6 ms·

I would also toss the word "masculine" into the discussion. In the old days it was very unusual for a kid not to grow up exposed to a culture of masculine hobb

by VLM 10y ago

I would also toss the word "masculine" into the discussion. In the old days it was very unusual for a kid not to grow up exposed to a culture of masculine hobbies. Of course Dad had some tools and a couple sawhorses in the garage, all Dads did. Exposure to "Dad Hobbies" at age 5 leads to interest in "Dad Hobbies" at age 30. I personally remember swinging a hammer on the plywood underlayment of a HO gauge model railroad layout and lots of hours going ham radio stuff with my Dad, and my kids are having the same experience. In my youth that was a standard experience, today that is every unusual. Culture changes, and the vast majority of children today are like "Dad? What is a Dad? You mean mommies friend?" or "Dad hobbies? Dad has no hobbies because Mom took all his money and his house in the divorce.". Naturally those kids are not going to grow up interested in "Dad Hobbies" other than by accident. There are other interesting aspects of the de-masculin-ization of childhood.

Retric 10y ago
I think you are confusing 'Masculinity' with culture. Pink used to be the manly color as blood is red and you tone that down for polite company you get Pink. Now the manly color is closer to construction yellow or flannel red. Construction equipment is still a classic boy's toy, where trains are just outside our experience.
- VLM 10y ago
  So you're claiming the number of boys growing up today with a table saw in the basement is constant or increasing because nuclear families are in decline. I donno about that claim.
  - Retric 10y ago
    No, I am saying saw's like sextants are simply less needed now days. Take changing a tire, a classic man thing. Well run flats, pressure sensors, and cellphones mean people very rarely have any need to change a tire on their own. Growing up I did plenty of home construction like putting up a wall and adding drywall etc. But, if I was going to put up shelving in a closet I would go to IKEA.
    - cr0sh 10y ago
      > Well run flats, pressure sensors, and cellphones mean people very rarely have any need to change a tire on their own. Until they actually do need to change the tire. Typically, though - long before they notice - they become a footnote (and horrifying image) on "/r/justrolledintotheshop". Seriously - take a look at that sub-reddit - there are so many who know absolutely nothing about automobiles. For instance there's also a thread on some specific model car site about a guy who needed to change his oil, and somebody trolled him to flush out the old oil by running the engine and dumping -water- thru the fill hole and out the pan - needless to say, then engine was ruined. While they identified who told him to do that, nobody could believe that anyone who was attempting an oil change would do such a thing - but there you have it. It be like somebody asking how to restore a file they deleted, and telling them to remove the drive, turn it upside down, and smack it hard with a hammer, then re-install it. There are more than a few people who would actually do such a thing! And yes, I know about the old trick to free up an aging MFM hard drive...
      - Retric 10y ago
        Once you start talking about 10's of millions of people some really dumb stuff happens. But, that stuff always happens, I remember 20 years ago hearing the story of the old lady who only used 2nd gear.... The reality is if you buy a new car you can hit 100k miles with standard maintenance and no real mechanical issues. 60 years ago you where lucky to hit 15k miles before something happened. And when cars where new you better bring a mechanic for any long trips.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - ska 10y ago
    No, they are suggesting that masculine activities change over time just like all of culture has, for all of time. Given the mens-rights flavored text in your original, I doubt you are actually looking for engagement here, but giving you the benefit of that doubt: Defining "masculinity" in ways that start to sound like "how much better things were when I was a kid" is an almost certain sign you are being superficial in your analysis. If you dig in a little bit (and there is a ton of interesting writing on this and related) you'll find there is a lot to learn. To your particular scenario: I know men who spend time with kids programming robots. Are they somehow less masculine than other men I know spending time woodworking with kids? Or others who spend time cooking and baking with kids? If you believe they are, please defend. Honestly, I'd like to hear the reasoning because it sounds laughable to me.
    - VLM 10y ago
      Your examples are very peculiar in that in the workplace female programmers are the minority, and some google searching shows female head chefs are nearly unheard of in the food service industry, therefore sure obviously programming and being a chef are culturally obviously very masculine. I think your point is something like its very Millennial to have no "traditional crafts and skills", low agency, low levels of self help, etc. I'd believe that. You do make a convincing point. See the rebellious response of the Maker movement which decades ago would have merely been called learning to be a responsible "grown up". The problem with your culturally/economically masculine examples of programming and being a chef is you can pull a graph from images.google.com of something like "children living with mother only" and apparently it varies staggeringly with race and time. Such that when I was a kid less than 1 in 10 of my peers grew up with a single mom and no Dad in the picture, whereas half of black kids today have no "Dad" in the house. So it matters not that we're discussing mere subjects like carpentry vs arduino programming, no Dad at all means neither subject will be in the picture. I'm sure there are lost feminine arts in the culture. Sewing homemade clothing. Being a stay at home mom. But those were not article topics anyway. Edited to further point out we're arguing over which binary is the only binary factor to matter, whereas my point is regardless of how much "Dad Hobbies" have cratered culture-wide, getting rid of 40% of Dads from kids lives over the same time period is just going to make whatever decline there is, 40% lower yet. I simply don't understand what could be controversial about that.
hvs 10y ago
What you describe sounds like no one I know.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  I think VLM is focusing on an extreme, but there is a grain of truth in all that. A time traveller from a few decades ago would definitely say that nowadays society has "gone soft". But that person would be speaking from a Mad Men era perspective, warts and all. I'm trying to blend both. My boys do participate in all the modern things, team-oriented, yadda-yadda. But they see me using the lathe, metal mill, welder, etc in the garage, and I've taught them how to use the machines too. Pretty much the image that VLM is describing. When I bought a compound bow for myself, I also bought them one each, and taught them how to shoot. I mean, it's a lot of fun. Plus, if anything needs fixing, now I can delegate the task to the kids. :) Woodworking, metalworking, 3D printing - between all these hobbies, they could pretty much fix anything.
  - hvs 10y ago
    I do woodworking, fix things around the house, work on electronics and hope my kid takes interest in those things, but it's not out of some idea that it's the only way to be "masculine" or something. I think both boys and girls benefit from doing things that teach them self-reliance. Wrapping it up in some kind of "tough guy" imagine is pointless and self-defeating, especially if your child ISN'T the traditional "tough guy" just by disposition.
jawilson2 10y ago
Fathers today spend far more time with their children than they did 30+ years ago. [1] is an example study, but this is far from the only one showing this trend. Check out the 2nd graph in particular. Anecdotally, I leave for work at 6 AM, and am home at ~4-5, and have time to coach one kid's basketball team, lead another one's Cub Scout den, and spend most of the weekend doing family stuff. [1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/14/men-women-work-time/1983271/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/14/men-wom...
dang 10y ago
This was offtopic and guaranteed not to end well, which (checking!) indeed it did not. Please don't take HN threads on such tangents. It amounts to trolling. To clarify: whimsical, curious tangents are fine on HN. But veering into generic controversy leads to two badnesses, flamewars and predictability.

by VLM 10y ago

Retric 10y ago

I think you are confusing 'Masculinity' with culture. Pink used to be the manly color as blood is red and you tone that down for polite company you get Pink. Now the manly color is closer to construction yellow or flannel red. Construction equipment is still a classic boy's toy, where trains are just outside our experience.

VLM 10y ago
So you're claiming the number of boys growing up today with a table saw in the basement is constant or increasing because nuclear families are in decline. I donno about that claim.
- Retric 10y ago
  No, I am saying saw's like sextants are simply less needed now days. Take changing a tire, a classic man thing. Well run flats, pressure sensors, and cellphones mean people very rarely have any need to change a tire on their own. Growing up I did plenty of home construction like putting up a wall and adding drywall etc. But, if I was going to put up shelving in a closet I would go to IKEA.
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    > Well run flats, pressure sensors, and cellphones mean people very rarely have any need to change a tire on their own. Until they actually do need to change the tire. Typically, though - long before they notice - they become a footnote (and horrifying image) on "/r/justrolledintotheshop". Seriously - take a look at that sub-reddit - there are so many who know absolutely nothing about automobiles. For instance there's also a thread on some specific model car site about a guy who needed to change his oil, and somebody trolled him to flush out the old oil by running the engine and dumping -water- thru the fill hole and out the pan - needless to say, then engine was ruined. While they identified who told him to do that, nobody could believe that anyone who was attempting an oil change would do such a thing - but there you have it. It be like somebody asking how to restore a file they deleted, and telling them to remove the drive, turn it upside down, and smack it hard with a hammer, then re-install it. There are more than a few people who would actually do such a thing! And yes, I know about the old trick to free up an aging MFM hard drive...
    - Retric 10y ago
      Once you start talking about 10's of millions of people some really dumb stuff happens. But, that stuff always happens, I remember 20 years ago hearing the story of the old lady who only used 2nd gear.... The reality is if you buy a new car you can hit 100k miles with standard maintenance and no real mechanical issues. 60 years ago you where lucky to hit 15k miles before something happened. And when cars where new you better bring a mechanic for any long trips.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- ska 10y ago
  No, they are suggesting that masculine activities change over time just like all of culture has, for all of time. Given the mens-rights flavored text in your original, I doubt you are actually looking for engagement here, but giving you the benefit of that doubt: Defining "masculinity" in ways that start to sound like "how much better things were when I was a kid" is an almost certain sign you are being superficial in your analysis. If you dig in a little bit (and there is a ton of interesting writing on this and related) you'll find there is a lot to learn. To your particular scenario: I know men who spend time with kids programming robots. Are they somehow less masculine than other men I know spending time woodworking with kids? Or others who spend time cooking and baking with kids? If you believe they are, please defend. Honestly, I'd like to hear the reasoning because it sounds laughable to me.
  - VLM 10y ago
    Your examples are very peculiar in that in the workplace female programmers are the minority, and some google searching shows female head chefs are nearly unheard of in the food service industry, therefore sure obviously programming and being a chef are culturally obviously very masculine. I think your point is something like its very Millennial to have no "traditional crafts and skills", low agency, low levels of self help, etc. I'd believe that. You do make a convincing point. See the rebellious response of the Maker movement which decades ago would have merely been called learning to be a responsible "grown up". The problem with your culturally/economically masculine examples of programming and being a chef is you can pull a graph from images.google.com of something like "children living with mother only" and apparently it varies staggeringly with race and time. Such that when I was a kid less than 1 in 10 of my peers grew up with a single mom and no Dad in the picture, whereas half of black kids today have no "Dad" in the house. So it matters not that we're discussing mere subjects like carpentry vs arduino programming, no Dad at all means neither subject will be in the picture. I'm sure there are lost feminine arts in the culture. Sewing homemade clothing. Being a stay at home mom. But those were not article topics anyway. Edited to further point out we're arguing over which binary is the only binary factor to matter, whereas my point is regardless of how much "Dad Hobbies" have cratered culture-wide, getting rid of 40% of Dads from kids lives over the same time period is just going to make whatever decline there is, 40% lower yet. I simply don't understand what could be controversial about that.

hvs 10y ago

What you describe sounds like no one I know.

Florin_Andrei 10y ago
I think VLM is focusing on an extreme, but there is a grain of truth in all that. A time traveller from a few decades ago would definitely say that nowadays society has "gone soft". But that person would be speaking from a Mad Men era perspective, warts and all. I'm trying to blend both. My boys do participate in all the modern things, team-oriented, yadda-yadda. But they see me using the lathe, metal mill, welder, etc in the garage, and I've taught them how to use the machines too. Pretty much the image that VLM is describing. When I bought a compound bow for myself, I also bought them one each, and taught them how to shoot. I mean, it's a lot of fun. Plus, if anything needs fixing, now I can delegate the task to the kids. :) Woodworking, metalworking, 3D printing - between all these hobbies, they could pretty much fix anything.
- hvs 10y ago
  I do woodworking, fix things around the house, work on electronics and hope my kid takes interest in those things, but it's not out of some idea that it's the only way to be "masculine" or something. I think both boys and girls benefit from doing things that teach them self-reliance. Wrapping it up in some kind of "tough guy" imagine is pointless and self-defeating, especially if your child ISN'T the traditional "tough guy" just by disposition.

jawilson2 10y ago

Fathers today spend far more time with their children than they did 30+ years ago. [1] is an example study, but this is far from the only one showing this trend. Check out the 2nd graph in particular. Anecdotally, I leave for work at 6 AM, and am home at ~4-5, and have time to coach one kid's basketball team, lead another one's Cub Scout den, and spend most of the weekend doing family stuff. [1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/14/men-women-work-time/1983271/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/14/men-wom...

dang 10y ago

This was offtopic and guaranteed not to end well, which (checking!) indeed it did not. Please don't take HN threads on such tangents. It amounts to trolling. To clarify: whimsical, curious tangents are fine on HN. But veering into generic controversy leads to two badnesses, flamewars and predictability.