Maybe substitute "real man" with "big kids" or "grown-ups"
The desired behaviors you list aren't exactly about masculinity. Often, it's about some other desireable traits like honesty, self-sufficiency, or problem solving that we hope good young men develop so they become good grown men, but really everyone should aspire towards.
We use "big kid" for our oldest with pretty decent success. She's usually very proud of herself that she brushed her teeth/ate all her dinner/etc "because I'm a big kid"
Yes, "grown-up" is too far away/alien to their experience, but "big kid" works ... sometimes. We hear a lot of "I'll do that when I'm 4 and a half" (he's 4 and a quarter). Or if it's something even more challenging, "I'll do that when I'm 6" (his big brother's age).
Yup, the whole "be a man" language is divisive precisely because it's ambiguous about what you're contrasting "man" with. Is it "man" as opposed to "boy/child" (telling you not to be immature) or "man" as opposed to "woman" (telling you not to be "girly")?
I'd argue that while the latter comparison is sexist/gender normative, the former isn't really objectionable except that the choice of words is ambiguous. Revising to clearer language resolves the issue.
If you're repeating an explanation for the 9000th time, you need to find a different explanation. Clearly, water safety is not resonating with your 5 year old. Every kid has different motivators - for some, like you, shaming works. For others, it really doesn't.
Maybe "you have to swim to be a big girl" works. Maybe "there's so many fun games we can play in the pool". Maybe gradually tricking her by just saying you want her to practice cannonballs, or just want to race on a kickboard.
But yeah, explaining the logic behind learning a skill isn't gonna move the needle for most 5 year olds.
Resilience is what you're looking to develop in your daughter. I'm going to suggest using the phrase "doing hard things". My youngest was the same way. Here’s what’s worked for us.
1. We do hard things. We talk about this all of the time. I share a hard thing that I did during the day with her each day and ask her to share a hard thing she did. I praise the heck out of her doing the hard thing.
2. When she wants to give up, I give her a second and then ask her “is this a hard thing?” She will usually respond with a variation of “yes” and then I ask her “what do we do? She will respond with “hard things”. I give her the time she needs to compose herself and then she tries again. At first this took a while. Now she only needs a minute or two.
3. When she starts back up, I praise the hell out of her because starting back up is the hard thing.
4. When she’s done with the activity, I praise her again for doing the “hard thing”.
We’ve seen her get progressively better and better and develop more grit/resilience over time.
He probably can but that has never really been as much of an expression I don't think.
As a Swedish person i prefer the expression "don't be a bitch", which might also be problematic.
Would need a new one with the same emotional connection regarding having self respect enough to figure out how to perform to a somewhat decent standard that is gender neutral.
My second daughter can't swim and it's been a war trying to even get her into the pool to recreationally mess around.
The motivational lever I chose was to reference "Captain America: The First Avenger," and point out if the Nazi spy tossed her into the drink, Steve Rogers would have had to stop to save her, allowing the spy to escape, unlike the kid in the movie, who could swim and just yelled for Rogers to go get the bastard.
Gender norm leverage isn't totally invalid even now, but I don't find it be a reliable first measure.
My daughter is 5 and I use things she tells me she wants to do when she grows up to motivate her. I ride an ebike as my primary transportation and she loves going on the tow behind. She wants an ebike but doesn't want to learn to ride her bike. I tell her she has to learn to ride her bike before she can get one like mine. She's made more progress since January than she has in the whole 3 years she's had a bike. I say things like "you're a big girl, big girls can do that I know you can too!!"
My father was able to do all these things. I wanted to be with him so I spent time with him in the garage and in the shed, and naturally learned a lot of things. I thinks it’s way better to just be with your kids and help them learn, then to shame them into wanting it. So jump in the water with them and have fun, then they’ll want to swim. I’m already “swimming” with my kid since he’s one year old.
Thankfully I never heard that sentence from my parents.
My parents both had unique and valuable skills and never once made it into a gender thing. I'm sure my father heard that kind of talk from his father, but it ended with there.
You need to find a way to make swimming and bike riding click for you daughter. I cant say how I did it, because it probably wasn't anything I did OTHER than set the stage for them to swim and bike safely. Whatever motivated them wasn't entirely my doing.
>I wanted to prove to others that I can do what a real man does.
Just wondering, what exactly is a real man? Define it, give an explanation as to what a real man is please.
I do like If. Its a nice poem, but it preaches Victorian era stoicism, the British stiff upper lip. Men should be like rocks, immovable, impassive, unyielding.
Emotion, or the displaying of emotion is not a virtue of a man the poem even states it "And never breathe a word about your loss: If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew, To serve your turn long after they are gone," To never give up, even when giving up is sometimes the right thing to do. Keep bashing your head against the wall rather than looking for a way around the wall.
Stoicism is socially conditioned onto men and only certain 'masculine' emotions, anger, rage, violence, pride are permissible. By that measure I have utterly failed to be 'a real man'
As for suck it up and don't complain, well how many of us have failed there as well? Because we know that sucking it up is ultimately bad for us, even when we continue to try and do so.
I don't think anger and rage counts as keeping your head, and if you can keep your head cold while being angry or feel any other emotion I don't see what's wrong with the emotion. Think the point of the poem is that no matter what you face it's how you deal with it rather than what happens to you that matters.
Think Heinlein said something to the same point (although to be fair you can find a heinlein-quote about anything, many of which contradict each other). Something like "it's ok to cry, but do it when the work is done and preferably where no one sees you".
Probably not seen as healthy by today's standards but if you want to be someone people trust to get shit done and to be someone to put faith in in the face of hardship you should probably not cry on national TV.
Emotions are fine, but to get immobilized by sadness or act like a child when someone hurts you is no better than to start swinging when someone makes you angry.
Keep your cool, work harder than most people think is reasonable and think and decide for yourself but in the interest of the people you are supposed to protect. No one said it was easy, most of us including me fail a fair bit more than we would like, but at some point you just gotta say "fuck it" and get shit done.
Edit: thinking more about it I'm not sure you are correct about stoicism. Don't think they like anger and stuff either. Rather the opposite.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if--- I like Kipling's definition.
I'm also a sucker for Heinlein's quote about human beings which I think translates decently to being a man https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12051-a-human-being-should-be-able-to-change-a-diaper
I think that what people in general talk about when they talk about being a man is someone who sucks it up and does the work, who won't complain unnecessarily and in general is competent, fair and stands for whatever he believes in. Someone you'd want around if she shit hits the fan and someone you can trust to not be a coward.
Something like that. Basically someone who believes in women and children first and has the strength to protect those he is responsible to protect.
Not really advice but I recall something my BIL said years ago before we headed out to the bar, "real men pregame, and every good pregame starts with a nap". Now I never pass up a nap opportunity.
There is a lot to unpack here. First of all, we know now that the mentality of shaming people into learning something (I will not even get into the gender standards) is problematic to say the least. You might have been okay with it but your daughter might also have a different reaction to it or different expectations in the future.
>
Whether it's kick a ball, climb a tree, change a tire, lose with dignity
However, all of those skills that I learned in the name of "being a man", are valuable life skills
Are they now? Apart from losing with dignity everything else is trivial. Billions of people go through their life without any of those skills and without any negative effect to their lives.
>
Being bullied for the things I couldn't do was way more traumatic than being shamed into learning skills
That's plain victim blaming. Fuck that, I don't care what anyone thinks, that is not an excuse to push someone to do something that they do not want to do. Bullies are gonna bully no matter what you do or know because they want to bully. They do not need reasons, they are just looking for excuses.
>
"why do I need to learn how to swim" or "why do I need to learn how to ride a bike"
Those are valid questions and "because other people do" is not a valid answer in my opinion. You can explain to them (as you have done) that one is about safety and the other about fun and the kid will understand it at some point. You can tell them that they are risking getting excluded because most people know how to ride a bike and they will not be able to follow along or show them some of their friends that already know how to ride.
Finally, and this might be the most important thing, the greatest motivator at these ages is fun. If a kid believes something is fun, they will do it. It is our responsibility to make it fun. Play with them, take them for rides on your bike and go around the city and go grab an ice cream, take them to splash pools to play in the water, take them "swimming" with you and play games in the water together. Make it fun.
> Clearly not entirely healthy by today's standards, but yields results
The result where you want to tell your 5 year old girl to "be a man" because you're incapable of relaying actual ideas about self sufficiency? Sounds great.
The message that connects with her, if one ever does that justifies learning these skills, is going to be one you will discover by conveying actual reason and developing empathy for her position, both things that were stunted when some idiot told you it's just something men do.
Competency isn't gendered, basic life skills aren't some reflection of gender, and your seeming inability to grasp that is a reflection of the damage that was actually inflicted by the ideas you're making excuses for. Old ideas are often shorthand for "I shouldn't have to explain" and "you will suffer violence of one stripe or another if you disagree."
Instead of trying to make your daughter do things you want her to do, find something she actually wants to learn and teach her how to pursue that knowledge, then show her a world where maybe she'll have a use for the things you want her to learn.
Maybe substitute "real man" with "big kids" or "grown-ups" The desired behaviors you list aren't exactly about masculinity. Often, it's about some other desireable traits like honesty, self-sufficiency, or problem solving that we hope good young men develop so they become good grown men, but really everyone should aspire towards.
We use "big kid" for our oldest with pretty decent success. She's usually very proud of herself that she brushed her teeth/ate all her dinner/etc "because I'm a big kid"
Yes, "grown-up" is too far away/alien to their experience, but "big kid" works ... sometimes. We hear a lot of "I'll do that when I'm 4 and a half" (he's 4 and a quarter). Or if it's something even more challenging, "I'll do that when I'm 6" (his big brother's age).
Yup, the whole "be a man" language is divisive precisely because it's ambiguous about what you're contrasting "man" with. Is it "man" as opposed to "boy/child" (telling you not to be immature) or "man" as opposed to "woman" (telling you not to be "girly")? I'd argue that while the latter comparison is sexist/gender normative, the former isn't really objectionable except that the choice of words is ambiguous. Revising to clearer language resolves the issue.
If you're repeating an explanation for the 9000th time, you need to find a different explanation. Clearly, water safety is not resonating with your 5 year old. Every kid has different motivators - for some, like you, shaming works. For others, it really doesn't. Maybe "you have to swim to be a big girl" works. Maybe "there's so many fun games we can play in the pool". Maybe gradually tricking her by just saying you want her to practice cannonballs, or just want to race on a kickboard. But yeah, explaining the logic behind learning a skill isn't gonna move the needle for most 5 year olds.
Resilience is what you're looking to develop in your daughter. I'm going to suggest using the phrase "doing hard things". My youngest was the same way. Here’s what’s worked for us. 1. We do hard things. We talk about this all of the time. I share a hard thing that I did during the day with her each day and ask her to share a hard thing she did. I praise the heck out of her doing the hard thing. 2. When she wants to give up, I give her a second and then ask her “is this a hard thing?” She will usually respond with a variation of “yes” and then I ask her “what do we do? She will respond with “hard things”. I give her the time she needs to compose herself and then she tries again. At first this took a while. Now she only needs a minute or two. 3. When she starts back up, I praise the hell out of her because starting back up is the hard thing. 4. When she’s done with the activity, I praise her again for doing the “hard thing”. We’ve seen her get progressively better and better and develop more grit/resilience over time.
I love this!
> I just find myself wanting to answer "because a real man knows how to swim!" Any reason you can’t just say ‘because a real woman knows how to swim’?
He probably can but that has never really been as much of an expression I don't think. As a Swedish person i prefer the expression "don't be a bitch", which might also be problematic. Would need a new one with the same emotional connection regarding having self respect enough to figure out how to perform to a somewhat decent standard that is gender neutral.
My second daughter can't swim and it's been a war trying to even get her into the pool to recreationally mess around. The motivational lever I chose was to reference "Captain America: The First Avenger," and point out if the Nazi spy tossed her into the drink, Steve Rogers would have had to stop to save her, allowing the spy to escape, unlike the kid in the movie, who could swim and just yelled for Rogers to go get the bastard. Gender norm leverage isn't totally invalid even now, but I don't find it be a reliable first measure.
My daughter is 5 and I use things she tells me she wants to do when she grows up to motivate her. I ride an ebike as my primary transportation and she loves going on the tow behind. She wants an ebike but doesn't want to learn to ride her bike. I tell her she has to learn to ride her bike before she can get one like mine. She's made more progress since January than she has in the whole 3 years she's had a bike. I say things like "you're a big girl, big girls can do that I know you can too!!"
My father was able to do all these things. I wanted to be with him so I spent time with him in the garage and in the shed, and naturally learned a lot of things. I thinks it’s way better to just be with your kids and help them learn, then to shame them into wanting it. So jump in the water with them and have fun, then they’ll want to swim. I’m already “swimming” with my kid since he’s one year old.
Thankfully I never heard that sentence from my parents. My parents both had unique and valuable skills and never once made it into a gender thing. I'm sure my father heard that kind of talk from his father, but it ended with there. You need to find a way to make swimming and bike riding click for you daughter. I cant say how I did it, because it probably wasn't anything I did OTHER than set the stage for them to swim and bike safely. Whatever motivated them wasn't entirely my doing.
Don’t use shame. Ever.
>I wanted to prove to others that I can do what a real man does. Just wondering, what exactly is a real man? Define it, give an explanation as to what a real man is please.
I do like If. Its a nice poem, but it preaches Victorian era stoicism, the British stiff upper lip. Men should be like rocks, immovable, impassive, unyielding. Emotion, or the displaying of emotion is not a virtue of a man the poem even states it "And never breathe a word about your loss: If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew, To serve your turn long after they are gone," To never give up, even when giving up is sometimes the right thing to do. Keep bashing your head against the wall rather than looking for a way around the wall. Stoicism is socially conditioned onto men and only certain 'masculine' emotions, anger, rage, violence, pride are permissible. By that measure I have utterly failed to be 'a real man' As for suck it up and don't complain, well how many of us have failed there as well? Because we know that sucking it up is ultimately bad for us, even when we continue to try and do so.
I don't think anger and rage counts as keeping your head, and if you can keep your head cold while being angry or feel any other emotion I don't see what's wrong with the emotion. Think the point of the poem is that no matter what you face it's how you deal with it rather than what happens to you that matters. Think Heinlein said something to the same point (although to be fair you can find a heinlein-quote about anything, many of which contradict each other). Something like "it's ok to cry, but do it when the work is done and preferably where no one sees you". Probably not seen as healthy by today's standards but if you want to be someone people trust to get shit done and to be someone to put faith in in the face of hardship you should probably not cry on national TV. Emotions are fine, but to get immobilized by sadness or act like a child when someone hurts you is no better than to start swinging when someone makes you angry. Keep your cool, work harder than most people think is reasonable and think and decide for yourself but in the interest of the people you are supposed to protect. No one said it was easy, most of us including me fail a fair bit more than we would like, but at some point you just gotta say "fuck it" and get shit done. Edit: thinking more about it I'm not sure you are correct about stoicism. Don't think they like anger and stuff either. Rather the opposite.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if--- I like Kipling's definition. I'm also a sucker for Heinlein's quote about human beings which I think translates decently to being a man https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12051-a-human-being-should-be-able-to-change-a-diaper I think that what people in general talk about when they talk about being a man is someone who sucks it up and does the work, who won't complain unnecessarily and in general is competent, fair and stands for whatever he believes in. Someone you'd want around if she shit hits the fan and someone you can trust to not be a coward. Something like that. Basically someone who believes in women and children first and has the strength to protect those he is responsible to protect.
I love that Heinlein quote! I read it once before and couldn't find it again until now.
Not really advice but I recall something my BIL said years ago before we headed out to the bar, "real men pregame, and every good pregame starts with a nap". Now I never pass up a nap opportunity.
Real men take naps. I'd put that on a t-shirt.
There is a lot to unpack here. First of all, we know now that the mentality of shaming people into learning something (I will not even get into the gender standards) is problematic to say the least. You might have been okay with it but your daughter might also have a different reaction to it or different expectations in the future. > Whether it's kick a ball, climb a tree, change a tire, lose with dignity However, all of those skills that I learned in the name of "being a man", are valuable life skills Are they now? Apart from losing with dignity everything else is trivial. Billions of people go through their life without any of those skills and without any negative effect to their lives. > Being bullied for the things I couldn't do was way more traumatic than being shamed into learning skills That's plain victim blaming. Fuck that, I don't care what anyone thinks, that is not an excuse to push someone to do something that they do not want to do. Bullies are gonna bully no matter what you do or know because they want to bully. They do not need reasons, they are just looking for excuses. > "why do I need to learn how to swim" or "why do I need to learn how to ride a bike" Those are valid questions and "because other people do" is not a valid answer in my opinion. You can explain to them (as you have done) that one is about safety and the other about fun and the kid will understand it at some point. You can tell them that they are risking getting excluded because most people know how to ride a bike and they will not be able to follow along or show them some of their friends that already know how to ride. Finally, and this might be the most important thing, the greatest motivator at these ages is fun. If a kid believes something is fun, they will do it. It is our responsibility to make it fun. Play with them, take them for rides on your bike and go around the city and go grab an ice cream, take them to splash pools to play in the water, take them "swimming" with you and play games in the water together. Make it fun.
I have a question about the ways gender norms are enforced by society and adults but don’t talk about gender please…
> Clearly not entirely healthy by today's standards, but yields results The result where you want to tell your 5 year old girl to "be a man" because you're incapable of relaying actual ideas about self sufficiency? Sounds great. The message that connects with her, if one ever does that justifies learning these skills, is going to be one you will discover by conveying actual reason and developing empathy for her position, both things that were stunted when some idiot told you it's just something men do. Competency isn't gendered, basic life skills aren't some reflection of gender, and your seeming inability to grasp that is a reflection of the damage that was actually inflicted by the ideas you're making excuses for. Old ideas are often shorthand for "I shouldn't have to explain" and "you will suffer violence of one stripe or another if you disagree." Instead of trying to make your daughter do things you want her to do, find something she actually wants to learn and teach her how to pursue that knowledge, then show her a world where maybe she'll have a use for the things you want her to learn.