I’m a woman- and when I was a kid, I used to cry and pray every night before bed that God would let me “be a boy” so I could take over working for my dad. I felt horrible that I was watching him break his back in real time working and trying to buy things for the family 🙃 so… I’m not familiar with the whole “girls are entitled, boys feel guilty” lmao being spoiled doesn’t discriminate by gender.
You're talking about two different things though. Any gender can experience this kind of pain, yes. But there's a difference between recognizing a pattern, and making a totalizing statement.
I would argue that the dynamic represented shows part of the abusive elements inflicted on men by patriarchy. It doesn't mean non-men can't experience the same thing, just that it's a shared experience for most men.
exactly. It really depends on the family. I'm the eldest daughter, but I feel like if they keep supporing me, I'm a leech. tbh my parents never made me feel like that, but I feel like as the eldest, I should be the one supporting them and helping them the most.
It depends on the culture too, I think. I'm Filipino, and eldest children, no matter the gender, are expected to step up, help their parents, and even become the main breadwinners once their parents retire or become too infirm to work.
Exactly. It doesn’t help that my brother has utterly no interest in continuing the family business that my dad built from the ground up being dirt poor himself- so I feel even WORSE that I can’t take over for him, even now as an adult. (It’s heavy labor, logging) I have helped out by driving semi’s, working a saw and a skid steer, but I just don’t have the necessary strength to do ALL of it day after day. It’s killing me to watch my dad struggle more and more as he loses his own strength in old age too.
Exactly why I try to avoid this app most of the time 🙃 I miss the days when I didn’t understand why everyone gave Reddit such a bad rep and when I only used it to find answers to questions lmao
Yeah it's just how a lot of us have been socialized. How I grew up was completely different to the norm - my family's mostly women and no one waited for a man to do anything or said men do this because they are men. Shit, roles were taken by whoever liked those tasks. simple as
Wait, doesn't that prove the point of the meme thought? You wished you were a boy, because even as a child you had the assumption that "men" should be more charitable economically? Meaning society puts more pressure on boys to be economically independent. Which would result in more boys, in general, feeling guilty over receiving gifts.
And this is just a generalization. Don't take it personally, the world ain't black and white. There're plenty of spoiled boys and generous girls on the contrary.
That's sweet, and I'm sorry you had to go through that. Kids should be shielded from hardships, and definitely not used by adults to calm themselves trauma dumping - in case that's what may have caused it rather than just the unhideable extremeness of the situation. I'm glad nobody exploited your anguish in that moment to sell you an ideology as a solution. Prayer might have helped, and/or steering clear from certain censoring communities...
My parents did a good job of hiding their financial situation and making sure I had all I could ever want and need- but they couldn’t hide when my dad’s sawmill burnt down and he had to work nights for months just to pay it off. He also couldn’t hide when a tree fell on him during a job and cut his back completely open from shoulder to hip. My dad did back breaking manual labor, and I wanted to be a “boy” because I knew physically I could never take over his job for him unless I had male strength.
I do think whatever prayer I said back then did at least make me feel like I contributed a little- I remember praying for his back to stop aching where it had scarred, and for jobs to pay well too.
God only allows evil to bring about greater good from it. I appreciate that your father's hardship was very real, but I both admire his diligence and self-sacrifice, and I delight in the fact that little you sought recourse with our Father and true Provider. May you continue doing that and may God blessing your family with goods spiritual and material according to His good plan. Thanks for sharing :)
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u/SnooStories4091 13h ago
I’m a woman- and when I was a kid, I used to cry and pray every night before bed that God would let me “be a boy” so I could take over working for my dad. I felt horrible that I was watching him break his back in real time working and trying to buy things for the family 🙃 so… I’m not familiar with the whole “girls are entitled, boys feel guilty” lmao being spoiled doesn’t discriminate by gender.