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Just wanted to note that ITA with the blue as a black woman. Oftentimes we are labeled as not "needing a man" but practically all of us will admit to either wanting or needing a man. Also we are often characterized as having attitudes and not wanting to "let a man lead" but in my experience, when a man is a leader, his woman will follow him. I always tell men who complain about the above - that the woman won't let him lead, that that is more than likely due to the fact that he is not a good leader and is irresponsible in some way, which means his woman has had to step up and do whatever it was that he didn't do and she has lost respect for him as a result. Women seeking a long term relationship with a man, usually want them to lead in some specific way. When they don't, she notices and she will step up to do it, and if she does that, she will lose respect for him as a man.
I mentioned mentorship earlier and I do feel it is applicable to our current society as a demographic and can make a huge difference, especially within the family. My own dad has basically adopted 5 other other kids that he just has a relationship with and they consider him a father figure, he helps them out, gives advice, speaks to them regularly (when they were younger everyday). It does make a difference.
But I do think that black men need to make a concerted effort to become better leaders and especially better leaders of their families. Too many IMO have the belief that just because they are a man that they are a "leader" or that a woman is supposed to submit to them. Having a male appendage does not make someone a leader or worthy of a woman's respect.
On the black above, wanted to note that I know of many Africans who immigrated to America who left their families in Africa and don't have any hand in raising their children. Also many African women who moved to America and who are single mothers, also West Indian single mothers so I don't think this is an issue only for black men in America.
But again, all men/women have issues with each other. The issues that black men have can only be solved by themselves and black woman are not to blame for your issues. Be better sons, fathers, uncles, grandfathers, big cousins, etc., to the young boys/young men in your family and create better men for our community. It is not a woman's responsibility to make a man into a man and she cannot make a man into a man. It takes a man to do that and if he is not there then in most cases that is his fault. Also a male family member of the mother of the child can take over a father type role in absence of a father in the child's life.
Thank you...I agree overall.
Perhaps I should have mentioned it in that post but earlier I mentioned that I see this as more of an issue in Westernized black cultures, meaning Black American, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latino etc. I'll be the first to say that Afro-Caribbean men can be something else, feeling that because they are males, they can do as they please and the women must take it. Afro-Latino men as well. The only thing mentioned that I agree applies to Black American men to the exclusion of the others is the existence of outright, verbal disrespect for their own women.
With Africans, it's a minority of men in most African nations. Look at Nigeria. The out-of-wedlock birth rate is low. Of course, that isnt everything but it makes a difference. Yes, some African men do leave their families and come to the U.S. but usually are sending money home. There is also usually a strong family support for their families back home and often, they prefer that their children spend their formative years in Africa.
Last edited by ReineDeCoeur; 06-25-2017 at 08:31 PM..
You seem to be saying that her nurturing is irrelevant, that she'll meet the right man (a leader) that all she is by her whole past, her experiences and her nurturing, will just fall away...and she'll just naturally become the perfect wife to a perfect man.
My wife would dispute that. She would tell of how she has had to make a deliberate effort over years to subjugate old attitudes and habits that were inculcated into her by dysfunctional parents in order to be receptive to my positive traits.
That's not to say I was perfect, but we both entered our marriage 34 years ago carrying wounds and broken bones.
I have a husband. Neither of us are perfect but he is a leader, and he was a leader when I met him. I respect him because he has always handled "his business" so to speak and he has always been a go-getter, a provider, intelligent and willing to consider my POV even when we don't agree. I didn't have to nurture him for this. He was raised in this way. And FWIW he was raised by a single mother but had very involved uncles who were his father figure and told/showed him how a man was supposed to be.
I have never had to make an effort to subjugate myself and don't subjugate myself with my husband in regards to my past. I dated other men prior to him. We both have our issues related to our upbringing, like all people do. We are two complete people, we discuss things, and depending on the topic/issue at hand one of us will defer to the other make the final decision.
In regards to being receptive to positive traits, as stated, my husband exhibited many positive characteristics and behavior patterns when I met him. I have always admired him (and thinking of it is making me want to call and gush at him) and respected him. That is why I chose him over the other men that I dated when we first met. He has "it" for me and he adores me, and cares deeply for me, and even though I do a lot of crap that gets on his freaking nerves (lol) I know this to be true based on his actions with me, our children, and for our family in general. I have never needed to subjugate myself to be receptive to him. I just am, because that's my man, my husband and I adore him, and I care deeply for him even though he does crap that gets on my freaking nerves too lol.
ETA: I don't think anyone is perfect, but I do think that a man who handles his business will be supported and adored by his woman/wife and she will seek him for advice and seek him to comfort her and will treat him well because he handles his business and treats her well. Of course there are outliers to this, but in general, most women, no matter ethnicity, who are seeking a heterosexual relationship, wants a responsible man who treats her well and if he is those two things, she will respect him and treat him well too.
Last edited by residinghere2007; 06-26-2017 at 07:14 AM..
On my above comment, I'll note that I do think today that too many black women, are trying to nurture men too much. They pay all the bills, work, take care of the children, clean the house, etc. Especially these younger women. I have a sister who is 8 years younger than I am and she and her friends....I shake my heads at them and their men issues. They "play house" IMO with these men and think that to be a "good black woman" that they have to be submissive to some man who isn't their husband and who is basically a loser.
So in the respect of the above, I think we, as black mothers do need to press into our daughters that they, as women, should not be taking care of some man, and especially not if they are not married to said man as if he was their child.
I've seen a lot of these youtube videos posted on social media of young black women talking about what other black women need to do for their man and how they have to subjugate themselves and do for their man. IMO a man should not need a woman to serve him and if he is doing what he is supposed to do by his family, and especially his wife, his woman will want to serve him and treat him well so it is not about knocking women down a peg IMO.
Ironically, I see more issues with young black women who do like my sister does - take too much care of a man - than I see of what black men complain about - black women not being submissive or being too mouthy, etc. And in the situations described the latter - the black women are not being submissive and are being mouthy because she is taking care of a man like he is her child and so she sees him as a child and not worthy of any sort of grown a$$ man worthy of respect.
IMO a man should not need to be "nurtured" by his wife in order to be a leader. As stated, I have a husband. Neither of us are perfect but he is a leader and I respect him because he has always handled "his business" so to speak and he has always been a go-getter, a provider, intelligent and willing to consider my POV even when we don't agree. I didn't have to nurture him for this. He was raised in this way. And FWIW he was raised by a single mother but had very involved uncles who were his father figure and told/showed him how a man was supposed to be.
Wow, that was certainly a total misunderstanding of my point.
I'll try again.
You said:
Quote:
Oftentimes we are labeled as not "needing a man" but practically all of us will admit to either wanting or needing a man. Also we are often characterized as having attitudes and not wanting to "let a man lead" but in my experience, when a man is a leader, his woman will follow him.
Well, in my experience, that is not the truth.
American men in general have never been nurtured to be the compassionate leaders we should be. The traditional American mode of "husband as leader" was more "husband as despot."
For black men, even that traditional mode had been crippled by racism that made it impossible for a black husband to maintain. It was a bad model to begin with, made worse.
In more modern times (and by "modern" I mean the last 67 years), the "husband as depot" model has been turned on its head to the "husband as dunce" model. We can go all the way back to television situation comedies of the 40s and 50s to see that.
There is a very popular program on HGTV called "Fixer Upper" staring Chip and Joanna Gaines. It's popular because Chip plays the "husband as dunce" role very well.
So the American model is still a bad model, and black men are still crippled from attaining even that.
I'm not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg, but for the sake of discussion I will say: In response to men poorly nurtured to lead, women are not nurtured to respond to good male leadership with a willingness to be led.
We need to determine what our real expectations ought to be for one another and then begin to preach that to ourselves.
The problem, of course, is that people who don't already fit those molds are going to scream "You can't judge me!" But the fact is that the way they are is toxic to survival, so the answer is, "You're not a bad person, but your head was screwed on wrong at the factory. Take it off and screw it back on right."
Last edited by Ralph_Kirk; 06-26-2017 at 07:25 AM..
Wow, that was certainly a total misunderstanding of my point.
I'll try again.
You said:
Well, in my experience, that is not the truth.
American men in general have never been nurtured to be the compassionate leaders we should be. The traditional American mode of "husband as leader" was more "husband as despot."
For black men, even that traditional mode had been crippled by racism that made it impossible for a black husband to maintain. It was a bad model to begin with, made worse.
In more modern times (and by "modern" I mean the last 67 years), the "husband as depot" model has been turned on its head to the "husband as dunce" model. We can go all the way back to television situation comedies of the 40s and 50s to see that.
There is a very popular program on HGTV called "Fixer Upper" staring Chip and Joanna Gaines. It's popular because Chip plays the "husband as dunce" role very well.
So the American model is still a bad model, and black men are still crippled from attaining even that.
I'm not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg, but for the sake of discussion I will say: In response to men poorly nurtured to lead, women are not nurtured to respond to good male leadership with a willingness to be led.
I revised my response after thinking about what you wrote further.
I do agree though that women shouldn't need to make her man a leader or treat him like a child, to pick up on what I stated in the unrevised portion.
I also agree with you on the "dunce" thing that is commonly portrayed in media/film in relationship to men and it is something that bothers me. Ironically, my husband and I discuss this sort of thing a lot when we watch TV. I also discuss it with my son and daughter
On the blue, I think men need to be nurtured to lead by men. I also disagree in that if a woman meets a great man who is a leader, most women will respond favorably to him, especially black women IMO. I do think there will be hiccups along the way and disagreements, as I've experienced that in my own relationship when we disagree on things. But overall I do consider my husband a leader. I admire his leadership skills/qualities. I shut up about the stuff he says/does that I think is silly/ridiculous most of the time lol. And FWIW I know he does the same thing for me. I have a lot of faults.
In regards to nurturing men to be leaders, it also must be taught to boys/young men, that leaders consider other people's opinions and POVs. And too often today, it seems that many black men in particular do not do that or are less apt to do that. And FWIW, I do think that being more focused on themselves, is more of a male trait in general. Women will focus more on the family and their husband than themselves in general and think about everyone else before themselves.
My wife and I were discussing a need for us to counsel my daughter and her new husband.
They are both very intelligent people who both have very well thought out opinions on a number of issues. But when they're socializing with others, they play conversational "one upsmanship" against one another. And there is a whole lot of "moving the goalpost" involved.
It's offputting to observers, to the extent that both my wife and I have noticed it. It comes across as bickering over trivialities.
My wife has mentioned that to my daughter, and my daughter assures her, "We do it all the time."
But it's not healthy, in the opinion of my wife and me. We're going to talk to them more about that.
We believe that a husband and wife face a great deal of relationship attacks of various forms in the world, and must always present themselves as "sword and shield" to the world at large. Which one is the sword and which is the shield can vary from day to day and even from moment to moment, but they have to remember, "It's first you and me...and then it's everybody else."
I was talking to a young married guy last year. He was having some issues with his wife and retorted, "She's just trying to get the best of me!"
I responded, "Well...shouldn't your wife get the best of you? Who else is supposed to?"
My wife and I were discussing a need for us to counsel my daughter and her new husband.
They are both very intelligent people who both have very well thought out opinions on a number of issues. But when they're socializing with others, they play conversational "one upsmanship" against one another. And there is a whole lot of "moving the goalpost" involved.
It's offputting to observers, to the extent that both my wife and I have noticed it. It comes across as bickering over trivialities.
My wife has mentioned that to my daughter, and my daughter assures her, "We do it all the time."
But it's not healthy, in the opinion of my wife and me. We're going to talk to them more about that.
We believe that a husband and wife face a great deal of relationship attacks of various forms in the world, and must always present themselves as "sword and shield" to the world at large. Which one is the sword and which is the shield can vary from day to day and even from moment to moment, but they have to remember, "It's first you and me...and then it's everybody else."
I was talking to a young married guy last year. He was having some issues with his wife and retorted, "She's just trying to get the best of me!"
I responded, "Well...shouldn't your wife get the best of you? Who else is supposed to?"
I t hink the bold is common for newly married couples. My husband and I did the same. As we matured as a couple, we came to and are continuing to live in the space that you describe in the blue. We still have our silly arguments but I know, for me, my focus is always on "us."
I believe the addition of children causes more silly arguments and that too many couples today do the children thing way too early. I admit that my husband and I did the same and it nearly caused us to split. We had a lot of different opinions on parenting and I do feel it came from a more male versus female perspective on babies and children. Men are more apt to view children as "little adults" IMO capable of reasoning at certain ages when they were not. So the rearing of our son in particular was probably the only issue facing our relationship. Both he and I though, regularly made sure to connect with each other and let each other know that our relationship was the most important one in our house - husband/wife. Not mother/son or father/son. And I believe that too many women and mothers put the needs/desires of the children over the husband. I am not a full supporter of the traditional family structure 100% but I do believe that a couple needs to focus more on the couple than the children. Once we worked out the disagreements on the child(ren). He came to understand via counseling from other men in his life - which is why I think it is important than men have a male figure that they rely on - that children have different developmental stages and that many of his expectations of our son were too much for him at his age. Also that our son's actions were not predicated all the time on a desire to do "bad" things. Kids are very impulsive and our son was and still is very impulsive like children are - they don't think before they do things a lot of the time, and so us arguing over whether or not our son did something just to make him angry are very rare today - we both agree now that he is way too teenagery and we will be happy when he moves out and starts his own life lol.
New mothers and moms to young children in particular spend so much time and energy on the babies/children and often times they don't have anything left to give their husbands on a daily basis. And while I do believe that women should ensure they are being giving to their husbands during those years, I also believe that the husbands, especially if the mother does the bulk of the child/baby rearing responsibilities, needs to ensure that he is empathetic and sympathetic to her work with their children and that he should remember that that time is a short one and the kids will grow up in a few years and they can come back together as a loving couple, also that he can just do something to help her out without asking her.
Our kids are now 15 and 9 and we are as close today as we have ever been since the demands of babies/toddlers and their taking away my energy in particular have passed. We still have disagreements over them, mostly the teenager and we are dreading our daughter being a teenager lol, but they are nothing like they used to be, mostly because I refuse to argue over silly things anymore and when one of them starts up, I tell him I'd rather not argue with him and so will agree with whatever he wants to do or says as long as it isn't completely ridiculous, and usually it/he isn't.
Last edited by residinghere2007; 06-26-2017 at 11:13 AM..
Most of the issues mentioned here would likely be irrelevant in a couple decades. The reason why is not political or social but the result of a demographic inflection point that occurred in the late 1990s. That was when the total Latino population surpassed the black population in america. For almost all of american history (with the possible exception of the first 100 to 130 years of colonization of america prior to the mid-18th century) you had a white majority and a small but sizable minority population that consisted almost entirely of blacks. Now you have an entirely separate group that has become a large demographic. Note that trumps campaign and movement was and is based much more on anti-immigrant policies than they were on anti-black ones. Racial politics after the boomers are replaced by millennials in the positions of political power would probably be white vs hispanic with blacks as a swing constituency.
Most of the issues mentioned here would likely be irrelevant in a couple decades. The reason why is not political or social but the result of a demographic inflection point that occurred in the late 1990s. That was when the total Latino population surpassed the black population in america. For almost all of american history (with the possible exception of the first 100 to 130 years of colonization of america prior to the mid-18th century) you had a white majority and a small but sizable minority population that consisted almost entirely of blacks. Now you have an entirely separate group that has become a large demographic. Note that trumps campaign and movement was and is based much more on anti-immigrant policies than they were on anti-black ones. Racial politics after the boomers are replaced by millennials in the positions of political power would probably be white vs hispanic with blacks as a swing constituency.
For Black folk to be a swing constituency we would have to have proven that both sides have the ability to get our vote. We have not, at best they are trying to get a few extra to actually turn out like happened when President Obama was on the ballot. With Asians almost as solidly one party Democrat as African Americans that leaves the Latinos as the swing voters
For Black folk to be a swing constituency we would have to have proven that both sides have the ability to get our vote. We have not, at best they are trying to get a few extra to actually turn out like happened when President Obama was on the ballot. With Asians almost as solidly one party Democrat as African Americans that leaves the Latinos as the swing voters
I think Latinos are going to learn from Trump that swinging is not in their interests.
I do agree with CH86--and I've said frequently--that the picture will change markedly after we Boomers have died.
Not very long ago, Asians were solidly Republican. The Republican party needs to ask itself: How did they lose Asians?
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