The Kind of Men We’re Raising

I know it’s been some time since a disgusting slime mold of a person went on a stabbing spree in a French playground, and this piece may seem irrelevant now. But I waited for a reason. People are grieving and need time to process, and I don’t want to talk about what was done by the stabber. I’m not here to pontificate about how f*cked up this was, what a terrible excuse for humanity the perpetrator is, how I hope he’s executed Orient Express-style by the victims and their loved ones. 

In fact, I don’t want to talk about that sh*tstain at all. I want to talk about the other people, specifically men, in the video of the attack. I want to talk about the woman that jogged by, the man who stood at the top of the playground equipment, the person filming, and the backpack guy. I would like to grab each of them by the shoulders, shake them, and demand, “What is WRONG with you?!”

(Before I go any further, yes, I do recognize that this incident happened in France, and it’s entirely possible that the backpack guy literally represents the absolute limit of French valor. But I’m gonna roast ’em anyway.)

Here’s an inarguable, inescapable statement of fact about human beings: men are stronger than women and children. For centuries, we acknowledged this, and decent and honorable men reacted to this reality by serving as protectors to those less physically capable. That’s how society worked. That’s how society SHOULD work. Remember “women and children first”? Remember in Titanic when that one guy who I think was Kate Winslet’s fiance (I saw it one time dubbed in German like ten years ago) pushed past all the women and children to get on a lifeboat and we all agreed that that made him a raging sack of sh*t?

But something’s gone hinky in the past decade or so. We’re telling children there’s no biological reality of sex-based differences. We’re emanating a culture of self-care and self-obsession. We’re preaching equality with such frenzy that we’ve built a brand new caste system based on relative “privilege” and people “living their truths.” We’re demonizing and feminizing what is innate and good in males and masculinity. We’re criminalizing those that subdue threats and beatifying those that threatened. 

And where does all this get us? To a playground in Annecy, four babies stabbed, and nothing done to stop the stabber outside of a feebly swung backpack. A society where able-bodied adults consider their personal safety more important than the lives of children. In other words, a society past redemption.

I told my husband that if he’d been there and done anything less than throw himself at the attacker and fight with all his strength to subdue him, I’d consider it grounds for divorce. He agreed. 

We still know what’s right and honorable. We have to stop excusing and forgiving not just dishonorable behavior, but the failure to be honorable. And we need to raise sons who know what the strength in their bodies is for.

Complacency isn’t good enough when children’s lives are literally on the line.