Trust Feminists to take a totally innocent phrase and warp the meaning of it. What once meant two lads playing together and getting up to no good; building forts and getting dirty -- now means something along the lines of parents laughing together when he's either fiercely beating the shit out of other boys, or raping innocent girls whilst jollily laughing together,
Hahaha, boys will be boys
I saw a meme today that irritated the shit out of me. And this meme, is probably going to be the purpose of my article, in the deeper sense of the meaning, and how backwards thinking has taken over society. It went something like this:
What real parent doesn't hold their sons accountable? These meme's are mindnumbingly painful to watch, because it's like we expect boys to be perfect in every way. I don't know about you but along the dating scene growing up I made some serious fuck ups and pissed a few people off along the way; but alas, this is how you learn to be a better person. Fail, revise, get better -- right?
If we had twitter as teenagers I think I speak for most people around about my age that in the heat of the cancel culture we have now, and the digging up of nasty tweets from ten or longer years ago then I would probably be in no man's land right now. Isolated, no-one would hire me, and I'd be a social leper - no-one would go near me. The same with all my friends, and we were the well behaved ones. But we said and did some stupid stuff. As young boys do. I expect young girls are no beacons of perfection either.
I think older people tend to share these types of phrases, because as we grow older we absolutely forget what it's like to be a child, even for those of us that have kids. It can sometimes be hard to not get worked up at why your kid is doing something that's clearly stupid and backward. But the thing is; we've been through all that before. We know why we don't do those things because they unleash negative results -- and unless we let them royally fuck up in profound ways they are never going to learn why it's not good to put your finger on an iron.
My mum was like that. I'm not blaming her of course, her intentions were good -- but she was always protecting me from myself when I didn't need to be protected. I remember discussing this with my counsellor that she wanted to protect me from the world because my dad had hurt me enough, and in doing so she had inadvertently made me adverse to risk, decision making and owning those decisions. Not her fault. My dad was such a bad influence. But we forget that growth is more about experience than repeating what our parents have told us.
Of course this needs to be triaged though. I certainly wouldn't let Alex walk into a fire or cross the road without looking, but I may only warn him about touching irons -- it may hurt but he'll learn a fucking good lesson from it.
It seems we've forgotten how robust humans are. Some people now say that words are violent, that kids and adults alike need to be wrapped in soft cotton wool to get through in the world. Universities now have safe spaces for their students to go to when they feel threatened by the mean and nasty words that people can say (and often not to them directly).
I worry. I *really* worry about my kid going to University if he ever wants to. Will they teach him how to challenge ideas at their core? Or will they teach him to cower under the blankets like a frightened little bunny? I worry. People are now telling me that they can get ptsd from twitter. That's such an insult to people with actual ptsd.
And yet here we are, holding boys to near perfect standards, and at the same time telling them that it's not okay to make mistakes, that it's not okay to experiment and fail -- yeah, boys need to be perfect beacons of shining masculinity, and not allowing them that qualities that make boys into good men -- which is trial and error. Show me all the good men who haven't royally bludgeoned their life at some point?
So I like the phrase boys will be boys. Me saying that reminds me of making camps in the forest and joking with my friends -- whatever overtly weird sexual context you have applied to it then that's explicity yours. Not mine to deal with.
Boys will be boys!
