both sexes, in all capacities. When I grew up all of the elementary
school teachers were female, and all of the coaches were male, and I'm
glad to see that's changed. Not all boys want to play rough and be
mischievous, and not all girls want to play with dolls and wear
makeup, and that's OK.

I'm delighted to see male 1st grade teachers who can be gentle and
softspoken, as well as gruff male coaches who can spit and scratch and
cuss. And I'm also delighted to see female scoutmasters who can show
boys that women can be strong and tough, as well as female teachers
who show children how to paint and sing and make crafts.

As long as our children see male and female adults of all kinds among
our friends and neighbors and relatives and teachers and coaches and
so forth, they can see that they are free to let their own
personalities guide them, without fear of being stereotyped and
ridiculed. I think children turn out best when they are free to be
what they want to be, without the pressure of having to behave like we
think they should.

Martin Rogers

Shawn Curry wrote:

One scene IIRC, he's shirtless, but promptly gets beaten to a bloody
pulp by a mobster. It's O.K. though, he enjoys it.
You should see it. Its truly a great movie (not IMHO, 'tis indeed a
fact ;-)

He's shirtless in the scene with the marigolds too, IIRC...

I agree with Shaun, an absolutely fantastic movie.

"Penny S" wrote in message ...

methinks you should have a few kids and then repost with some real life
opinions.


Yup.

All the fancy ideals and "I know better than them" goes right out the
window when you first get a dose of what genetics brings to the table.
My opinion is that nature makes the person, but nurture makes the
person who can get along with other people, some day. And the parents
are the ones playing defense, all the time. (Teen years not included.
Some assembly required. Sleep optional. Good education not
available in all areas. All sales FINAL.)

Spider

P.S. When I was playing soccer, our coach told us to be good sports,
or sit on the sidelines. After our best player was benched for
getting in the face of an opponent, and we played down a man the rest
of the game, nobody crowed about goals much. I remember winning a lot
more after that, too.

Only in america.

Fire up MTB 03

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 20:10:28 -0700, "Penny S"
wrote:

the new season of survivor... a woman scout leader, I'm sorry but how does a
woman teach boys to be men? I guess I've been too conditioned by my son's
troop who's attitude is "mom's butt out out and let your son become a man
under the leadership of men and boys..." ( and I agree btw)


ok, carry on....


Unbelievable! You give women a bad name. I know a lot more women who
should be leading boyscouts instead of there lame ass men. Maybe the
women out west are whimps. Out here on the east coast they're tougher
than a lot of men.

I'm not only saying this because one of my "female" neighbors was my
sons scout leader, but because "most" women can do the job just as
good if not better than men. Men inherently talk a lot of crap
without being able to back it up, the women I know talk the talk and
walk the walk.

Since when does becoming a man mean the women have to bud out. If I'm
not mistaken, if it wasn't for women at home raising kids a lot of
young boys would probably be dead or on drugs. I can't believe that
you think a woman can't teach a boy to be a man.

As for scouts in general I wouldn't recommend it for teaching a boy to
be man in the first place. Real men aren't threatened by homosexuals
like the scouts are. After all they are called "boy" scouts not
"man" scouts.

I can't believe what I've just read. You and your attitude couldn't
be more wrong.

Now that we agree to disagree how's about another "Nice" RR?

Peace,
Bill

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 21:34:20 -0700, "Penny S"
wrote:

[snip]

The motto is never do for a boy what he can do for himself,

I like that, but out about this version?

Never do for a person what he can do for himself.

Peace,
Bill