About The Lads

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I found an old paperback…well no “found” isn’t the mot juste . In our house there are generations of books; sometimes one just kinda…surfaces, like a long buried artifact might work its way to the surface. It’s more like occasionally, a book finds me! Whose was this yellowed little Penguin paperback of John Steinbeck’s The Short Reign of Pippin IV? Not mine, I’da written my name in it. No matter.

But here’s what: one character just “said” as I’m reading:

“Men are either children, or they are old. There is no in-between.”

Do you agree?
(I don’t: the man I know best, as I see him, was born a responsible adult. Of course I didn’t know him when he was a toddler, but the anecdotes I have heard bear this out. Also I can never imagine him as a “slippered pantaloon”. )

But I think it is true of many men. Like a child, the man focuses only on whatever he wants (wants!) at a particular period. And he doesn’t allow any flexibility taking into account other people’s reactions. He’s like a person giving a speech who confidently pauses for the laughter of the crowd—which of course often doesn’t happen where the speaker thinks it will.

What about “or they are old”? Well, senescence has a lot in common with juvenescence, after all. Once again, as when he was a baby, he’s an emperor temporarily disabled by physical incapacity, but that makes him all the more demanding of the care and service which, it can hardly be gainsaid! are no more than his due.

What do Simon and the ‘Ettes think?


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Published by Hypatia

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23 thoughts on “About The Lads”

  1. “Men are either children, or they are old. There is no in-between.”

    Totally, 1000% disagree. Men are awesome. They run into burning buildings, they get up to see what went bump in the night, we are nothing without them. I may know a few men who might be children, but in my experience, women are more likely to fit that description 🙂

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      1. I must read the book. So, he is saying that men are great children? I don’t quite get it, but maybe if I read the book, it would make sense 🙂

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      2. I saw a movie about Moses a few years ago. A recent movie, I mean, not Cecil b. DeMille. Jehovah Great I AM, when He appeared, was played by a child. A little boy, maybe 7,max. I thought it was so perfect: a child’s desires are so pure and strong, a child’s wrath’s is so uncompromising and unforgiving. A child is dangerous—in our society, usually primarily to itself, but think of “We have Always Lived In the Castle”or “The Bad Seed”. If a child doesn’t get its way, something bad is going to happen. To,the limits of that child’s ability.

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      3. I saw that movie too! Portraying God as a child was, I thought, incredibly powerful, and the kid who played God was a great actor.

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      4. Yes, that kid had a fearsome scowl, and a sexless but resonant voice (the still small voice) . With a child who has been crossed, you find yourself thinkin,”if looks could kill..”. THIS kid’s could!
        The movie is “Exodus, Gods and Kings” 2014. It was certainly a lot better than that awful, awful Noah movie with Russell Crowe a few years ago.

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    2. I think it’s a generational thing. My dad, my husband were and are men but even my beloved nephews (Millennials) disappoint me. I am openly critical of my Boomer generation that created so many incredible things but didn’t bring up the sons to be men. I see this among friends and I’ll be the last to “blame it on the women” but many mothers of my age group cossetted the sons and oddly left their daughters alone. Many of us ( I was late Boomer/ early X) were left to our own devices.

      In any case, it seemed to work out for the girls if you look at certain categories: college and advanced degree stats, those who “smashed the glass ceilings” (my niece snared the Sony acct at Chiat Day at age 26) and I genuinely believe this wasn’t simply politically correct politics at play. (That’s another subject for another post, but I’m kinda, sorta sick of men whining about unfair advantages.)

      Hey! At worst, we were smart enough to use the system. 🙂

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      1. I feel so bad for young men. They must be so confused by the insanity that America has descended into.

        How, specifically, do you think that some women cosset their sons? I have a theory about why some women want to turn their sons into Mama’s boys: my theory is, that such women are so terrified of men that they go into denial and convince themselves that their sons are more in need of protection than their daughters. They want to view men as weaker than women, because the reality that men are much stronger than women is too scary for Mama to contemplate. It’s totally based in fear.

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      2. I can only answer anecdotally (which as you may remember from a previous site that lived and died by graphs alone is irrelevant), so you’ll have to bear with me. 🙂

        This is what I saw in my own family. I think mothers are more threatened by daughters than sons just as fathers are more competitive with sons. I think it’s merely a gender issue? Who knows, but it didn’t take long for my father to figure out he had a tiger by its tail and loved to brag how “tough” his daughter was to his friends. For that generation, I think it was a bit of a status symbol 🙂

        But he was more concerned about the upbringing of his son who was also cursed with a IV after his name. I was just the gravy!

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      1. Now I want to read the book even more 🙂 This question may be impossible to answer, but do you get the feeling that Steinbeck really believed that men are either children or old, or was that statement more a reflection of the character who made it?

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    2. That is so interesting, Gerry! Maybe that’s what Steinbeck was remarking upon.
      (But in your case, I know from an exchange we had on Rb that it isn’t true. You DO remember your prime. Further, you’re not that old, you’re in your late prime.)
      And I second JaC’s comment. Stick with us!

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  5. Could you help by defining children and old men in this context? I think I know what the author means, and I think you know what he means too; just point me in the general direction of each term por favor.

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