Parents are often found reeling on the crossroads because of certain things that are beyond their power to control. A society inflicted with predatory culture often serves as the bedrock for aggressive, morally degraded, violent and potentially offending adults. These adults as kids were made to witness flagrant instances of inherent gender biases in the name of traditional values and cultural norms, but in reality driven by patriarchy. The blame of a man’s obvious rapist tendencies should be foisted more upon the upbringing his childhood was beckoned with rather than his psychological state or worse his criminal mentality. Though, it’s not always the case, sometimes a criminal is apparently a certified psychopath who should have undergone some psychiatric treatment before the occurrence of some horrid mishap. But usually a child’s personality is shaped out of the darkness one dwells in. As the famous proverb says, “atrocities either make you a devil or a saint. And most of the kids usually end up choosing the latter version of their personality.”

Its consequences do have a potential to inflict scars that take sometimes more than a lifetime to get healed. Sometimes parents unknowingly end up instilling such lethal notions in the heads of their boys that they fail to exercise their discretion. But such little, unknown, and strangely indiscernible acts attempted on the part of displaying parental authority can leave a child mentally scarred and traumatized to the point of succumbing to the toxicity such upbringing ostensibly offers.

• Boys don’t cry: It is really important for the parents to not raise their boys like girls or girls like boys but raising the two like normal humans, not programmed devices or robos. Never ever restrict your boys to cry their heart out and hold their tears back. This is a vicious habit that is shoved into their mind making them shun away any sort of verbal expression or display of vulnerability as a sign of unmanliness, which is even more drastic and detrimental. They end up growing into believing that making someone cry is the best and the most potent way to enfeeble them and gloat at their miseries. Teach your boys to be as expressive, especially about the pains they go through which is certainly no way different than a girl.

• Telling them to be a man: This is a really questionable statement, since masculinity is often connoted with strength and weakness is treated as a feminine trait. Being a man is not always has to be about intimidating the second sex (females) or oppress them in any gruesome manner. Manliness can’t be an excuse for badly raised boys and to evade what is generally considered a girls territory. Say, boys can be ‘marvelous cooks’ and girls can be great at ‘sports’ or ‘driving’. Boys can have an inclination to play with barbies and dolls and that’s completely normal. Manliness shouldn’t be allowed to curb their individual interests and playful instincts.
• Boys will be boys: A pretty familiar and hackneyed phrase. Isn’t it? Usually it is used in a very light-hearted sense which is not meant to offend any woman per say. But why it’s a cliché to excuse the morally degraded behaviour like hitting, bad-mouthing or cussing someone unnecessarily just because it makes you feel like alpha masculine in front of your peers. This is something that gets instilled in the minds of younger boys usually by their parents only that they don’t even realize the hazards it might inflict in the budding minds. It makes them feel superior of others rather than equals and normalizes their inability to control their impulses.

• Teaching kids that being mean with girls is a sign of protectiveness: That’s just so ridiculously 1977! All thanks goes to some shitty Bollywood rom-coms that show how convenient it is for a boy to woo a girl by being pathetically mean to her all the time. Nagging her, teasing her and expecting her to shower the boy with love and adulation is absurdity of highest orders. Please, it’s my heartiest request to everyone who ever gets to read this article that it only shows how terrible a guy is and a girl with a little bit of sanity and self respect will only loathe the existence of such boy. It’s not at all being protective, it is just being violent and horrid with a person you really adore and wish to be with. Kindness and being real is all that one needs that never goes out of style. Machoism is another name to normalize violence towards the ones we love in the name of love. If that’s not predatory culture, then I don’t know what else and how it can be defined.
• Slut shaming any neighborhood girl/woman in front of your boys: Parents don’t get to see the impact of their words often but their words always have a far reaching impact on the psyche of young kids. If you as a parent are obsessed with bad mouthing about a girl next door or can’t help but to poke your nose in somebody’s else business then beware, your girl might end up loathing certain kind of people on the account of their dressing sense or worse for their blunt, open, and friendly nature or your boy would end up labeling such women sluts or too easy and worthless, designed only for their pleasure. This is the worst and the morbid of all mentalities parents can instill without even realizing its implications in the first place in their growing kids.

Make sure that family leads to the creation of societies as well as prevalent ideological beliefs and pervasive social evils. And only we have the power to uproot such evils and the change has to begin with ourselves first. So that our kids when grow up will add to the love, peace, harmony and all the beauty this world has or will ever need. Trust me, you’re the greatest influence in the life of your adorable munchkin and your child has all the capabilities to make this world a better place. They just needs a righteous example to be inspired.

Happy parenting and keep inspiring your lifelines! 🌼