>> my father didn't allow me to use my bike for YEARS as a punishment for smashing my bike as a 10 year old
Seriously, being so strict to punish a 10yrs old kid for years is not a sign of a toxic personality? Parents suppose to build theirs kids character and not stomp on it to make them 'tough'.
toxic masculinity is not being manly man man. Its being insecure and lashing out at anyone who disagrees with you or is not 'with you'. Any father that thinks their kid misbehaving is somehow a personal attack.
The last bit fits the bill the most in his case -- he took it as a huge personal attack that I smashed the bike he bought, and the tough discipline he was raised in is why I labeled it as toxic masculinity.
Why do you associate this with masculinity though? Yes, your father is man but I'm not sure if his masculinity has anything to do with it?
I recognize the character traits. I know someone raised without a father who also shows them. Perhaps in his case a result of having a tough time financially their entire youth? This put a huge value on stuff (because almost everything is irreplaceable, literally, and there was hardly any time to fix things), leaving little room for error and no reasonable room for breaking stuff, as children do?
As I am getting older I really realize that I do things like my parents did them. It is really difficult to just decide to do it differently because of the emotions involved. It is difficult to be rational the whole time, the monkey brain sometimes leads. What is important is to be able to admit your mistakes and being able to apologize. For all my flaws I hope to show my kids at least that there is no shame in this.
I'm sometimes harsh on the children only to later apologize and tell them I actually do believe they should be able to make mistakes and that whatever they broke can be fixed again, and if not, no lives were lost (ideally).
I wonder why I get so down-voted, perhaps my non-native speaker brain has a wrong understanding of the term "masculinity"? In this context I take it to mean that being unreasonably angry at kids that wreck stuff is a typical thing for men, and that women don't suffer from this? Is this wrong?
Seriously, being so strict to punish a 10yrs old kid for years is not a sign of a toxic personality? Parents suppose to build theirs kids character and not stomp on it to make them 'tough'.
toxic masculinity is not being manly man man. Its being insecure and lashing out at anyone who disagrees with you or is not 'with you'. Any father that thinks their kid misbehaving is somehow a personal attack.