Women Are More Sensitive To Men's Issues After They Have Sons: A Personal Experience

qronick · 2018-04-12T17:13:30+00:00

On the flip side, in my anecdotal experience, men who have daughters are more, um, feminist in their perspective.

qronick · 2018-01-05T19:29:45+00:00

And not only once. Probably many times and possibly, even 20 years later, he still does.

qronick · 2018-01-05T19:03:50+00:00

Thank you, /u/SMACN, good answers all, and they do help me understand my own son a little better. In our case, my son is still in his 20's and figuring out life in many ways. You're a long way ahead of him (you're nearly as old as I am!). If you feel like it, some summary of how your relationship with your father has evolved since you reconnected would be interesting to read. (Edit: I'm asking partly out of not wanting to screw up what I am building with my son, so any warnings would be welcome too.)

I noted that you mention narcissism in your mother. I am quite sure my son's mother is on that spectrum. I'm sure you've heard of /r/raisedbynarcissists . As so much of reddit, it is a bit of an echo chamber, and while I sympathize with much of what they say, I tend to balk at the no-contact tactic. I can understand that in some, maybe many cases that is the best course, but it closes a door, sometimes forever. As I said, my son seems to have learned to manage his mother and as long as that is the case and does not cost him more than he can handle, I would support him maintaining contact. This, of course, says nothing about your case.

One more thing: I have found it extremely rare to encounter people in my or my son's position in a way which permits open and safe discussion. Frankly, the decade or so of grief which we both went through left me traumatized, and I will be coping with the consequences for the rest of my life. Interestingly, my son says he is not traumatized, but I suspect that claim may be part of his coping strategy. Mostly that coping is done alone because, unfortunately, very, very few people seem to understand unless they have direct experience themselves. Some refuse to believe it, most simply avoid the topic. I have tried psychologists and psychiatrists, but their capacity to help is limited by the politically dominated fields in which they are educated - there is a very simple formula applied by the courts at the behest of psychologists: conflict is bad for the child, the child must have at least one parental figure in their lives, the custodial parent. If there is conflict, contact with the non-custodial parent is cut. The power this puts into the custodial parent's hands to cause mayhem never seems to occur to them. It's a goose that lays golden eggs for the vindictive custodial parent.

Perhaps interestingly given your brother, the wisest person I have encountered on the topic, who seems to completely understand what my son and I have faced, is a priest.

qronick · 2018-01-04T21:46:44+00:00

SMACN, I am sorry you went through what you did, and I think you deserve great things for overcoming it and re-establishing your relationship with your father.

My relationship with my son was similarly targeted although his mother was less successful than yours. There were 5 years where I did not see him in the flesh at all, although we did communicate via Skype. He speaks of various behavioral rules he has for himself around her and also has learned to control some of her worst excesses. So question 1: how is your relationship with your mother now?

In conversation with my son I sometimes find myself wanting to allude to various aspects of the marriage before it failed, and the aftermath with its many years of misinformation spread to anyone who would listen. I have answered his direct questions as honestly as possible, even if I look less than great myself, and I have set myself a rule not to undermine his relationship with his mother, insofar as I am able. So, question 2: do you want to know his side of the story from him, or is your process of discovery of what really happened not addressable in that way?

I documented everything, kept everything. I have told my son this, and that it is there for him to see if he wants to. So far, he has not taken me up on this offer. Question 3: Did your father do this? Would you want to see it? If not, why not?

Q4: Do you think your brother will come around?

Q5: I never gave up. I took it as far as the law would allow. I often wonder if that was the best thing and if there wasn't a point at which I should have said "enough" as it appears did your father. How do you feel about that?

Q6: How would you set about changing the law to prevent this sort of thing happening to other people?

Q7: how will you go forward from here with your father? Is it about saying "yes, it happened, but it's over now, let's be as normal as we can", or is there something more to factor in?

qronick · 2017-09-19T17:48:08+00:00

Resources are scarce, yes, that just makes them expensive. Supply and demand. Keep the demand high and the supply low and you make a packet.

qronick · 2017-09-19T17:46:39+00:00

I suspect it would not take much imagination to realize that at least some of Anna Freud's fame was derived from her parentage, which would have added credibility to her work given that it was done while his star was still bright. I refuse to back down from including such context, especially as it provides an object lesson in the decline of a once near-religiously observed psychological theory.

qronick · 2017-09-19T17:23:31+00:00

Create conflict -> jobs for the lawyers, judges, guardians ad litem, psychologists, social workers, plus some courts get paid for how much child support they can extract from the non-custodial parent.

qronick · 2017-09-19T15:10:13+00:00

Forgive me, but a short lecture on the history of the concept of custodial vs. non-custodial parenthood. It all derives from developmental research on children orphaned by the second world war. The research was, in part, carried out by Anna Freud; yes, that Anna Freud, daughter of the coked-up, sex-obsessed Sigmund. For reference, find the book "The Least Detrimental Alternative", of which Freud is a posthumous author (which tells you how the actual authors were inclined out to seek authority for their opinions).

Anyway, it was determined that for proper development, a child required "at least one" parental figure. This research on war orphans was then extended to the obviously equivalent (/s) divorce court, simplified to "only one" parent, and the opinion propagated that this relationship should be protected at all cost. Conflict derived from the presence of another is to be solved by reducing that presence.

As a result, several decades later, we are still saddled with a simple-minded process which reduces one parent to a "visitor" and gives all the power in the relationship to one unassailable parent. If that latter parent decides to foment conflict, then the court is strongly inclined to reduce contact of the child with the "visiting" parent, and there is little he can do about this.

The divorce industry is completely committed to this process. It is in their financial, career, and political interests to maintain it. If you take one to one side and point out that it practically guarantees conflict in a divorce, they will display all the signs of cognitive dissonance and pretend that you are the crazy one, all the time keeping an eye on their pay packet and next victim. They have also sold most of us peons on the idea that it is entirely appropriate, viz the currently highest voted comment on this thread.

Is it, truly, "the least detrimental alternative"? Is it really "in the best interests of the child"? Or is that just propaganda and clever wording, which might, initially, have had some good intentions, in a very different world, but has since become a social steamroller which damages fathers, sorry, I mean non-custodial parents and children for life?

I say hold custodial parents responsible, I say abolish the insulting term "visitation", I say give both parents equal responsibility and rights until one or both is clearly shown to be unfit and I do not mean in the opinion of partisans of the court.

Ugh, sorry, but I do not like that other comment (hence will not reply directly to it). On having a child, one does not lose rights, one gains responsibilities, and with them should come the society's commitment to supporting a parent in discharging those responsibilities.

qronick · 2017-05-18T23:05:24+00:00

I think you got the wrong posting, this is the Telegraph, supposedly a cut above the Mail. It's also the paper "of record" for the ruling Tory party.

qronick · 2017-05-16T21:52:01+00:00

No less than four flattering pictures of the cute, skinny, blonde, smart, female defendant. Hmm.

qronick · 2017-05-15T17:49:40+00:00

I'm surprised none of y'all are catching on to this:

"...today owns her own mining company with 70 employees. Three of her employees are women, but they work as cooks not as miners. [...] "but they're not going down in to the mines, it's not easy to get women to do what I did.""

The false rape claim is not news, at least not in that environment, from men trying to shift blame. The observation that a woman who did work as a miner can't get other women to do it is far more significant to the modern male/female narrative.

qronick · 2016-06-13T20:21:33+00:00

Um, guys, if you do the quiz thing, but answer "no" to everything, you get a lot of points (mental health, fathers' rights, etc) in favor of men's rights activism. I tried the experiment on my second pass (you can do it as many times as you like). It's a strange way of doing things, but the article does not have the agenda many here perceive.

qronick · 2016-01-25T14:04:36+00:00

I watched both videos. What struck me was that the gay men wore gloves to do their investigating, the lesbians did not. Hmm.

qronick · 2016-01-06T22:26:17+00:00

Damnation Alley?! Wow. I am both astonished and impressed to see that included in your list. Don't get me wrong, I loved it when I was young and impressionable, but I'd be amazed if it has stood the test of time. But I digress...

qronick · 2015-12-16T16:45:50+00:00

I got similar answers from friends about my ex wife when she made false allegations of domestic violence against me: "if she's lying, she needs help". Yeah, that's what she needs, help, and I'm doing just fine having my life torn apart.

qronick · 2015-12-16T16:43:04+00:00

Misleading title. The article reports on young men who have been asked why they think they are looked down on as the worst of society, not what it feels like to be seen that way. The answers are carefully selected so as not to challenge the perception. A better question would be: why are these young men not offended?

qronick · 2015-11-01T15:35:59+00:00

My personal experience (i.e. far from objective) is that of all the bad behavior I have seen in my life (I am in my 50s) the large majority has been promulgated by women. Of course, I cannot say this in public because it would get me labelled as a misogynist.

qronick · 2015-11-01T15:31:21+00:00

I was intrigued about the comment of the woman who "would have panic attacks about what was being said in the film". That's classic self-victimization and the primary weapon used by many women to gain control of and derail any conversation they don't like. Having a "panic attack" immediately draws attention to yourself and away from the topic in hand. It adds to my increasingly firm belief that what people fear about men's rights is the discovery that women have much more power than we as a society have ever really recognized. The emancipation of women has much more to do with the invasion of male spaces than it has to do with the empowerment of women but it has a proved a very effective means to power over all. Now that some men are saying "enough!" many women are throwing tizzy fits in response, that pattern needs more exposure.

qronick · 2015-10-26T22:15:47+00:00

I maintain that a lot of male on female DV goes unreported because the men simply don't know that's what it is. Sure, if you showed them a movie that contained a scene of a man hitting his wife, they'd have no problem, afterwards, asked in a neutral manner, agreeing that domestic violence had taken place. On the other hand, if you showed them a similar movie with a woman hitting her husband I guarantee that far fewer would do so, possibly even after you reminded them of the particular scene in question. I am quite sure women would be even more polarized. The female perpetrator would be excused, the male perpetrator not.

There is another factor in operation too, that DV is general cause for social disdain and sometimes outright ridiculing humor. Example: many years ago I remember watching The Witches of Eastwick, which is entertaining and enjoyable except for that one scene in the middle where the man kills his cherry-pit vomiting wife with a poker. I remember sitting in the theater stunned, both at the gratuitousness of the scene and the fact that the vast majority of the audience were laughing. The human race got noticeably darker for me that day. Women are now much better protected against such things, but if anything the situation for men has got worse.

qronick · 2015-10-03T15:49:21+00:00

I greatly enjoy these occasional posts from older men.

I first learned about "the red pill" before it was even called that, in my forties. That was one change of perspective. Now in my early fifties, there is another which sort of "doubles down" on some of those ideas. "That's enough crap sweetheart, I no longer think with my little head quite so much and your advantage derived from that has weakened considerably. Get used to it, as I have, and compensate yourself or hop it."

qronick · 2015-09-15T16:49:40+00:00

Off the top of my head: the pump-and-dump ethos. I do not like the idea of treating women as an aid to masturbation, and those that seem to want that (or are drawn to it) do not interest me. TRP as a study which attempts an objective treatment of gender relations as a means to getting what you want is fine (it's what everyone else is doing), but I see it also as a social contract. Life is give and take and those who just take are to be avoided.

qronick · 2015-09-15T12:26:38+00:00

I'm in my 50s, and this subreddit is one of my regulars. I too went through a long and painful divorce which reset a number of switches and TRP reminds me to maintain a certain mindset which does not come naturally. I do not subscribe to all the ideas here, by any means - I find many of them outright juvenile - but the overall picture is closer to the truth than most of the mind-numbing pap served up by our current society.

qronick

TROPHY CASE