Several years ago, while sitting on a park bench whose back abutted another, I overheard two adults watching a group of 5 & 6 year old boys play. The one comment which has stayed with me these past many years is the following:

"Though I could never be particularly fond of any of "them". . . I can only imagine how "dangerous" that one is going to be one day. . .

What our world has forgotten is that a child, boy or girl, is only as healthy as the behaviours, aspirations and expectations we inflict upon them.

But, then, it takes more than the denegration of a gender and the demeaning of the very essence of maleness to turn boys or men away from being who they are. And much of who they are and forever will be is to be boys dreaming of being men who dream of being boys who dream of being men. . . From the time a youngster realizes that the person he admires most is "male" and that he too is male, he begins to dream of being that man. And with time, he simply dreams of being "a" man. And once that is achieved, it is inevitable that he begins to dream once again of being the boy who dreamt of being a man. . . A healthy male is never more complicated than that and never more dangerous than that.