9/18/2018 2 Comments Boys Will Be Boys ...The thing is.
Underneath all the discourse about Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford is a thinly veiled whisper of something else. Running through the rhetoric of “he said/she said” and “due process” and “presumption of innocence” is another thread pulled taut: Even if she’s telling the truth, it’s NO.BIG.DEAL. Boys will be boys. I agree with that last point. I really do. If we read to them from an early age - books of all shapes and sizes and subjects ... if we read to them about ballerinas and trucks and sloths and galaxies far far away and wizarding schools and llamas, boys will be boys who are literate and curious, interested and interesting. If we teach our boys to respect themselves and their friends, to make good decisions in the face of temptations of alcohol, drugs, raging hormones, and a pervasive influx of societal pressures ...if we admit that we know and understand that these are not easy decisions and choices, and that we remember facing them, really we do, and that mistakes will be made, but those mistakes must be owned and regretted, not lied about, then boys will be boys that respect themselves and others. If we show them that actions have consequences, and that a lifetime of good decisions has a certain trajectory, whereas bad decisions have a different one, boys will be boys who choose the former. And if we discourage victims from reporting abuse and assault and injustice, by calling those that bravely tell their stories at the risk of losing everything - liars - then boys will be boys who don’t believe women. And if we confirm a Supreme Court Justice, even if there are credible allegations that he attacked and sexually assaulted a 15 year old girl when he was 17, then boys will be boys who - rightfully so - don’t believe - US.
2 Comments
Susan Peterson
9/19/2018 04:20:51 am
You hit the nail on the head, Amy.
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9/20/2018 10:54:06 pm
It's all in the parenting. Absolutely. While I am happy to have raised a strong woman, I wouldn't have minded having had the chance to raise a boy. Too late now. But it would have been interesting.
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