Boys Need Protection Too

Boys Need Protection Too

Last week, I posted something of a response to the hilarious “if you touch my daughter I’ll kill you!” stance that many fathers enjoy taking when their daughters start dating. I wrote the post to make light of the idea that it’s supercool for adults to threaten children with violence.

As I was writing, I found myself worrying about my credibility on the topic, because I don’t have a daughter who might one day be asked to prom by a leering, peach-fuzzed boy with only one thing on his mind and it’s not matchbox cars I’ll tell you that much!

I only have a son. And boys don’t need protection.

Right?

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Inclusive Parenting

Inclusive Parenting

Parenting is a nonstop merry-go-round of comparison, guilt and judgment.

We feel guilty when we screw up, we judge other parents when they screw up. We endlessly compare ourselves to those same parents, unaware – or, more honestly, unwilling to accept – that they are experiencing exactly the same trials and tribulations, and riding the same roller-coaster, that we are.

We pit ourselves against the world, against non-parents and other parents and even our spouses, eliminating the curve and grading everything on a scale of zero or 100, using extreme language in the service of unrealistic standards. In so doing, we isolate ourselves from each other.

It’s time we started using our broad assumptions and wild generalizations to be inclusive instead of exclusive. Here, I’ll get us started and give some inclusive parenting a try.

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Cry School

Cry School

With apologies to Tom Petty, the waiting actually ain’t so bad. It’s the separating that’s the hardest part. Especially when it comes to dropping my kid off at school.

He’s only four years old, so I’m not talking about sending him off to college, or even to the military academy he’ll definitely be attending if he doesn’t shape up! I’m talking about sending him to pre-kindergaten. Where he eats paste for six hours.

If he can’t figure out how to handle that, I’m going to start eating paste. After my nervous breakdown.

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