In the vancouver sun the other day, they reviewed a book written by two british brothers called "The Dangerous Book for Boys". It deals with the condition of the "new" boyhood. In the old days, boys (and girls) played outside in the dirt until the street lights came on. Childhood freedoms are long lost to housing density, absentee working parents, latch key kids and parlaysing parental paranoia. There are too many strangers next door, too many allergies and too little time (to paraphrase the Sun). This book claims boys have lost the art of boyhood, and damn it, he is going to re-introduce it. This is a guide to: making a tree fort, writting with invisible ink, making a real bow and arrow. A list of books for boys to read from Winnie the Pooh to James Bond. I thought it sounded fantastic. As for girls, the author advises avoiding being vulgar around them, as girls think differently to boys, but without them, life would be a bloody long haul....ain't that the truth!!!!
I know all this is sexist and old fashioned, but I found the concept of it to be refreshing...and should apply to the females as well!!!
2 comments:
I love it! I saw another one called something like, A Book of Things for Bright Boys to do (that's WAY loosely paraphrased).
We used to have fun when we were kids, didn't we?
I read about this book this morning and I agree. We've become a society of shitty parents. Yes, life is hard with both parents working, single parents, responsibility, blah blah blah. But we're partly to blame with our "keeping up with the Jones' mentality". Do we really need all the stuff that we claim we do? We need to stop putting the emphasis on the material objects and start putting the time and effort into people (ourselves, our family, and others). I think that then we'll see a return to some of those good old-fashioned values that are missing.
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