Quote

When the masculine mystique is pulling boys and men out into the world to growl manly noises at one another, the only power with astronger pull on the male psyche is maternally induced guilt. The guilt is quite necessary for our moral development, but it is often uncomfortable.

Frank Pittman

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Frank Pittman
Age: 77 †
Born: 1935
Born: January 1
Died: 2012
Died: November 24
Psychiatrist
Psychotherapist
the United States of America
Another
Noise
Psyche
Power
Guilt
Manly
Men
Necessary
Masculine
World
Development
Pulling
Boys
Pull
Growl
Quite
Male
Noises
Moral
Males
Induced
Often
Uncomfortable
Mystique

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Character, not passion keeps marriages together long enough to do their work of raising children into mature, responsible, productive citizens.
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A man doesn't have to have all the answers children will teach him how to parent them, and in the process will teach him everything he needs to know about life.
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The guys who fear becoming fathers don't understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. The end product of child-raising is not the child but the parent.
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To insult a friend implies that you respect his masculinity enough to know he can take it without acting like a crybaby. The swapping of insults, like the fighting between brothers, becomes the seal of the male bonding.
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The end product of child raising is not the child but the parent.
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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.
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Parents can make us distrust ourselves. To them, we seem always to be works-in-progress.
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Fathering is the most masculine thing a man can do.
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Men who have been raised violently have every reason to believe it is appropriate for them to control others through violence they feel no compunction over being violent to women, children, and one another.
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There are great advantages to seeing yourself as an accident created by amateur parents as they practiced. You then have been left in an imperfect state and the rest is up to you. Only the most pitifully inept child requires perfection from parents.
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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?
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Infidelity flows from a belief that women have the power to make you feel like a man if you only find a woman that thinks you're perfect if you can only find a woman that you haven't hurt or disappointed yet.
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Fathering makes a man, whatever his standing in the eyes of the world, feel strong and good and important, just as he makes his child feel loved and valued.
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Fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man.
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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.
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. . . in the end, there is nothing a man can do that a woman can't, except be a father.
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Happy people learn that happiness, like sweat, is a by-product of activity.
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When it comes to little girls, God the father has nothing on father, the god. It's an awesome responsibility.
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Love is not something people feel, but something people try to express no matter how they feel.
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