Home / Quotes / Quote by Frank Pittman

Quote by Frank Pittman

“As a guy develops and practices his masculinity, he is accompanied by an invisible male chorus of all the other guys, who hiss orcheer as he attempts to approximate the masculine ideal, who push him to sacrifice more of his humanity for the sake of his masculinity, and who ridicule him when he holds back. The chorus is made up of all the guy's comrades and rivals, his buddies and bosses, his male ancestors and his male cultural heroes--and above all, his father, who may have been a real person in his life, or may have existed only as the myth of the man who got away.”

Quote by Frank Pittman

Author

Frank Pittman, born in 1935 in the United States, was a renowned psychiatrist and psychologist. His research focused on the fields of psychotherapy and interpersonal relationships, having a profound impact on modern psychotherapy. more

You May Also Like

“What we men share is the experience of having been raised by women in a culture that stopped our fathers from being close enough to teach us how to be men, in a world in which men were discouraged from talking about our masculinity and questioning its roots and its mystique, in a world that glorified masculinity and gave us impossibly unachievable myths of masculine heroics, but no domestic models to teach us how to do it.”

Men World Enough Culture Father Talking Teach Share Models Roots Raised Myth Questioning Masculinity Masculine Discouraged Be A Man Our Father Mystique

Author:Frank Pittman

“At the heart of the matter of masculine excess is a great longing for the love and approval of a father, a man who can tell another man that his masculinity is splendid enough and he can now relax.”

Men Heart Matter Enough Father Longing Relax Excess Approval Masculinity Masculine Splendid Another Man

Author:Frank Pittman

“Most of us have felt barriers between ourselves and our fathers and had thought that going it alone was part of what it meant to be a man. We tried to get close to our children when we became fathers, and yet the business of practicing masculinity kept getting in the way. We men have begun to talk about that.”

Men Way Children Father Felt Our Children Barriers Meant To Be Masculinity Be A Man Our Father

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.”

Knows Men Littles Would Be Life Is Mother Father Know How Too Much Ready Forgiving Mentor Our Father Can'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.”

Littles Stills Problem Seems Running Mother Father Too Much Willing Blame Forgiving Terror Shrinks Mother Love

Author:Frank Pittman

“In considering the ledger equal, understand the greatest gift you have given your parents is the opportunity to raise you. The things a child gets from parents can't compare to the things a parent gets from raising a child. Only by experiencing this can you understand the degree to which children give meaning to parents' lives.”

Giving Children Opportunity Given Parent Equal Degrees Raises Compare Considering Raising Children Greatest Gifts

Author:Frank Pittman

“Science is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don’t worship it. Feed it. [Addressing a group of prospective contributors to an Israeli scientific research program]”

Groups Worship Research Program Horse Sacred Cows Israeli Scientific Research Contributors Sacred Cows

Author:Abba Eban

“The Congressional Budget Office is a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation, and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated.”

“Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this and you give me cash' unless it's illegal.”

Giving Children Poor Poverty Habit Give Me Staying Neighborhood Illegal Cash Monday Showing Up Poor Children Poor Neighborhoods

Author:Newt Gingrich

“Many of us feel we walk alone without a friend Never communicating with the one who lives within.”

Feels Walks Communicate

Author:Stevie Wonder