Professor Dove recently said to me:

“Who owns the heart and mind of our children?…  Everyone is telling them what to think and how to think.  Do you know what they are being told?  What are you telling them? “

And I responded:

I’m telling them that penises are poisonous and vaginas are haunted. It’s the only way – scare’m.
I hated that when I was a kid. Teen age boys have too much testosterone to be afraid of anything, or make rational decisions for that matter. And, from my perspective, fear was basically the only thing that ruled.

I remember a conversation that was being had where each person was stating the trauma that each of their boys endured while driving which made them suddenly start driving like they had a brain. “Such bullshit” I remember thinking. I drove better than any of them and had never had anything happen that was scary and didn’t make me want to take more chances.

Ah excess testosterone… Sure, I rubbed a few things and got the car stuck once honing my tactical driving skills, but hell – you have to learn one way or the other and if I ever need to drive in a war zone or as a wheel man I’ll have some background.

I think kids will only have their behavior affected by people they respect. Adolescents emanate their idols. The big problem is kids respect people for weird reasons, which means they have their behavior affected by weird people.