Early Christian leaders were forced to establish the absolute purity of the mother of Christ because of their attitudes toward women. Eve had tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden and therefore women were view as vessels of sin, which was passed on to their wombs at conception. The pains of childbirth and menstruation were the curse of Eve (fuckin’ slut!), and according to influential Christian saints, the closeness of women to all that is vile could be seen in the “feces and urine” of childbirth.
In comparison, Mary, who had not conceived like other women, was the second coming of Eve, put here to redeem the mistakes of the first. In many ways, Eve was the fleshy mother of humanity (slut!), Mary its spiritual mother (good girl!).
Mary would quickly become an object of worship in her own right. The first recorded prayer to the Virgin dates from about 390 b.c.e.; her cult reached its height around the 16th century. In popular worship, however, Mary may have lost her virginal status. She has often been given the attributes of pagan mother goddesses, all who came before Mary. Mary’s most striking pagan metamorphosis, however, occurs within the orthodox doctrine, because she is identified with the Church, and the Church is the bride of Christ. In that way, like many other goddesses that preceded her, Mary becomes the bride in an incestuous marriage with her own son. She is regarded as an ideal of feminine perfection but the church has never used Mary to represent women, but rather to shame them in comparison.
Most of you know I have kids. I've got two boys, and one girl so my household will no doubt be quite busy as they get older. Being somewhat of a tomboy myself--at the very least in touch with my masculine self--I'm able to shift from rough and tumble mom who absolutely appreciates robots, football games in the house and my sons' collective affinity for destruction. My little girl is most likely going to be a tomboy with those two for brothers, but she is a girl, and she may appreciate the girlier things (I appreciated pink, dolls and boys). I'm still figuring it out.
My sons have played house where they are dads and they are taking care of their wife and kids, something they see my husband and ex-husband do on a regular basis. I'm okay with that. Real men take care of their home and family. I dig that. It was new to me to realize boys play house, or could anyway, but it didn't bother me. I'm still figuring things out, as all parents must do. I definitely teach my kids acceptance of others, and themselves, but I'm not sure what to think about My Princess Boy and author Cheryl Kilodavis.
He's five years old, and pink and red dresses make him happy:
OK look, I have four daughters; I don't have a son. So I'm not gonna sit here and pretend as if this were my son I would be as easily accepting as his parents were in the clip above. Maybe I shouldn't have said "easily accepting" because for all I know, they might be frontin', and this is one of those life handing you lemons moments; yeah, there's a book to be sold. At any rate, I'd love to hear from you: good or bad move? How accepting or encouraging would you be?
They brag about sleeping with each other's close friends.
They disrespect and denigrate each other as loud as they possibly can.
They invade each other's personal space.
They don't keep their hands to themselves.
They don't drop the freaking camera to help a girl or woman who's been attacked.
They put a slam on a woman that would make the WWE's John Cena wince with pain.
They simply don't walk away. They keep going without stopping.
When you watch the video, it goes a little beyond the fact that the teenage boy in the video was dead ass wrong for manhandling a female. Period. End of story. There's no argument. He was wrong.
She was wrong too. She should've respected his personal space, and she should've had self-respect for herself. At the same time, I've been heated with my boyfriend, and I have at times nagged him mercilessly. Guess what? He would never lift a finger to hit me, nor has he. And you know what? That doesn't make him a "good" man. That makes him a "man." Unless the boy taped in this video gets his shit together, he never will be a man, and he will always be a boy who will find himself in crappy relationships that go nowhere.
"But she was all in his face?"
And? He started threatening her with bodily harm simply because he felt his "manhood" was being insulted, or he felt like he had to protect his "honor." We are in 2009, there is no reason for us to continue to perpetuate the fuckery that is an honor culture anyway. Matter of fact, that's what's killing black men anyway. There is a certain level of honor that comes with simply letting people act a fool by themselves, embarrassing themselves. A real man would've told her to simply stop invading his personal space, and had she continued talking shit, just walk away.
He is the only person who can control his boundaries. There's nothing wrong with moving away from the person who is not respecting your boundaries. And it's sad to see that this is one "brother" who has been taught to believe that black women deserve to be manhandled if they get too "sassy." Way to go!
She is not innocent. It is clear, by his bragging about sleeping with her friends, that he's a piece of work, and I don't mean that in a good way. Let him be the only one to humiliate himself, and show himself for the walking piece of offal that he is. While it is never okay to hit a man, it is never okay to invade and wage war against someone's personal space. She, like him, fell into the trap that makes black women fall prey to believing that they need to be loud, menacing and obnoxious to prove their point and get their way. I personally would've kicked his balls in had he done that to me, but then again, while I've nagged, I would not put myself in her position over something as brain draining as some teenaged simp not keeping his dick in his pants.
We need to teach black boys, LIKE black girls, that respect for themselves is way more important than protecting some idea of what "honor" is. We need to teach them to respect each other as well. When black women are taught that black men "ain't shit," and when black men are taught that black women "ain't shit," stuff like this happens.
This year for Christmas, our family decided to donate some toys to a needy family. I can't take credit for the idea, as it was all inspired by my wife. In her online activities, she came across a single parent family online here in Memphis who was in need. As a former single mom herself, she made the decision to donate toys to this woman and her 3 kids who are all girls.
As a family we spoke about it, and decided that since we're financially strapped like so many, we would donate the old toys of the kids. Now mind you, we donated old used toys, but please believe, the majority of them were like brand new. Some of them were hardly even used over the years. My wife met the lady, gave her the toys, and she was truly appreciative. She even sent us an email expressing her gratitude, as she said that she was unable to provide for her kids due to financial constraints. I must admit, it felt really good to do something as small as that for someone else. Hopefully God caught that act on surveillance tape.
Thinking of toys, and seeing commercials for toys this year, I couldn't help but to think of the impact these toys have on kids. They have so much of an impact that there's a rating system for appropriateness. And hell why not? Violent acts are often blamed on video games these days. I guess its just the sign of the times. Back in my day, as a kid, playing with those little green army men and the many cap guns didn't have a negative effect on me.
But then again, maybe its because I had responsible parents. Not saying that parents today or in recent years are irresponsible and not in tune with the type of toys they give to their kids. But if you're gonna blame toys for today's violent and insensitive society on video games, and toy guns, can't we blame today's problem with teenage pregnancies on little girls receiving baby dolls? Seriously, let me know in your comments your thoughts on this.
I don't have a son, but if I did, I'd be conscientious of the toys I gave him as I am with my daughters. Trust me, I took good care not to buy the pregnant teenage project Barbie years ago for my now teenage daughters. As a matter of fact, what they need to produce are doll babies that actually spit real puke on little girls. Sure they have fake ones, but nothing is as good as the real thing. I'm willing to bet (since I can't blame parenting...*wink*) that the trauma of having real puke on your face. Or even having to clean stinky baby doll poop, might be a deterrent for teenage pregnancies.
This is why next Christmas I'm gonna have a special charity in my heart. Thanks to my wife, I now have a new focus for the holidays. Starting next year, I'm gonna do my part and donate toys. I'm gonna concentrate my efforts on boys. Yup, I sure am. Matter of fact, I think I'll just start a foundation. Its gonna be called...
Toys For Jehovah Witness Tots.
What?!!!
Have you seen Michael Jackson lately?
He grew up in a Jehovah Witness household; a very strict one I might add. And look at how fucked up he turned out. I mean look at him. He looks like a cross between the Green Hornet and a Ninja Turtle. And you wanna know why? Because as a Jehovah Witness kid, he grew up in a household where they didn't celebrate Christmas. He played with mice for Christ sakes!
Sure he was/is a talented entertainer, but had he gotten toys for Christmas, he would have probably been a normal kid. Seriously, were he given baby dolls as a kid for Christmas, he probably would have never grown up to be an "alleged" molester of little boys. He may have been more like RuPaul if that had happened. But at least he would not have been hanging babies out of windows. The same thing could probably be said for kids raised in Jewish or Muslim homes, but they don't walk around looking lost like poor Mike.
I'm just sayin...
maybe it could help reduce the door knocking thing...
its the thought that counts.
QUESTION: Do you believe kids are impacted by the toys they receive? Are gender roles defined by the type of toys they receive as opposed to the effect of parenting?
“He who warned uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.” -- Sarah Palin on Paul Revere
