The blog of Ed Hurst includes a very interesting post on bringing up boys in the era of the metrosexual and dealing with “the tension between false social expectations and what their wiring tells them.”
From the first day of school, the system will try to make him a sissy, a metrosexual. The system will tell him all his natural instincts are evil or criminal. They’ll try to drug him if he acts like a normal boy. The earlier you work with him to handle this wholesale rejection of manhood, the stronger he’ll be in negotiating his own way through the system. You cannot do that for him, only equip him.
…The one best antidote for all social lies is making him self-sufficient. Teach him not to rely on what society provides, because it will surely fail him, and perhaps sooner than anyone expects. He needs to resolve to do what real men do, facing hardship with equanimity, and making the most of bad situations. If he doesn’t understand the world is essentially hostile on many levels, he’ll be a victim looking for a predator.
