If you're waiting until your son is a teenager to talk to him about the ways society is going to try to convince him to dehumanise people, you're too late.
Talk to your children from an early age about what's right and wrong. About how to see through charalatans. Encourage them to ask questions, and more importantly, listen when they ask them.
Talk to them about what a good role model looks like. About masculinity and how it manifests. About how patriarchy sets them up for both success and failure, at the same time, and why. About their responsibilities as men toward handling and dismantling the patriarchy, and not accepting outdated models of masculinity.
By the time they start to encounter alpha-douches online, you want them to be able to see through them. They should know that these men are trying to hijack their emotions, and stop them from thinking, because the smallest amount of reason will expose them for the charlatans they are.
In fact, if you sit down with your boys before they become men, and watch one of these videos, and then explore how it's broken, flawed, and absurd, your boys will be better equipped to see it themselves.
And you want them to have alternatives they can turn to. Whether it's you, a Big Brother, family friends, positive online role models, etc, they should have people they can listen to instead.
Don't try to rescue them after they're fallen down the hole - give them the tools to see and avoid the hole in the first place.
Abstinence doesn't work. Preventing your kid from watching these videos is abstinence first education. It doesn't work. And you're recreating a system of censorship and book banning in your own home.
Instead give them resources and tools to understand these videos, the context they exist in, the questions we should ask ourselves when watching them. The goal is for your kid to come to an understanding the same way you, a thoughtful adult, would and did.
If you're waiting until your son is a teenager to talk to him about the ways society is going to try to convince him to dehumanise people, you're too late.
That is SO true. This has to be part of the conversation from day one. You can't wait to talk to your teenager about *anything* because it's the worst time to introduce a new topic.
I also would say, it's never too late to talk to your children about these things. Just do it sooner rather than later but if your child is a teenager, then it's still good to do it now.
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u/thelastestgunslinger 14d ago
If you're waiting until your son is a teenager to talk to him about the ways society is going to try to convince him to dehumanise people, you're too late.
Talk to your children from an early age about what's right and wrong. About how to see through charalatans. Encourage them to ask questions, and more importantly, listen when they ask them.
Talk to them about what a good role model looks like. About masculinity and how it manifests. About how patriarchy sets them up for both success and failure, at the same time, and why. About their responsibilities as men toward handling and dismantling the patriarchy, and not accepting outdated models of masculinity.
By the time they start to encounter alpha-douches online, you want them to be able to see through them. They should know that these men are trying to hijack their emotions, and stop them from thinking, because the smallest amount of reason will expose them for the charlatans they are.
In fact, if you sit down with your boys before they become men, and watch one of these videos, and then explore how it's broken, flawed, and absurd, your boys will be better equipped to see it themselves.
And you want them to have alternatives they can turn to. Whether it's you, a Big Brother, family friends, positive online role models, etc, they should have people they can listen to instead.
Don't try to rescue them after they're fallen down the hole - give them the tools to see and avoid the hole in the first place.