“When it comes to little girls, God the father has nothing on father, the god. It's an awesome responsibility.” LittlesGirlFatherResponsibility Author:Frank Pittman
“We become male automatically because of the Y chromosome and the little magic peanut, but if we are to become men we need the helpof other men--we need our fathers to model for us and then to anoint us, we need our buddies to share the coming-of-age rituals with us and to let us join the team of men, and we need myths of heroes to inspire us and to show us the way.” IfsMenWayNeedsLittlesShowsAgeFatherMagicTeamShareInspireHeroModelsMalesMythComing Of AgeRitualOur FatherBuddyPeanutsChromosomes Author:Frank Pittman
“I'm not suggesting that all men are beautiful, vulnerable boys, but we all started out that way. What happened to us? How did we become monsters of feminist nightmares? The answer, of course, is that we underwent a careful and deliberate process of gender training, sometimes brutal, always dehumanizing, cutting away large chunks of ourselves. Little girls went through something similarly crippling. If the gender training was successful, we each ended up being half a person.” IfsMenWayLittlesPersonsSometimesBeautifulGirlCoursesProcessAnswersHalfBoysSuccessfulCuttingHappenedTrainingFeministCarefulGenderMonstersVulnerableNightmareBrutalDeliberateSuggestingChunks Author:Frank Pittman
“Early on, girls begin to menstruate, which is dramatic but not obvious to their playmates. They grow taller and rounder, but underneath their makeup they are still recognizably themselves. For boys it is far more disorienting. Puberty comes later, sometimes much later, and its delay is humiliating. While the tall round girls are getting themselves up like grown women, the prepubertal boys, with their featureless, hairless bodies, are just dirty little kids who could pass for the children of the hypermature girls.” ChildrenLittlesStillsSometimesBodyKidsGirlGrowsBoysRoundsObviousDirtyDramaticMakeupTallDelayLittle KidHumiliatingPubertyGrown Women Author:Frank Pittman
“It's not that we have too much mother, but too little father. We can't forgive our mothers for taking the place of our fathers until we are ready to see that the point of a man's life is to be a father and a mentor, and we can't do that because we don't know how we would be a father or a mentor when we never had one.” KnowsMenLittlesWould BeLife IsMotherFatherKnow HowToo MuchReadyForgivingMentorOur FatherCan't Forgive Author:Frank Pittman
“We perversely see mother love as the problem--when it is all we have to sustain us--rather than blaming the fathers who have run out on our mothers and on us. We seem willing to forgive fathers for loving too little even as we still shrink in terror from mothers who love too much.” LittlesStillsProblemSeemsRunningMotherFatherToo MuchWillingBlameForgivingTerrorShrinksMother Love Author:Frank Pittman
“We know how powerful our mother was when we were little, but is our wife that powerful to us now? Must we relive our great deed of escape from Mama with every other woman in our life?” KnowsLittlesMotherPowerfulKnow HowOur LivesWifeDeedsMama Author:Frank Pittman
“If fathers who fear fathering and run away from it could only see how little fathering is enough. Mostly, the father just needs to be there.” IfsNeedsLittlesEnoughRunningFatherRunning AwayFathering Author:Frank Pittman
