What’s your most controversial opinion? **Read OP** **Mod Note in Post #3372**

jacool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123489177#Comment_123489177

If the supposed "serial" killer was only responsible for one, I'm challenging that name.

Rocket_GD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123493632#Comment_123493632

Those views should stay in the 70's.

Let women do whatever they want.

littlefeet

I am unsure if this is controversial or not, following a friend telling me about someone being disciplined in her work for gossiping about another colleague, the things that were said could have had serious consequences.

Any employees in areas such as the fire service, the Garda, the ambulance, or similar, or anyone working in local communities, there should be disciplinary action if they gossip about who they sleep with or are found to be calling a woman a bike, a local nurse or teacher, or similar. They work in the community and should have no opinion. I men like that would generally be considered a bit of a fool by their colleagues, but that doesn't seem to be enough of a deterrent.

gormdubhgorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123493822#Comment_123493822

I realise that argument but time and again more often than not. It is the working mothers who pine for their children. To me that is nature at work. How often do you hear the working man express missing children in the same manner, that working women do?

gormdubhgorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123493802#Comment_123493802

That’s exactly my point though, because both men and women as couples working has become the norm, rather than the exception. Which leads to an inflationary effect where both have to work. The cultural change of mindset has caused this.

gormdubhgorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123493903#Comment_123493903

I never said that women shouldn’t do what they want. I merely questioned what women have sacrificed with the cultural shift. As you can’t deny that women in employment really miss their children. As there is that natural strong bond between women and child.

What made me realise it was a tv program about getting travellers access to education in Galway University. Many of them were women. I thought fair play etc. A few wanting to go further than degree to masters, even phd!

But at the back of my mind I thought, it is going to kill their close knit familial culture.

It is similar to how the settled community have moved away from the close knit family values. Large families looking after each other.
Then within a few generations they move to Dublin.Both of the couple are working have 2.1 kids. The childcare and the house keeper. Along with planned play dates for the kids etc etc.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495112#Comment_123495112

The only advantage to stay at home mam you've mentioned is "close knit family values".

Say more about close knit family values.

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123494975#Comment_123494975

Is it? I never hear any of my friends with kids pine for them!!

gormdubhgorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495341#Comment_123495341

I did, especially when the kids were younger. And you hear it in the media as well women in the public eye working hard but missing out on childhood events and moments because of work commitments. There are plenty of examples of this. Any wotk life balance debate. When it involves a mother working. It quickly becomes a very emotive one. The working mother feels guilt.

Very quickly there is that added layer of emotion in the debate, that is just not the same when the debate involves working fathers.

robbiezero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495358#Comment_123495358

My wife would have loved it.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123494975#Comment_123494975

That doesn't strike me as a useful measuring stick though?

Given the stereotype that men are less prone to vocalizing or expressing their emotions in general - especially their suffering or perceived weaknesses or vulnerabilities - your measuring stick would appear rather troublesome at best and positively misleading at worst.

It could very well be that they pine every bit as much (or even more for all we know) - we just hear them going on about it less. So your post would then just be confirmation bias. You have started with a conclusion first (it is the working mothers doing the pining) and fit the observed congruent evidence to the conclusion second (that you hear them opine on it more often).

That is textbook confirmation bias thinking.

In fact much of the modern mental health movement around men and "toxic masculinity" is steeped in this concept that men are suffering every bit as much as women on many subjects - but we have missed it or brushed it under the carpets precisely because they have tended over the generations to be more stoic and silent about it.

walshb

guys, men miss their kids. But not near in the same way mothers miss them. We’re not the same. It must be very difficult for working mothers to be separated from their young children and babies.

Rocket_GD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495358#Comment_123495358

It appears a lot of what you say is all just hearsay and your beliefs, no actual evidence behind any of it.

As another poster said, I feel confirmation bias for your outdated opinions is at play here.

gormdubhgorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495437#Comment_123495437

I think the opposite is at play people are afraid to discuss it nowadays. So it is carefully couched in language such as it is “more difficult” for working mothers to be be away from their children etc.

But the question of why is never addressed. I think it is just nature. Mothers have a really strong bond with their young.

You see it in the wild in the animal kingdom. While the male of the species is hard wired to hunt.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495376#Comment_123495376

I would say "speak for yourself" there as it is in no way representative of me. I get no impression that I miss my kids any more or less than their mothers miss them when we are away. If you miss your kids less than the women in your life that's perfectly ok. But that's you. Not anyone else.

What I do experience however is that I express such things differently in word and deed than they do. But again I would not generalize that too readily to men and women as a whole. I would see it as just me.

But I would tend to be less vocal and more proactive in how I express missing my kids during separation. Such as planning or arranging how things will be the next time I am with them. So rather than engaging in "I miss them so much" thinking I engage more in "Next time I am with them I will do X and Y with them, and I can start actioning and arranging that even now in fact in the following ways……".

So this is no measure I miss them more or less. It is just how it manifests is markedly different.

But as you rightly say "We are not the same". So using a single measure to validate the idea that women miss their kids more or less than men - is likely not going to work. Just because women might tend to vocalize this more than men is not a measure of any sort that they actually experience it more.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495466#Comment_123495466

Again, as I just explained to walshb above, what you describe here is not really a useful measure for the "more or less" mentality you are using it for. It is just a different manifestation of the exact same thing. That men might be geared towards hunting is not a measure they are more or less bonded to their young - or more or less miss them.

Rather it is a different manifestation of the same thing. Acting proactively based on the same core mechanics and motivations. A given man or woman might miss their child and manifest this as getting back to that child as quickly as possible. Another might manifest it by vocalizing to anyone who will listen just how much they miss the child. Another given man or woman might manifest it in buying, arranging, building, or planning something for the child (the modern equivalent of hunting the meat) for the moment they come together again.

In general therefore using single point external measures as you are - to gauge the internal emotional worth of whole swaths of individuals - is likely just to mislead yourself into the depths of confirmation bias. Starting with a conclusion first and observing what fits to it second.

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495376#Comment_123495376

I don't believe so at all, watching my friends and family raise kids over the years, I don't see any difference in the way they feel about their children

Rocket_GD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495466#Comment_123495466

I think it is just nature.

Again, this is only your opinion, nothing more. Repeating it over again doesn't make it more true.

Comparing us to animals doesn't back up your point, I can give you endless examples of horrific things that happen in the animal kingdom, it's not relevant to human emotions.

gormdubhgorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495537#Comment_123495537

I know it is an opinion, my point is to illustrate how protective the vast majority of the female species is of their young. Because of the natural maternal bond. The next time there is a work life balance involving a mother pay attention to it.

The tone is completely different than with that of a working father, for a start

It is conflict between a badge of honour, and guilt.

Rocket_GD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495575#Comment_123495575

Can you give us some actual evidence that these discussions on work/life balance are different between mothers and fathers?

walshb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495524#Comment_123495524

It’s about bond-connection. Males and females have bonds and connections with their children.

But you cannot compare truly. A mother’s bond to their baby can only be experienced by a mother. There’s nothing like it!! Males have a different role and bond.

Women are far more naturally emotional than men. Nothing right or wrong with this. Just part of nature. It’s what makes us different.

So, yes men miss children, but generally a mother has a more emotional and “aching” miss. It’s a baby that has grown inside them for 9 months. It’s a unique mothers bond-connection.

Men and women both love their children. Nobody’s arguing this.

walshb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495506#Comment_123495506

I never said men can’t miss their kids like mothers. I said it’s a different feeling or way of missing. Mothers and fathers are not the same. With a mother they have that unique mother-baby bond that males do not have. It’s like an ache. The baby is pretty much part of them. Men play a role, but babies are far more attached to a mother in their early years. It’s nature, and this bond and attachment is why we feel and miss differently.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495575#Comment_123495575

A good set of examples you use there which proves my point(s). "Work Life Balance" and "protective of their young".

I have seen men risk (and in one tragic close personal case, lose) their life in the protection of their young. I have in fact done so in three rather stark examples in my own life. Any one of which - one in particular - could very well have ended my life but for sheer dumb luck. But in all three there was no question or hesitation in my mind that I had to do what I did in those moments to protect/save the life of my child.

And I have in fact turned down many raises, promotions, and lateral job improvements precisely because they would come with a shift in the work-life balance I have built for myself. Precisely and entirely because of the amount and quality of time I wish to spend with my children. In fact I have gone from the highest earner in my relationship at the start to the lowest. I bring in the least amount of money for my working week.

But I do it because I want to be with my children - spend quality time with them - and I want to homeschool them on various things that our school system does not engage in/with.

So please - by all means - do tell me all about my "tone" compared to women :) But I really am seeing nothing here to support the Thesis you are presenting just yet.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495624#Comment_123495624

I am not convinced it is all that different between men and women. And I am seeing nothing on this thread to suggest it is. What I DO see is that many people manifest it in different ways. How they express, deal with, or channel those feelings. But that external expression is in no way a measure of the similarity or differences of what their internal feelings and emotions may be.

All I am seeing really is a Hypothesis about peoples internal feelings that is being measured by unreliable external manifestations.

If you are a man who lacks these "Bonds" or "aches" or whatever else then so be it. But speak for yourself :)

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495597#Comment_123495597

And I don't agree. That's just your opinion. I know many women who don't have more of this bond then the fathers

walshb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495733#Comment_123495733

there will always be exceptions.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495754#Comment_123495754

And the wider one casts one's net the more numerous exceptions tend to be. And nets that encompass nearly 50% of our entire species are quite wide indeed. Which is why I myself almost always avoid "Men" and "Women" generalizations. The exceptions tend to be too numerous to make any generalizations at all useful. As if the complete set of vagaries of the human condition and experience could ever be distilled down into any useful binary. Not to mention the discomfort or even painful confusion people can feel when they themselves wrestle with not fitting those generalizations themselves.

The parent-child bond is massively varied and individual. Some men have it stronger than some women. Some foster or adoptive parents have it stronger than some biological parents. Some parents of all sorts lack it entirely. And much more. The simplistic nature of simply saying "Women feel it more/differently than men" is no more or less useful than pointing out "One woman likely feels it more/differently than the next woman. And the next and the next".

Our species tends strongly emotionally towards such binaries. The brain is geared towards really liking neat little boxes we can fit reality into to foster our understanding and parsing of it. It just FEELS better to be able to neatly say "women are simply this way and men differ from it that way". To the degree that we can tend to push back quite vehemently at first when people point out the baselessness of our generalizations.

I have seen people cling to binary generalizations even when they themselves well know the exceptions outnumber the rule. Hell we even TEACH them to our children at times. A comical analogy I could make here is to the old "I before E except after C" rule in the English Language. I have seen varied claims that the exceptions to this rule range from 45% to anything as high as 60% depending on the corpus analyzed. It's famously an unreliable rule. Yet we still cling to it and teach it because our brain loves those little binary rules.

myfreespirit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123495883#Comment_123495883

Off-topic I know, but...

A comical analogy I could make here is to the old "I before E except after C" rule in the English Language.

There's a bit of that rule missing, is there not? - the full rule is:

 "I before E except after C, when the sound is EE", which would, I imagine reduce the exceptions?

Yeah, I know, I'm a total grammar nerd 😁

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123496476#Comment_123496476

Perhaps. Have to say though that that is literally the first time I have heard the extended version. The shortened version is the only one I ever heard in school. My oldest child (14) said it out loud once so I assume she picked it up from her schooling.

My other three children I have never heard say it - so maybe it has been dropped from teaching?

But your version I have literally never heard before. I wonder why some schools seem to have gone with the shorter one and how I could get to the age of 46 without ever having heard it before?

myfreespirit

I learned the English spelling rule "I before E except after C, when the sound is EE" from my English teacher Mr. Kelly in secondary school around 1974, so the rule has certainly been in existence for a long time.

Not sure why it isn't more widely known though.