“Here are some suggestions [for rules for children]. Do not bite, kick or hit, except in self-defense. Do not torture and bully other children, so you don’t end up in jail. Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you. Learn to share, so other kids will play with you. Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don’t hate you and might therefore deign to teach you something. Go to sleep properly, and peaceably, so that your parents can have a private life and not resent your existence. Take care of your belongings, because you need to learn how and because you’re lucky to have them. Be good company when something fun is happening, so that you’re invited for the fun. Act so that other people are happy you’re around, so that people will want you around. A child who knows these rules will be welcome everywhere.” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 137)
Parenting Quotes
“Parents who refuse to adopt the responsibility for disciplining their children think they can just opt out of the conflict necessary for proper child-rearing. They avoid being the bad guy (in the short term). But they do not at all rescue or protect their children from fear and pain. Quite the contrary: the judgmental and uncaring broader social world will mete out conflict and punishment far greater than that which would have been delivered by an awake parent. You can discipline your children, or you can turn that responsibility over to the harsh, uncaring judgmental world—and the motivation for the latter decision should never be confused with love.” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 134)
“Children hit first because aggression is innate, although more dominant in some individuals and less in others, and second, because aggression facilitates desire. It’s foolish to assume that such behaviour must be learned. A snake does not have to be taught to strike. It’s in the nature of the beast. Two-year-olds, statistically speaking, are the most violent of people. They kick, hit and bite, and they steal the property of others. They do so to explore, to express outrage and frustration, and to gratify their impulsive desires. More importantly, for our purposes, they do so to discover the true limits of permissible behaviour. How else are they ever going to puzzle out what is acceptable? Infants are like blind people, searching for a wall. They have to push forward, and test, to see where the actual boundaries lie (and those are too-seldom where they are said to be).” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 126)
“More often than not, modern parents are simply paralyzed by the fear that they will no longer be liked or even loved by their children if they chastise them for any reason. They want their children’s friendship above all, and are willing to sacrifice respect to get it. This is not good. A child will have many friends, but only two parents—if that—and parents are more, not less, than friends. Friends have very limited authority to correct. Every parent therefore needs to learn to tolerate the momentary anger or even hatred directed towards them by their children, after necessary corrective action has been taken, as the capacity of children to perceive or care about long-term consequences is very limited. Parents are the arbiters of society. They teach children how to behave so that other people will be able to interact meaningfully and productively with them.” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 124)
“To treat yourself as if you were someone you are responsible for helping is what would be truly good for you. This is not ‘what you want.’ It is also not ‘what would make you happy.’ Every time you give a child something sweet, you make that child happy. That does not mean that you should do nothing for children except feed them candy. ‘Happy’ is by no means synonymous with ‘good.’ You must get children to brush their teeth. They must put on their snowsuits when they go outside in the cold, even though they might object strenuously. You must help a child become a virtuous, responsible, awake being, capable of full reciprocity—able to take care of himself and others, and to thrive while doing so. Why would you think it acceptable to do anything less for yourself?” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 62)
“Motherhood is a choice you make everyday, to put someone else’s happiness and well-being ahead of your own, to teach the hard lessons, to do the right thing even when you’re not sure what the right thing is… and to forgive yourself over and over again, for doing everything wrong.” ~ Donna Ball, At Home on Ladybug Farm
25 Quotes on Masculinity, What Can Make It “Toxic,” and How To Break the Cycle of Harm to Our Boys and Men
Excerpt: Read our 25 quotes on masculinity and learn what can make it “toxic,” how to best raise our boys, and how to break a cycle of harm.
Read More »25 Quotes on Masculinity, What Can Make It “Toxic,” and How To Break the Cycle of Harm to Our Boys and Men
I Don’t Want To Talk About It [Book]
Book Overview: Twenty years of experience treating men and their families has convinced psychotherapist Terrence Real that depression is a silent epidemic in men—that men hide their condition from family, friends, and themselves to avoid the stigma of depression’s “un-manliness.” Problems that we think of as typically male—difficulty with intimacy, workaholism, alcoholism, abusive behavior, and rage—are really attempts to escape depression. And these escape attempts only hurt the people men love and pass their condition on to their children. This groundbreaking book is the “pathway out of darkness” that these men and their families seek. Real reveals how men can unearth their pain, heal themselves, restore relationships, and break the legacy of abuse.
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Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
“The unresolved pain of previous generations operates in families like an emotional debt. We either face it or we leverage our children with it. When a man stands up to depression, the site of his battle may be inside his own head, but the struggle he wages has repercussions far beyond him. A man who transforms the internalized voice of contempt resists violence lying close to the heart of patriarchy itself. Such a man serves as a breakwall. The waves of pain that may have wreaked havoc across generations spill over him and lose their virulent force—sparing his children. The ‘difficult repentance’ such a man undertakes protects those who follow him. And his healing is a spiritual gift to those who came before. The reclaimed lost boy such a man discovers—the unearthed emotional, creative part of him—may not be merely the child of his own youth, but the lost child of his father’s youth, or even of his father’s father.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“Boys don’t hunger for fathers who will model traditional mores of masculinity. They hunger for fathers who will rescue them from it. They need fathers who have themselves emerged from the gauntlet of their own socialization with some degree of emotional intactness. Sons don’t want their father’s ‘balls’; they want their hearts. And, for many, the heart of a father is a difficult item to come by.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“The key component of a boy’s healthy relationship to his father is affection, not ‘masculinity.’ The boys who fare poorly in their psychological adjustment are not those without fathers, but those with abusive or neglectful fathers. Contrary to the traditional stereotype, a sweet man in an apron who helps out with the housework may be just the nurturant kind of father a boy most needs.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“As with intelligence, so too with behaviors—malleable kids live up, or down, to our expectations.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“I think not touching a child for decades at a time is a form of injury. I think withholding any expression of love until a young boy is a grown man is a form of emotional violence. And I believe that the violence men level against themselves and others is bred from just such circumstances.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“If you have difficulties with your son or daughter, you may have the tendency to say: “You are not my daughter. My daughter would not behave like that” or “You are not my son. My son would never do things like that.” If you look deeply at yourself, you will see that these negative seeds are in you also. When you were young you made mistakes and you learned from your suffering. When your child makes mistakes, you need to help him understand so he will not do it again. When you can see your own weaknesses, you can say: “Who am I not to accept my son?” Your son is you. With this insight into non-duality, you can reconcile with your children.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
“I know many parents whose children, when they are eighteen or nineteen years old, leave home and live on their own. The parents lose their children and feel very sorry for themselves. Yet the parents did not value the moments they had with their children. The same is true of husbands and wives. You think that your spouse will be there for the whole of your life, but how can you be so sure? We really have no idea where our partners will be in twenty or thirty years’ time or even tomorrow. It is very important to remember every day the practice of impermanence.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
“The child wants to go out while it is raining and wants to dance in the rain: ‘No! You will get a cold.’ A cold is not a cancer, but a child who has been prevented from dancing in the rain, and has never been able again to dance, has missed something great, something really beautiful. A cold would have been worthwhile—and it is not that he will necessarily have a cold. In fact, the more you protect him, the more he becomes vulnerable. The more you allow him, the more he becomes immune.” ~ Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition
