A Mother's Calling-Raising Boys and Girls

[dairyfreelife]

Another blogger who believes girls are weaker and more fragile.

While boys have to be taught to be protective of their sisters, girls have to be taught to expect that protection. This has to be done in a way that does not inculcate a pampered “entitlement†mindset, but more like a grounding in the way the permanent things are. The differences between the sexes are just there, like gravity. ~Douglas Wilson

Interesting, the differences are there like gravity, but they have to be taught. This was a quote she put up on her site.

To deny the differences of the sexes is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Men and women are different, and thus they are better fitted for different things.

The only real difference in men and women I've seen are body shape a bit, like wider hips and bigger breasts in women for the most part, but all those things are about reproduction and not about ability or the mind.

God designed men to be protectors. Women in general are weaker and more delicate. That does NOT mean that women are weak, fragile creatures. In fact, there is a strength and dignity in womanhood that is beautiful and amazing. (Proverbs 31) They have the capacity to adapt and persevere through great odds.

I know men are hardly taller than I am and I'm quite short. I know women who are taller and stronger physically than other men. One size never fits all. I do get sick of being referred to as delicate. I'm really not a breakable plate in a china cabinet. I don't fall apart or break that easy. Women and men are tougher than that. Give humanity credit, especially your own gender. Saying men are delicate is the same as saying they are fragile. The first definition of delicate is fragile. Unless you are referring to a skill or someone's health state, calling someone delicate is rather insulting imo.

Training our boys to be gentlemen is not an antiquated practice. It is embracing and harnessing part of their God given nature. Instructing our girls to receive such getlemanly behavior is not encouraging them to be weak or prissy. It is helping them to see covering and protection as a blessing.

The only thing men can't do is carry and birth babies. Women are stuck biologically at having that role by design. Everything else is taught and forced. Roles are creations of society, not a given with birth.

Wilson's other books include: Federal Husband, The Case for Classical Christian Education, Future Men: Raising Boys to Fight Giants and Her Hand In Marriage: Biblical Courtship In the Modern World.

I can't remember who Douglas Wilson is, but he sounds familar.

amotherscalling.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/raising-boys-and-girls-quote-of-the-week/

[Swamptribe]

Let me get this straight. There is a NATURAL difference between boys and girls. YET, she has to strongly teach her children what this difference is, or they won't know it?

[cindyluvs24]

They're weaker and more fragile until they're needed to pop out kids without drugs, homeschool the kids, run an internet business, keep a blog, cook, clean and do laundry for 20 people, live off the grid while "visionary" headship lives off the grid studying scripture.....

[Elle]

Sure, there are biological differences and it's foolish to deny that in general men had more upper body strength, etc., but that shouldn't mean using our biological differences (which aren't absolutes - plenty of men are weak and plenty of women are incredibly strong, for example) to pigeonhole kids into strict gender roles.

[Olive Plant]

I was talking with my boyfriend this morning because he was depressed. He is a big, super-strong dude who would probably kill anybody who ever tried to attack me. But he gets down in the dumps when he feels like he's failing at something or has failed at something. He expects himself to just be able to perform, and his standard is so high that it's pretty easy to fall short of it. So then he doesn't want to do anything other than hyperventilate in bed for awhile.

I talked him through it this morning, though, by telling him how much I loved him and believed in him. That I wanted to protect him in my arms just as much as he wanted to protect me, and that I would be there for him when he fell short, just like I knew he would be there for me. That calmed him down.

I can't imagine if he was actually a patriarchal guy who felt like he needed to carry everything himself and wouldn't listen to his woman tell him otherwise. The fact of the matter is, more often than not, what we're going to be dealing with is day-to-day anxiety about bills and stuff, and not someone physically attacking us. So, really, we're mostly going to be dealing with stuff that I'm stronger with. Not cuz I'm a woman, but because I'm me.

The whole male-female protection thing only really works if you're in a society of cavemen, and all the women are crippled by childbirth. It's telling that Doug Wilson still thinks that's the reality.

[browngrl]

Fundies take individual choice out of everything- indeed individual choice seems to terrify them. It is almost as if they suffer some sort of collective obsessive -compulsive disorder. They are paralyzed by their options and information overload. The only way they can manage is by reducing people to gender based stereotypes and desperately stacking rule upon rule. All in a futile effort to hold back uncertainty.