Tony Porter Ted talk; A call to men.

[Warren DeMontague]

1. Thoughts? One, its really long. I only got about half through.

Two, i think its relevant- lets be honest, for a moment, here- many of these cultural norms are not universal and equally prevalent in all corners of even American society. Mr. Porter is, obviously, African American. It's fairly well known that many AA and Hipanic communities seem to have more of a cultural issue, for instance, with homosexuality than at least liberal white communiies. Some of this is driven by churches... And it is, like many other positive moves in our society, changing, as witnessed by the NAACP vote on gay marriage.

I was listening to him talk about how he relates to his son and daughter, and it sounded very similar... Similar to the way many of my friends were raised.... in the 60s. I dont pretend to be be an expert on how other people raise their kids; and there sure seems to be a big range.. But in the circles ive run in, spanking for instance is something that went out with smoking sections on airplanes.

What struck me about the "nurturing" way he was with his daughter and the "cold" way he was with him son, was that ive been BOTH ways, equally, with my kids regardless of gender. Im not a saint, sometimes i get exasperated as a dad, but i can honestly say it has NEVER occurred to me to treat my kids differently, repond to them differently emotionally, because of their gender. Such an idea seems flat out rdiculous to me.

Im glad Mr. Porter has overcome that, but a lot of us have already been there for a long time. In fact the stuff he talks about sounds positively anachronistic at times.