Book Thought Of The Day: Double-Standards For Sons And Daughters?
The weather’s getting ugly, it is getting cold, the daylight hours are ever so elusive, so I’m stuck indoors. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that maybe I can get more reading done.
Today, I’m reading Don’t Hate The Player, Learn The Game – How To Spot Ineligible Eligible Bachelors, by Lyn Lewis.
Lyn makes a point early on in the book that we often develop and approve the player mentally as parents. Therefore, we lay the soil in which the idea of having multiple relationships is acceptable for boys but not for girls. Her example goes something like this:
Son comes home from school and says, “I have five girlfriends!” Dad says, “See, he’s a chip off the old block!” Mom says, “I’m so happy to hear that you are so popular!”
Daughter comes home from school and says, “I have three boyfriends!” Dad says, “It’s not right for a girl to have three boyfriends and you are not even allowed to think about dating until your 18…”. Mom reinforces dad’s comments (after he likely storms away) and says that it isn’t lady-like for a girl to have that many boyfriends as only certain type of women have many boyfriends.
Does that scenario sound familiar? Has a similar scene played out in your home or the home you grew up in?
Lewis’s point is simple. At a very early age, we teach our sons that the more girls he “has”, the better he is as a “man”. Yet when it comes to our daughters, that same behavior is seen with disdain. My show Good Times even highlighted this fact. Let me take some of you back to a promiscuous JJ, who throughout the series was known for having his mind on nothing but girls, juggling one after another. James would come along with that infamous grin and laugh as he saw JJ’s ability with the ladies as an extension of us own masculinity as well. However, when Thelma came in talking about being in love and getting married to Larry, the reaction was, “Girl, what do you know about love?” James blew up, Florida had to calm him down and well, look at his classic reaction to the “nice guy” that his daughter wanted:
Leveling the playing field is not the solution and has never worked in the past. It’s beyond the scope of this article to prove why this is the case. But for now, I’d like to encourage you to examine whether you are creating a player in your home? Are we reinforcing a mentality that tells men that the more women you have, the better? To our daughter are we saying, “You can’t do what the player does, but consider it an honor if he chooses you as one of his girls.”
Furious Fathering 