Contents
What a Woman Can’t…
One of the signs of our time has long been feminization, that is, the predominance of women in all areas that actively shape the personality, and the corresponding consequences of this.
A woman, of course, can teach decisiveness, straightforwardness, purposefulness, nobility, generosity, honesty, courage to both boys and girls, she can develop in the younger the qualities necessary for a future leader, organizer …
A woman is often simply faced with such a necessity — to be able to do without a man, and therefore she willy-nilly has to replace him! A woman can do a lot! It can even surpass a man in purely masculine qualities (“male determination”, “male directness”, “male generosity”, etc.), can be more courageous than many men …
I remember how the head of a huge technical department of one plant “sanded” his subordinates: “More than a hundred men in the department, and a real man is the only one, and even then …” And he named the woman’s name!
One thing a woman cannot do is to be a man. Let not be as resolute, not too courageous, not God knows how noble and magnanimous as one would like, but just a man, albeit with many shortcomings …
Meanwhile, no matter how the mother is worthy of the respect of her son, no matter how happy he is that he looks like her, he can still identify himself only with a man.
Take a look at kindergarten children. Nobody tells a boy: you have to imitate men or older boys. He himself unmistakably chooses the gestures and movements inherent in men. More recently, the baby threw his ball or pebbles helplessly, waving from somewhere behind his ear, like all kids. But by the end of the summer spent in communication with an older age, this same boy, before throwing a pebble, a stick, makes a purely masculine swing, moving his hand to the side and bending his body towards it. And the girl, his age and girlfriend, is still swinging from behind her head … Why?
Why does little Oleg copy the gestures of his grandfather and not his grandmother? Why is little Boris offended when he hears a completely friendly appeal from a fellow peer who is not averse to making an acquaintance: “Hey, where have you gone?” After this “vulgarity”, Boris flatly refuses to put on a coat with a hood lined with velvet, and calms down when the hood is torn off, replacing it with a nondescript collar and a “male” beret …
True, in recent decades, the form of clothing has almost lost the attributes of a certain gender, becoming more and more «genderless». However, future men demand not a skirt, not a dress, but “stitched pants”, “jeans with pockets”. . . And as before, they tend to be offended if they are mistaken for girls. That is, the same-sex identification mechanism is triggered.
Songbird chicks need to hear the singing of their adult compatriot at a certain time of their age, otherwise they will never learn to sing.
The boy needs contact with a man — at different age periods, and better — constantly. And not only for identification … And not only for the boy, but also for the girl — too …
On the connections of «organic»
We know very little about those types of organic dependence of one person on another, which cannot yet be measured with instruments, cannot be designated in well-known scientific terms. And yet this organic dependence indirectly reveals itself in the conditions of a neuropsychiatric hospital.
First of all, the child’s organic need for physical and emotional contact with the mother reveals itself, the violation of which causes various forms of mental distress. The child is the fetus of the mother’s body, and even having separated from it, becoming physically more and more autonomous, he will still need the warmth of this body, the mother’s touch, her caress for a long time. And all his life, already becoming an adult, he will need her love. He is, first of all, a direct physical continuation of it, and for this reason alone his psychological dependence on it is organic. (When a mother marries a «someone else’s uncle», this is often perceived as an attack by an outsider on the most important connection in a child’s life! Condemnation of his behavior, reproaches of selfishness, direct pressure to «accept» someone else’s uncle as a father — all this will only cause a negative attitude towards him. A special tact is needed so that the child does not feel the deprivation of the vital warmth of the mother and her attention.)
A child has a similar connection with his father — in the event that for some reason he is forced to replace his mother.
But usually the father is perceived differently. Already as adults, former boys and girls can rarely put into words their first sensations of his closeness. But first of all — in the norm — this is a feeling of strength, dear and close, which envelops you, protecting you, and, as it were, enters you, becomes your own, gives you a feeling of invulnerability. If the mother is the source of life and life-giving warmth, then the father is the source of strength and refuge, the first elder friend who shares this strength with the child, strength in the broadest sense of the word. For a long time children cannot distinguish between physical and mental strength, but they perfectly feel the latter and are drawn to it. And if there is no father, but there is any man nearby who has become a refuge and an older friend, the child is not destitute.
The elder — a man for a child, from early childhood to almost adolescence, is needed to form a normal sense of security from everything that contains a threat: from darkness, from incomprehensible thunder, from an angry dog, from “forty robbers”, from “space gangsters”, from the neighbor Petka, from “strangers” … “My dad (or“ my older brother ”, or“ our uncle Sasha ”) ka-ak give! He is the strongest!»
Those of our patients who grew up without a father and without an elder — men, tell (in different words and in different expressions) about a feeling that some called envy, others — longing, still others — deprivation, and someone did not call it in any way, but told more or less like this:
— When Genka again began to brag at a meeting: “But my dad brought me sweets and will buy another gun!” I either turned around and walked away, or got into a fight. I remember not liking to see Genka next to his father. And later he did not want to go home to those who have a father. But we had a shepherd grandfather Andrei, he lived alone on the edge of the village. I often went to him, but only alone, without children …
Many children of those who did not have a close male elder, in their teenage years, acquired sharp thorns of an exaggerated tendency to self-defense without the need for it. The painful significance of protection was found in all those who did not receive it in due degree at an early age.
And a teenager also needs a father as an older friend. But no longer a refuge, but rather a refuge, a source of self-respect.
Until now, our ideas about the function of the elder — men in the life of a teenager are depressingly incorrect, primitive, miserable: “We need a warning …”, “Give a belt, but there is no one …”, “Oooh, fatherlessness is damned, there is no abyss for you, fear nothing, they grow up without men … ”Until now, we replace respect with fear!
Fear to some extent can — for the time being — restrain some impulses. But nothing good can grow on fear! Respect is the only fertile ground, a necessary condition for the positive influence of the elder on the teenager, the conductor of his strength. And this respect can be called, deserved, but it is impossible to beg, it is useless to demand, to make it a duty. You can’t force respect either. Violence destroys respect. The servility of the camp «sixes» does not count. We want our children to have a normal sense of human dignity. This means that a man, by his position as an elder, is obliged to look more often in a psychological and moral mirror: will children be able to respect him? What will they take from him? Would his son want to be like him?
Children waiting…
We sometimes see on the screen the eyes of children who are waiting: they are waiting for someone to come and take them in, they are waiting for someone to call them … Not only orphans are waiting. Look at the faces of children and younger teenagers — in transport, in lines, just on the street. There are faces that immediately stand out with this seal of expectation. Here it just lived on its own, independently of you, absorbed in its own cares. And suddenly, sensing your gaze, it seems to wake up, and from the bottom of its eyes grows an unconscious question “… You? It’s you?»
Perhaps this question flashed once in your soul. Maybe you still have not let go of the taut string expectations of an older friend, a teacher… Let the meeting be brief, but it is vital. Unquenched thirst, the need for an older friend — almost like an open wound for life …
But do not give in to the first, unsecured impulse, Never promise your kids something you can’t give! It is difficult to say in a nutshell about the damage that a fragile child’s soul suffers when it stumbles upon our irresponsible promises, behind which there is nothing!
You are in a hurry about your business, among which so much space is occupied by a book, a friendly meeting, football, fishing, a couple of beers … You pass by a boy who follows you with his eyes … Alien? What does it matter whose son he is! There are no other children. If he turns to you — answer him in a friendly way, give him at least the little that you can, that it costs nothing to you: a friendly hello, a gentle touch! The crowd pressed a child to you in the transport — protect him, and let good power enter him from your palm!
“I myself”, the desire for autonomy is one thing. “I need you, older friend” is different. It rarely finds verbal expression in the younger, but it is! And there is no contradiction between the first and the second. A friend does not interfere, but helps this “I myself” …
And when the younger ones turn away and leave us, defending their autonomy, loudly protesting against everything that comes from us, this means that we are reaping the fruits of our thoughtless attitude towards them and, possibly, our betrayal. If the nearest elder does not want to learn how to be a friend to the younger one, does not want to understand his urgent psychological needs, he is already betraying him …
It really bothers me that I’m no longer young, that I’m just a woman, forever overwhelmed by other people’s troubles. And yet sometimes I stop teenagers. From strangers in response to my “hello”, you can also hear this: “And we greet only acquaintances!” And then, proudly turning away or leaving: “But we don’t greet strangers!” But these same teenagers, having heard my “hello” for the second time, show curiosity and are in no hurry to leave … Rarely does anyone speak to them respectfully and as equals … They have no experience of talking about serious things, and yet they have their own thoughts on many aspects our life! Sometimes these young men wandering from door to door resemble empty vessels waiting to be filled. Some no longer believe that someone will call them. Yes, if they call — where?
Men, go to the children — to your own and others, to children of any age! They really need you!
I knew one teacher-mathematician — Kapiton Mikhailovich Balashov, who worked until old age. Somewhere at the end of the ninth decade, he left school classes. But he took on the role of grandfather in the nearest kindergarten. He prepared for each meeting, rehearsed, intending to «tell a fairy tale», selected pictures for her. It would seem that the old grandfather — who needs this? Needed!! The kids loved him very much and waited: “And when will our grandfather come?”
Children — small and large — are waiting for you without even realizing it. Those who have biological fathers are also waiting. It is difficult to say who is more destitute: those who never knew their father, or those children who went through disgust, contempt and hatred for their own father …
How it is necessary for one of you men to come to the aid of such a man. So… Maybe one of them is somewhere nearby. Stay with him for a while. Let you remain a memory, but enter it with light power, otherwise it may not take place as a person …
Video from Yana Shchastya: interview with professor of psychology N.I. Kozlov
Topics of conversation: What kind of woman do you need to be in order to successfully marry? How many times do men get married? Why are there so few normal men? Childfree. Parenting. What is love? A story that couldn’t be better. Paying for the opportunity to be close to a beautiful woman.