1743. Hope, Respect, and Trust — Part II

Mothers, fathers, and other leaders commit one particular flagrant violation that disrupts the process of generating reciprocal respect and mutual influence.

They see a child or employee do something wrong. Instead of focusing on the undesirability of the results, they focus on the offender. Parents often yell and other leaders pointedly say or imply, “Why did you do that? What were you thinking?” They ask or imply, “How could you have been so stupid, dumb, or careless?” Such reactions are common, right? Say, Yes.

Here’s the shocker that such mothers, fathers, and other leaders don’t recognize. Asking such questions immediately shows disrespect for the wrongdoer’s reasoning, judgment, and ability. Only spiteful people try to screw up the things they are supposed to do. Most likely, whatever the offender did was done with no malice aforethought and for reasons they thought appropriate at the time. In short, they’re not as screwed up as the results they produced. They erred, miscalculated, or mistook something they thought would work. In any event, recovery is everything, and they learned how not to do it in the future and probably long before the condemning leader came down on them. Given the time to mull over the result they produced, they feel confident they can figure out how to do it right the next time. (We all learn most effectively by doing something wrong the first time.)

The point is this: Just the process of asking ‘why did you do that’ or words to that effect bring a culprit’s character, reasoning, and judgment into question. It challenges the wrongdoer’s self-respect. In the case of males, it also disrupts his sense of self-admiration and, consequently,weakens his interest in figuring out how to do better the next time. In the case of females, it disfigures their sense of self-importance by unintentionally displeasing someone.

It gets worse in the home. Siblings pick up on parental questioning of a particular child’s repeated mistakes or misbehavior; the child must always explain himself. Siblings carry it into adult life and easily doubt or question why their brother or sister does certain things with what appear to be dubious reasons. They carry parental habits forward long after the parents are gone, which effectively weakens family glue between adult siblings.

Mutual respect and mutual influence are severely weakened by the simple expedient of calling someone’s character, reasoning ability, and judgment into question. The leader may think it’s only a question. Wrongdoers take it far more personal and also as nullifying the confidence and regard in which leader holds them. When wrongdoers see disrespect aimed at them, their trust of the leader wanes ever more rapidly with each incident, and the leader’s effectiveness as an influencer fades.

756. The Complex Broken Down — II

Perhaps you wonder why so much misery exists in homes today? Generally, women are not doing their best. You’ve seen some of what follows, but togetherness adds context.

Domestic harmony comes from this:

• Wives/mothers dominate the home by recognizing husband as head of family, wife as second in command, mother as third, and father as fourth.
• Females are naturally hard-headed and soft-hearted. Wife’s hard-headedness, however, dominates mother’s soft-heartedness. The wife role takes priority over the mother role. Otherwise, she pushes husband toward somebody else.
• Submissiveness is not about obedience but about rank structure when agreement can’t be negotiated, but decisions must be made on important matters.
• Husbands with frequent and convenient access to sex made delightful by wife spend less time looking for it and more time following their missions in life—job, family, or hobby. Perhaps to a fault, but it’s usually better than his chasing skirts.

Disharmony arises out of the following whether kids are present or not:

• Mother admits her inability to be second in command by repeatedly or exasperatedly turning to father to solve routine, child discipline, or non-critical problems. 
• When husband/father overrules or reverses decisions of wife/mother, her effectiveness declines. Both she and the kids learn that she’s not respected by head of family. Her authority for discipline goes down, and kids learn to play parents against one another.
• When wife/mother overrules or shows disdain for decisions of husband/father, he’s driven to look for another home. Both he and the kids see that he’s not respected, and he swallows that as an escape pill.

Over the past few decades, harmony in the home has shifted toward disharmony. As a result, home life miseries intrude into everyday life. Perhaps not yours, but someone you know.

629. Mothering Sons #03

I offer no advice for mothering sons. Rather, I focus on causes and effects that show why mothers may be disappointed with whatever they’re doing or hope to get. They should figure out what works best for their family.

• Tweens—The effectiveness of mom’s nurturing fades. Love doesn’t help much to motivate tween sons. Soothing love helps, however, when something goes sour or wrong.
• Toddlers—Nurturing gets weaker after son’s conscious mind opens. Showing appreciation counts far more than affection continually lavished on him. Two reasons: (1) His conscience is developing, and he’s not sure he deserves it or has no time for excess affection. (2) Unlike girls melting into relationships, he’s into individual accomplishments—specifically his own—and excitements.
• Mothers—Good intentions don’t work except to make mom feel good about herself. Good character and good examples impress son for life if not immediately.
• Infants—Dad is not a nurturer; even his showering of love and affection are not the same as mom’s. Of course he can change diapers, but do you think the baby gets the same sense of importance as when mom, or for that fact, even another female does it?

More follows.

623. Mothering Sons — #01: Phases

I dedicate this series to Her Highness Adrian. My words, not hers: What’s the secret to raising good boys? The answer: Don’t raise bad ones! —at which this series aims. Good boys are essentially accidents left over from teaching boys to like Self, respect others, admire good character, and live up to something bigger than themselves.

Mother: Get ‘perfect’ out of your mind. Perfection appeals to males as it does to females, but perfection is never what someone else identifies. Also, any human knows he’s incapable of perfection all the time about all things. So, quit trying to make him anywhere near perfect. He’ll resent you and become a disciplinary problem, mama’s boy, or perhaps co-dependent on someone or something.

Mother: You may not like it, but your sense of mothering should evolve as son passes through four development phases. Nurturing and love are not always the most important. Sometimes mom’s strengths are bothersome. More later.

Mother: View child development in three phases: He’s taught before first grade, he learns firsthand before puberty, and he already knows everything after that. So, mother has to face three phases of roughly six years each. But I cut the first phase roughly in half.

• Infants—This is the first three or so years until the conscious mind comes alive and the child recognizes himself as a person, toddler to you.
• Toddlers—The second three years or thereabouts.
• Tweens—This phase runs from about age six or the first grade until puberty.
• Teens—This phase runs from puberty onward.

Effective parenting flows from emphasizing three roles with mom and dad switching primary responsibility. That’s next.  

551. Smother Love — Part A

 Nature endows men mentally and emotionally to be top dog in relationships. The mother instinct pushes women to be number one. Not the instinct, but mothering per se is the most important job in Nature. Thus, Nature confuses both sexes, and they easily stress each other trying to harmonize home and family. 

Kids understand they are dependent on adults, until puberty disrupts what went before.

Mothering is the most important job, but that does not elevate mother to numero uno. Matter of fact, arrival of first child divides a couple into a foursome, two split personalities as it were.

The foursome works most effectively when ranked in this top-to-bottom order: husband, wife, mother, father. Now watch this clarity: Wife works for and reports to husband. Mother works for and reports to wife. Father works for and reports to mother, including the delivery of higher order discipline when mom’s just ain’t enough. Child as passenger reports to all adults. 

Think before condemning: Family life ultimately boils down to two bus drivers: With wife primarily at the wheel, family pulls together. With mother primarily at the wheel, family pulls apart. Why the difference? With mother at the wheel, she can’t resist elevating child to adult and perhaps number one status, and that drives away husband and father. 

The four split roles can work well together, when each fulfills their own mission without adversely impacting the responsibility of others.

Husband produces, provides, protects, and problem-solves. Wife orchestrates harmony between everyone in the home. Mother nurtures and rears children. Father backs up mom’s discipline and rewards mother for her efforts and sacrifices. According to circumstances at any given time, one role dominates, and three roles submit. As with barbershop quartets, Harmony!

Lack of vision, clarity, and acceptance of these roles breeds confusion that can easily lead even to hatefulness in the home. 

538. Dysfunctional Female

A female’s primary love is self-love. To the extent that she lacks it, she becomes proportionately dysfunctional, because self-love governs her primary motivator, self-interest.

Without self-love, she’s uncertain about good and bad for her, torn between needs and wants, indecisive about her importance among others, and substitutes instant gratification for longer range interests.  

The question arises: Where does Self-love come from and how does she get it?

The complex answer: Obviously roots are in genetics and hormones. However, those roots need reinforcement and invigoration that comes from being treated as a princess in the heart and eyes of father, gramps, or whatever man reared her from about three and especially from age six thru puberty.

The simple answer: Being her father’s first-class, royal, and beautiful princess throughout childhood.

The next best thing: Self-talk before a mirror and in her prayers that describe her appearance and value as getting better all the time. Negative self-evaluations are harmful to her self-image, and this translates into less Self-love.

The really, truly, absolutely best thing: Get saved! Everything else works for her, but this is the ultimate. By giving her heart to Jesus Christ, she becomes His. Faith generates, restores, or improves her self-love.  

441. Female malpractice — Part 14

♣ Wives change after marriage in two ways hard for husband to accept:

·        She changes from the woman he courted, his bride, and into something else. Not what he bargained for.

·        She quits showing respect and gratitude for what he is and does. This devalues his sense of importance, questions his significance, and makes her easy to dump.

♣ Whatever husband turns out to be, she chose wrongly, if she can’t be grateful for him. If she can’t accept the blame, she’s doomed to choose another much like him.

♣ When she blames him for their failed relationship and listens to sympathetic and empathetic others, she eases the burden for self-examination and correction. Her next man will reap the consequences.

♣ Men are not the mystery. Why do women prefer acting like men and expressing their sexual freedom instead of taming, civilizing, and domesticating men for good husbanding and fathering?

♣ Women are nesters, nurturers, and relationship experts, and girls intuitively know how. Many lack experience, however, and so they fear trying. Some, the unfortunate few, even lack interest.

306. Sex and the fickle girl — Part 14

♀  When a woman concludes that men are only after one thing, it’s because she offers too little else.

♀  Women generate their own unhappiness. A woman focuses on her man’s negatives, which worsen precisely because of her attentions.

♀  Booty call: The screwing she gets for the screwing he gets. Duty sluthood costs her much more male respect that she can ever imagine.

♀  College girls major in booty for reasons incomprehensible to any father.   

♀  Capturing a man is easy. Keeping one is not. The burden is on her. Her nature seeks togetherness, and his seeks freedom.

♀  Virgin girls believe they won’t get dumped if they yield. Actually, to men, the more his buds have tried and failed, the easier she is to dump, unless he’s really into her other strengths and attributes.  

♀  It’s self-fulfilling: A wife blames husband for his faults. Accused men defend themselves by disproving the evidence presented. Debate amplifies his faults into failures in her eyes. He gets worse.

♀  Women abandon femininity, modesty, high moral standards, and other female strengths just to have a boyfriend they can’t keep, because of what they abandoned.

[More about sex and fickle females appears in posts 291, 259, 246, 229, 216, 201, 184, 170, 160, 148, 137, 93, and 34. Scroll down or search by the number followed by a dot and space.]