The article below contains a few sweeping generalisations within it that hold true in most cases. I wouldn’t for a moment claim that all men or women act out a particular gender role, I would however say that some assumptions can be very useful. This article has already changed lives, my editors understanding of men improved and she quickly eliminated one of biggest mistakes she was making around men in her life. I hope you enjoy it, let me know. For those of you that wonder, we will be getting to mistakes that men make around women in near future.

Men for Beginners

One of roles I seem to find myself in is translator. I often end up in conversations with my female coaching clients about what does it mean when my partner….disappears into garage for evening?….watches three movies back to back?….drinks all night with his friends?

It means he’s unhappy.

Men are different from women; I’ve resisted this truth for so many years I can’t tell you. We do things differently, particularly around area of feelings. Men are trained to be ashamed of their feelings from a very early age. We learn quickly that tears are not something we shed if we have any other option. We know that big boys don’t cry, and that message started very early for us. We are often shamed publicly for crying and shame is something we resist feeling at any cost.

Have you ever noticed that there isn’t a clearly defined male character in society? In some way, we invest most of our energy in NOT acting like a woman. Men have no idea how to get along with each other and our male intimacy often comes about by punching each other in arm and other types of play fighting.

Take example of holding hands. We don’t stop holding hands because we don’t like our friends. We stop holding hands because someone made it unsafe to do so. Just like tears in public, male friends holding hands is subject to ridicule, harassment, and more of dreaded public shaming.

You’ve put up a baby gate to prevent falls, carefully covered your electrical outlets, padded sharp corners on your coffee table, and buckled your tiny passenger into an approved infant carrier. You try to keep your home as bacteria and germ-free as possible, disinfecting thoroughly and then locking up household cleaners away from inquisitive hands and mouths.

Yet there are still an estimated 2.1 million accidental child poisonings each year, with dishwashing liquid leading cause. Sadly, damage caused by these products is often gruesome: burned mouth, scarred esophagus, repeated operations to rebuild throat, sometimes even death. And no matter how diligent you are about keeping your cleaning products out of harm’s way, you may still be slowly and unwittingly poisoning your child, day after day. How?

If you use products with harsh and harmful chemicals that contain known carcinogens (cancer-causing agents) toxic residues left behind on your floors, furniture and in air find their way into your child’s body through her skin, mouth, and nose. And even your personal care products (soap, shampoo, conditioner, styling aids, deodorants, etc.) can contain dangerous chemicals as well.

Your little one is like a sponge: developing cells in a child’s body are more susceptible than in adults, especially in his central nervous system. Even small doses of neurotoxins that would be harmless to an adult can alter his nervous system development. And until your child turns 13, his growing body has virtually no ability to fight biological and neurological damage from toxic chemicals. As much as we tend to think of skin as a protective barrier, in fact it’s highly permeable, as evidenced by successful use of skin patches to deliver prescription medication.