Comment

Comment by Tom Sarbeck on March 4, 2013 at 7:12pm

Herbert, this is a most fertile subject; I will use it for a short, focused memoir for a writing group.

For here, the following suffices.

Women have justly complained of being treated as sex objects; I've heard few men complain of being treated as provider objects. I'm sure I'm not the only man who found the realization jarring.

After a divorce I became active in a large singles club. Most of its 400-plus members were divorced. I first rather tactlessly described it as a promising sociological research opportunity. In time, I realized two things about its members:

* Women were learning, perhaps painfully, that they were more capable than they'd been taught, and

* Men were learning, perhaps painfully, that we were less essential than we'd been taught.

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, in their Sex at Dawn, contend that family became important as hunting-gathering and its promiscuity gave way to agriculture and its monogamy.

Comment by Joan Denoo on March 4, 2013 at 12:36pm

Loren, Sentient, Tom and Herbert, I am so grateful for you men, sharing your stories and how you experience life and being willing and able to discuss such things with me. Everything each one of you states is true. Women and men need to understand what you very special men understand.

Herbert, I see institutions as being based on unhealthy principles and you named them from your perspective. I name the same ones from my point of view. Teachings of the church was another challenge for me because of male dominance of men and women, wanting us to be little god-worshipers even as it kills individuation.

Now that we realize how important it is for each one of us to know and understand ourselves, we have a starting place. From there, there is a lot of work to do to know and understand the matrix in which we live. Just as a fish does not recognize water, we do not recognize the environment in which we live. A sick environment produces sick individuals and partnerships and life in general. We now can flourish to our full potential and refuse to be under the boot of any other person or institution.

Comment by Joan Denoo on March 4, 2013 at 12:19pm

Herbert Peters, you make sense with the stressers that men carry and the fact is, men kill themselves, the people they love, or people connected to institution. It seemed at one time very many postmen went on rampages ... I don't know if that is continuing.
My son-in-law was a real angry man that I could NOT stand to be around until he took a building-relationships course and his blood pressure went to normal, his family changed and he is without a doubt the finest person I know and to discuss things. My daughter gave him an ultimatum, he went resisting with everything he had, and learned a new way to think. It was an attitude change plus learning communication skills. Even their business attitude changed.

For me, my family was a challenge to overcome. I had to divorce my husband, I returned to school and my three children and I developed a whole new way of relating and we all flourished. We developed skills and started thinking and acting as a team. That was 38+ years ago. My former husband remarried and tried to control and dominate her and her sons. That marriage ended as well. His second wife and I are very close, kind of like sisters.

Learning how to give up control over others is tough and many men are not strong enough to do it. It takes courage with hard work. It is doable. I am so glad you found your way through your stress and created a wider world-view. I am sure your family likes the change, and if you are a good teacher, your students benefit.

Your story is an important one that needs to be told far and wide. Men raised to be narrow minded, controlling, and dominating, often cannot form bonds with others. You did.

Comment by Herbert Peters on March 4, 2013 at 10:50am

I am an anarchist and I am very suspicious of all forms of organizations. They all have command and control structure to exploit! Family too is an organization. Here, especially where there is dowry, men are bought into the woman's family. In case of problems, she has all her relatives to support and he will be alone with no support. Politics, law, and church are tuned to please females.   

Comment by Herbert Peters on March 4, 2013 at 10:43am

Some thing about this community: Catholics, most go to the middle east to earn more, but those are not permanent jobs and usually when they come back, the wife is in her mid age and associated problems. or simply they don't have a relationship with him but for the money he was remitting from abroad for their lavish life. There are hardly any remarriages. So when relationships sour, women get to church related activities and men into alcohol. These further compound the problems. 

Catholic priests encourage family problems - they are benefited in many ways. 

About 10 years back, i too ran out of money and my family ran out on me. Fortunately, i started teaching English and the respect and recognition of the students inspired me to keep up to my aim. It brought me out of nepotism. 

But there is  one reason why these things happen more in Kerala (a southern state in India); looks like the politics, which also includes religions, are organized to extract the wealth of expatriates. Religious institutions run educational institutions which extract a major portion of the foreign earnings. Then a lot of remittance goes into house building. When they get into debt of no income. This would go for distress sales. There is no free market for real estate. It is controlled by political parties.  

Then education is all about rote memorizing even for Nursing. Most girls spend Rs.10,000/-PM for 5 years and start earning Rs.5000/-PM. They will never be able to recover the fees. But fantasy of going to Europe of US brings more girls into this education. 

To me these are problems that are harvested well by the 'Establishment' here.

Comment by Loren Miller on March 4, 2013 at 5:36am

I remember the hormones, Tom ... and right now, I sometimes wish they had more influence on me back then than they might have.  Seems to me I was short-changed on my rasher of hormones, when you boil it down.  It's a long story, but long-story-short, I was a tame man, dominated by my father and scared of myself.  It took me a long time to learn the second and dismiss the first.  Thankfully, I did finally learn.

One problem I have with today's society is that the young kids with the hormones aren't taught how important it is to know oneself, and not just the hormones but the distractions and the Barnums around them make it too easy to ignore such a teaching ... and others like it.

Comment by Tom Sarbeck on March 4, 2013 at 2:22am

Loren: "...a man owes it to himself to take the time to LEARN who he is and NOT allow external pressure to shove him into a role he is not suited for or disinterested in."

I agree, but years before a man does that, Ma and Pa Nature replace his blood with hormones.

Have you forgotten?

Comment by Sentient Biped on March 3, 2013 at 9:58am

Without knowing details of your neighbor's mind and history, it's hard to say much.  Certainly, if his wife and children abandoned him because of his financial strains, that doesn't say much positive about them.  But there may be more to that story.

It sounds like his eggs were in at least 2 baskets - family and career.  Both went bad.  Both give meaning to my life.  There is more of course.  Health, a sense of mission in life, doing things that matter to me.  Some sense of community.  It hasn't been easy.  Several times, I've wanted to die, too.   Learning to adapt is hard.  Some of us can't.  Then it's over.

Sometimes I think if I didn't have my dog by my side, I wouldn't be able to make it.  Sounds shallow but it's true.  I know he won't be around forever.  But having him here sleeping by my side as I type, makes everything seem OK.  Maybe your friend needed a good dog.  Or maybe he had one, and his dog also quit loving him.

Comment by Loren Miller on March 3, 2013 at 9:04am

I think families are relevant, if for no other reason than having a stable environment for the raising of children.  I do NOT think that every man is cut out to be a father, however, and there is a lot of societal pressure on men to do just that, because it is considered "The NORM."

Religions add to this pressure, no doubt, and there's a lot of biblical BS about it as well, but I don't particularly see that they are the source behind it.  As I have said many times, a man owes it to himself to take the time to LEARN who he is and NOT allow external pressure to shove him into a role he is not suited for or disinterested in.