Pros: makes both sexes look hard at why they're ina relationship, how tomakeit better
Cons: Dr. Laura's aggressive, unapologetic honesty can be brutal for some men
The Bottom Line: We all make "stupid" mistakes sometimes, but can learn to recognize the pattern and do something about it. Dr. Laura's book should help guys willing to change.
jankp's Full Review: Dr. Laura Schlessinger - Ten Stupid Things Men Do ...
If you don’t know the difference offhand between a male and a man, perhaps you will understand if you use the words “female” and “woman.” Think of how you might call someone male or female in certain situations, but a man or woman in others. If your curiosity is still not piqued and you’re getting rather annoyed, then this second book by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Ten Stupid Things Men Do To Mess Up Their Lives, would probably do much more of the same for you and should be skipped (without rating a NH, please).
If, however, you can see particular qualities about a friend/lover/yourself that gives him/you maleness rather than femaleness, but would like to encourage this person to act more like a man, then you should find both book and review entertaining and helpful.
Schlessinger makes no mention of homosexuals in the 300 mostly compelling pages and I haven’t a clue whether her view would be of any benefit to them. My review hopefully will have value for anyone who exhibits any of these ten stupid behaviors mentioned within their relationships. I wanted to read and review this book especially for the purpose of giving my biker male/man some things to think about.
I’m not criticizing anyone or trying to be offensive. When you love someone, you want to help them to love themselves and their lives more, just as you do.
Okay, you’re saying, then what is Dr. Laura’s motivation? I’ll tell you. Her previous New York Times bestseller, Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives, caused requests—from both sexes-- to pour in for a book about men. In email and faxes, on her radio program and public presentations, people sought fair play in her advice for their relationship problems. Schlessinger realized the need “for interpersonal issues and morality which didn’t come from a politically correct, ultraliberal, man-blaming perspective.” She definitely has an axe to grind with so-called feminists.
For those of you lovers/thinkers/middle of the roaders/anti-feminists who are still intrigued, let’s move on to the helpfulness part of this review.
Contents
Chapter One: Stupid Chivalry
This happens whenever a guy falls for a needy, desperate girl so that he can rescue the victim and be her indispensable hero. The stupidity is that the victim manipulates the hero into taking responsibility for her while remaining a victim and he cannot change the rules and stop being her fatherly hero or she finds some other sap. The relationship amounts to conditional desire/need.
Chapter Two: Stupid Independence
Basically, these are your stubborn bachelors who laugh at the very idea that they need the love and understanding of one unconditional woman and try to deny their empty spirits in addictions to work, sex, drugs or whatever escapism.
Chapter Three: Stupid Ambition
After they’ve married and perhaps started a family, these guys aren’t willing to become great husbands or fathers because it’s not as satisfying as gaining power, status and possessions. The marriage should only make him look respectable.
Chapter Four: Stupid Strength
When guys don’t want to admit to or face their weaknesses, such as inappropriate behaviors due to emotional stress or immaturity, they will blame and degrade the other person to make themselves feel in control, important and good about themselves.
Chapter Five: Stupid Sex
You know the type: they want girls with model-like looks who are available for sex right away. Their relationships are only based on lust for as long as it lasts, then the cycle continues, leaving the girl feeling used and stupid. The guys feel like real men (males).
Chapter Six: Stupid Matrimony
These guys don’t have a clue what marriage is all about or why they’ve married someone, but feel it’s too late to change that. They won’t admit they made a mistake and let their erections guide them.
Chapter Seven: Stupid Husbanding
Here we have guys who are relieved the hard part of winning the trophy is over and settle back into life as if still a bachelor whose “mommy-wife” will keep household and family together. He thinks he just needs to bring home the bacon.
Chapter Eight: Stupid Parenting
Being a loving father makes these guys feel emasculated, like wusses, and are fathers from a distance, emotional and/or physical, as they let their wives raise the kids.
Chapter Nine: Stupid Boyishness
The only reason these guys hook up with a woman is so she will “avenge, resolve or protect” them from their emotionally-conflicted strings to their Mommy. They may still want to please her and need the wife as an excuse to not rush to her side, thus making Mommy see wifey as the enemy and he retains the old mother-son relationship.
Chapter Ten: Stupid Machismo
I’ll quote the last few lines before the Epilogue, but for further explanation of this chapter and book, you’ll need to read the book. A listener named Ron first sends her a poem, then adds this anonymously-written “Quick-Take:”
I think the transition from male to man requires that the big head, although amused by the little head’s ideas, is the primary pilot of the human body. Pp 297
Final Comments
What a fascinating reflection on the opposite sex! Schlessinger, a licensed psychotherapist in Marriage and Family Counseling who had been at that time in private practice for 15 years, fills the book with page after page of letters/email from mostly men asking for advice, sharing their stories or how her radio show affected them, and from some women commenting on her advice. Half of each chapter are common, relevant examples of “stupid-acting” guys that Dr. Laura then discusses, half are examples of smart men who have learned from their mistakes and turned their life around—or started over. It reads much like her former radio show.
Guys, it’s possible that if you recognize yourself in one stupid mistake from above, that you may be guilty of committing the rest with the right opportunity. These mistakes are caused by being more proud in being male, which is the opposite of female, than in being (or becoming) a man who prides himself in uniting with a woman (or perchance a nurturing person) to create a harmonious mingling of the strengths and weaknesses of male and female qualities.
This is what I’ve taken from the book and I hope it makes sense to you. Schlessinger seems to only have the betterment of confused and even desperate men in mind here and, like me, encourages both sexes to take responsibility for their own stupidity and find honest-to-goodness love by working together as mature adults.
I’ll be reading and reviewing her Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives before too long, which really should provoke an exciting review. I think it’ll be very inspiring rather than depressing, like this book for the men seems to be.
And sweetie? Please don’t think you need to be my hero. Despite any appearances to the contrary, I’m just an unconditional type of gal!
The 70s’ song, “Billy, Don’t Be A Hero,” swells up like an infectious disease...
For every woman who wants to know what her man is thinking. Internationally syndicated radio superhost and columnist, controversial psycho-therapist, ...More at HotBookSale
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