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Comment by motohagiography | Hacker News Reader

We don't need a critical theory of boyhood, we just need to stop institutionally empowering people who hate their dads. I know many good men, and the defining characteristic of every single one of them is that regardless of who their father was, they accept him, and by extension they accept themselves. If you are still mad at him or have contempt for him, I recommend considering how it's manifesting in your beliefs about the world before even thinking about problematizing boyhood.

Obviously I'm quite suspicious of adults talking about how to raise boys, but only because the only problem they should be trying to solve at all is how to be a worthy example, and anything else is a substitute for that essential element. But the "concern" about boys is just another form aggression against them, imo.

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Provocative notion, but I agree. n = 1 : no father, but had some stabilizing male influences in my formative years.

People without good enough “father figures” turn out emotionally volatile. I see it in myself, and I see it in others. Sometimes, emotions should be observed and not yielded to. “Toxic masculinity” is just taking this to the extreme of disregarding all emotions. “Toxic femininity” is just yielding to all of one’s emotions. It mirrors the narcissist:BPD relationships (absent, cold, and self-absorbed man; next to the hysterical, ever-present, and needy woman).

A healthy person has cultivated both aspects of themselves in moderation (learning to listen to and identify one’s emotions, and having the good judgement to know when they should and shouldn’t be allowed to continue) — this is usually best done by emulating others with this healthy outlook, most commonly with a healthy mother and father (but with the dissolution of gender norms, gender doesn’t matter on the surface, so long as the people involved have nurtured both parts well).

The best way to raise boys is in a village with all sorts of people to learn from. The worst way is to neglect them and let them figure out life for themselves.

"Toxic mascilinity" is a canard, and unless that father figure was an actual man respected by other men, they were probably just in search of a hit of narcissistic supply (or worse) from a child in need. Some agony aunt of whatever sex that's always around when the chips are down because it makes them feel needed is a just another predator.

The best way to raise boys is to become a good man.

> I know many good men, and the defining characteristic of every single one of them is

That would stand if you considered every guy talking shit about their father as "bad" men, regardless of how they behave otherwise.

I agree having a settle relationship with one's father is better, but people with legitimate grief against their father and having objective disgust about what they did as human beings shouldn't be a disqualifying situation.

I'm also a bit perplexed by the opposition between hating someone and accepting them. You can acknowledge what someone did for you, see where they come from and accept they are who they are, while hating their guts.

Hate implies resistance, while acceptance has no resistance. It's this resistance that manifests itself in how they treat men in general.

Someone who hates how their father behaved and treated them, and put their soul into being better as a human being would still fit that "resistance" theme. That resistance could totally manifest in them not engaging in aggressive or corrosive behavior toward other men, if that's part of what they hated in their father.

Err… what? So people with abusive or absent dads should just forgive and love them?

That's not at all what GP said. They said "accept". For example, that could mean accepting that your father was a piece of shit and sloughing him off, out of your life. At some point, one has to stop letting the damages of the past continue to damage ones self.

They said "accept".

They said "accept him", as a direct object.

Not "accept the fact that he had negative qualities", which is something entirely different.

I would agree with you. The most important person I hurt when holding a grudge is myself. Much better to do my best to forgive, maybe forget, and move on with my life (with or without that person).

Love them, no. Make their peace with what happened, accept that they can't change it, and move on, yes.

This is a lot easier said than done. I say this from first hand experience. I've been screwed a few times so far and generally managed to make my piece with most of those experiences except the abuse and apathy from my parents

Right. Just as some people who were abused by their parents will never be 100% physically well as adults, some will never be 100% mentally well. (And of course in neither case is that something they should be blamed for).

Forgiveness is all about detachment. Forgiveness is not only good for the forgiven, it is good for you, too. If you let hate fester in you, it will incline you toward wrath. Hate the sin and not the sinner. Love and pray for your enemy.

Now, that doesn't mean you should just act as if nothing happened. Actions have consequences, and those consequences should be determined by the gravity of the actions.

"Abuse" is a vague term and often people mean very different things by it. Some people call their father throwing a fit of anger or cussing their kids out about something every now and then "abuse". And then other people use the same term to refer to really diabolical stuff, like child-buggering. With the less serious and more understandable stuff, you should also take into consideration what your father was going through at the time, and how that might have influenced his actions and his judgment. When I got older and began to understand what my father has had to deal with (including me lol), it really made me not care at all about some of the rough-ups we had. So I mean whether or not you should want to patch up the relationship with your father should really be determined by the character of the abuse, the extent of it, the circumstances, et cetera. This should also determine what exactly "patching up" that relationship means - like what kinds of boundaries you set, and so on.

Dad murdered mom when I was 15, so I have some experience here. I haven't seen him since I testified against him.

But... I don't let that define my life. I miss mom, and I always will, but I made peace with it and have moved on. You can't just spend your life sobbing into a pillow or grinding my teeth in rage, at some point you have to go back to just living again.

Forgiveness is often more about the forgiver than the forgiven.

Maybe the people who had dads worth hating don't turn out well, and those with dads worth accepting have good outcomes -- exactly part of what the linked article suggests!

My dad did the following when I was growing up:

At 5yo, he threatened to take me to the sheriff's and adopt me out because I was "horrible".

Was told constantly to "man up", and ignore any sort of emotions I was having.

He also beat me. Naturally, that was perfectly acceptable in the 80's, even in public. Instead, it was called "spanking".

He would buy toys, then take them away to take a hammer to them, or otherwise destroy them in front of me.

Told me that I'd never amount to anything and that I should just join the military cause thats where stupid people go.

Anything bad that happened to me was always my fault. Didn't matter what it was. My fault.

It also didn't work out that my mother was/is an enabler and a narcissist (and, well, abused by him too).

I don't care what people call this. Patriarchy, etc. Those're just labels. But did they hurt me until I figured out how to undo the damage of childhood? Damn straight they did. And I wont perpetuate these abuses on any other.

And I've met people like you, motohagiography , that defend these sorts of abuses as the general mantra "man up". I find defending obvious assaults and child abuses to be disgusting.

And, well, burying my dad did finally put a nail in that coffin, so to speak.

Only problem is - objectively some dads are just no damn good.

Are their children supposed to "accept" him regardless, and feel bad about themselves if they can't?

As someone who fully supports ejecting toxic relatives - including fathers and mothers - from their adult lives, no, they should not feel bad if they can't or won't accept their parents' toxicity.

Keeping toxic people in your life, regardless of their gender, is not something that somehow makes you a better or stronger person. And most psychologists with licenses agree.

Often we hold on too long because we cannot accept that there will never be a "normal", healthy future for the relationship. Letting go, and cutting them off can be an expression of acceptance.

And it's important to accept those things we cannot change, lest they torment us.

Their children feel bad about themselves because they can't accept who their fathers were. In these offspring, that hate is always there somewhere and comes out in other ways, directed at other things, often outgroups. An antidote is Blaise Pascal's observation that, "To understand is to forgive," which has a lot of depth to it.

The animus in the culture right now is divided between those who have some acceptance of their fathers, and those who don't. It's not just a right/left thing either, as that animus decides whether someone chooses to be an unworthy person who blames, betrays, and justifies their own cruelty to others because of what they imagine they suffered themselves - or not. Understand who he was and consider that a lot of the anger at "The World," was really just pent up anger at him. Personally, I think a key role of a father is to moderate the urges for cruelty, vanity, conceit, self pity, and other vices that mothers often overlook and forgive, and mainly by example.

Their children feel bad about themselves because they can't accept who their fathers were.

I get the moral point you're trying to make. But otherwise this statement simply is not factually tenable.

Granted, some children who don't "accept who their fathers were" fall into the borderline spectrum that you're referring to. Or are needlessly resentful of their parents due to simple human failings, such as a single lapse of judgement at some key moment. Of course.

But a very significant portion have perfectly valid reasons for "not accepting who their fathers were". And it would be psychologically unhealthy for them to try to force themselves to do so.

Any more than any other victim of violent (or comparable) crime needs to "accept their attacker for who they were". Or force themselves to "understand" their attacker's motives. Let alone forgive them for anything.

I'm late to the party on this, but the first thing that comes to mind with your comment is a comedian by the name of Taylor Tomlinson. She used to be a great balance of young, self-deprecating humor while mixing a healthy amount of family drama in. Her recent tour, however, was just depressing. Constant beratement of her dad in joke after joke. Much of the audience laughs because they feel the same.

I won't pretend to know her family struggles, but the public lynching of present fathers is becoming a strong dark theme.

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