teenage wasteland the really fake one wrote:
Random Stuff wrote:
flagpole
So, you want to bring up the real man thing again? Ok.
Criteria for being a real man:
1) Military service
2) Primary caretaker for elderly or disabled person that's NOT your vocation -- so like a parent or other family member.
3) Worker in some way in a war zone -- construction, journalist, whatever.
4) Married, active father to 2-4 children. You must live in the same house with those children and the mother, and you must take care of them financially and emotionally. You can't be a BAD father and be a man. You also do not have to procreate. You could be a father to them by adoption or marriage (wife had kids from previous marriage for example). Need at least 2 to fully feel what it's like to be a father, and more than 4 just allows the kids to take care of themselves too much, so 2-4 kids is the range. Now, if you had 4 and then one moves out and you had a 5th, then I'd accept that.
Those are the main ways to be a man. I would consider others if you want to provide them.
A single guy though who never has children and works to support himself and his lifestyle and doesn't fall into any of the other criteria I spelled out isn't a real man in my opinion. To be a real man requires serious responsibility, and that isn't fully realized for most people unless they are a GOOD father to 2-4 children.
