What does “masculine” look mean? A minimum of psychology, a maximum of technology, in our particular case. We won’t find advice like “Listen to yourself” in this book. But we will find a variety of instructions “How to make it so that …” – the children learned how to manage pocket money, the quarrel turned not into a scandal, but into a step towards mutual understanding, and so on.
What does “masculine” look mean? A minimum of psychology, a maximum of technology, in our particular case. We won’t find advice like “Listen to yourself” in this book. But we will find a variety of instructions “How to make it so that …” – the children learned how to manage pocket money, the quarrel turned not into a scandal, but into a step towards mutual understanding, and so on. The sources that the author (New York Times columnist and father of the family) relied on to write his instructions are sometimes surprising. Here he refers to the experience of the Naval Academy, which “encourages graduates to arrange educational excursions for freshmen, for example, a trip to the cemetery to pay tribute to the memory of the first Navy pilot.” Where is the family here? The fact is that “a key role in the formation of a group is played by what sociologists call “giving meaning”: the reconstruction of the history of this very group … or family. A common story is not only a reason to spend time together, listening and creating fascinating stories, it is also a sense of one’s place and one’s significance, one’s responsibility. But the author is busy not only with children. Marital intimacy – in it, he also discovers something completely unexpected: for sex, “intimacy is the least needed for a couple …. married people need a sense of separateness. Relationships that are too close kill desire.” Curious to read.
Alpina non-fiction, 344 p.