Separate and Joint Upbringing

We are going to talk about the upbringing of boys and girls, to try to shed light on this difficult topic from every angle and to answer the question of whether this upbringing should be joint or separate. In fact, we have long been thinking about how to raise a true personality, and we have been trying to work with groups of children. At the very beginning of this work, I asked to look for the results of research on the differences in the development and upbringing of boys and girls, and to my great surprise, no such research turned out to exist.

Yes, indeed, there is almost none. I looked through everything I could find. On separate upbringing, its advantages or disadvantages, there is nothing at all. And there are very few examples of such upbringing, since for the most part children everywhere are together. There are studies on the personal development of girls and boys, but only individual development; nowhere have groups of boys and girls been studied. It seems to me that there is no understanding of why separate upbringing is actually necessary.

And why is joint upbringing necessary?

Because it corresponds to the idea of equality.

Yes, but even if we are all together, there are still differences between men and women: in the choice of professions, in different inclinations, aspirations, and so on. In a great many fields the male and female approaches differ greatly.

But today even this is something people try to conceal, for instance, at work…

Because there is an interest in doing so, not because there are no differences.

It seems to me that there was some research on the differences in the brains of men and women, but somehow the results were quickly hushed up.

Back when I was still studying, I heard about research on the development of the male and female brain and on the mathematical abilities of the two sexes. It was discovered that, starting at the age of twelve, boys show higher results in mathematics. People tried to explain this by the difference in methods of upbringing and teaching, by the attitude of a society that encourages boys to study more, but very quickly all of this began to be hushed up. It seems to me that scientists are simply afraid…

Afraid to look deeper and to reveal the causes. In this the whole frivolity of our approach to the question shows itself. One would think that adults, people who understand life, ought to understand the difference between a man and a woman, and the different purpose of each of the sexes in general and in the upbringing of children in particular. But instead they begin to conceal something.

Perhaps they do not entirely understand, and that is why they play games.

The point is not that they do not understand, but that they do not want to understand. The particular feature of the method of integral upbringing is precisely that it strives to fully reveal all the differences, and then to join these revealed, opposite qualities together. For it is precisely in such a joining of opposites that the harmony of Nature is born, and it is precisely this that is optimal for each of the qualities, since in Nature everything, in the end, comes down to one single quality. If we consider men and women separately, then of course each has his own preferences and characteristics, but if from the very start our goal is to reveal the differences in order to join them together in the best possible way, then this oppositeness will not evoke fear in us.

From history we know that in previous generations, even in the families of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, there were very few women who were taught to read and write. Their education and upbringing differed substantially.

Yes, this went on for thousands of years, and it is the result of such a development of egoism that places man above woman. But if we want to follow the path of correction, then it is completely clear that there can be no other approach except mutual complementing. Into such a mutual joining each must bring that special thing which exists only in him.

That is, in any case, unity and mutual complementing are the main task. What does this unity mean?

It is such a mutual complementing that through the man the woman, and through the woman the man, can attain unity in society and sense the perfection of being.

Let us explain it step by step.

In our upbringing we must bring a person to a state in which he becomes aware of his lofty mission in this world, understands that he can go beyond the bounds of animal life, rise to the level of integral unity with all of Nature, and feel another part of reality that is hidden from us. A person must know that it is precisely this rise that will give him the sensation of full and eternal life. All this can be attained in this world, if we use correctly the means that have been given to us. And the main place where a person can apply his efforts is precisely in the relationship between man and woman. Just as in this life a new generation is born through the connection between man and woman, so too the spiritual joining of man and woman gives birth to a new, higher degree of the sensation of harmony, to which they rise together.

How does one raise in a boy a man who understands his male purpose, and in a girl a woman? I would like to ask one more question first. Must men and women arrive at one and the same goal?

Yes, but together, in unity with one another.

Their highest goal is one, and it is attained through unity in our material world?

Yes, only together.

But today in society there are various views on the relationship between the sexes. For example, there are women who do not want to marry and even decide to have a child without a husband.

They can be understood.

They do not feel a need for a man in their life. And you are saying that it is absolutely obligatory for man and woman to join together.

For the attainment of spirituality it is necessary. Nature will not allow us to develop without this. We will suffer greatly because of our non-correspondence to Nature precisely in family life, that is, in the very place where a new spiritual degree ought to be born.

That is, a person is nevertheless obligated to create a family.

Yes, but a family in its corrected form. There are male and female images, opposite forces, which, despite their oppositeness and thanks to it, join together, and the result of this joining is the birth of a new degree of our existence.

I would nevertheless like to talk about the educational aspect of this topic. Can it be said that an incorrect approach to the upbringing of girls and boys is precisely what leads to such negative phenomena in society as the great number of divorces?

Even if we were to exclude all incorrect upbringing, we would still arrive at the state we are in now. It is conditioned by our nature — pride, the desire to rule over another, especially over the other sex. And the feeling of one's dependence on the other sex spurs one on even more, intensifies the desire to break free and to feel power. All this is the result of our growing egoism. Therefore, correct upbringing must begin from the earliest age. We must instill in children, especially in boys, the understanding that woman occupies a very important place in life. But we need to understand that what matters is not only continuing the family line. It is clear that without women humanity would simply die out. But a woman is not an incubator for bearing a new generation. In our present life, built for the convenience of egoism, a man truly does not need a woman. At the supermarket he can buy a ready-made meal, and household appliances will do all the housework. Today a man can even afford to be a father without living together with his children; this happens all over the place. And so it turns out that he spends the greater part of the day at work, and the rest of the time he keeps playing the games of this world, remaining a child his whole life. He even remains, in a childish way, more attached to his mother than to his wife. And all this is the result of incorrect upbringing.

But if we are saying that in upbringing it is very important for one sex to understand the significance of the other, then why do you advocate for separate upbringing?

For that very reason.

What, then, is its advantage?

We must understand one principle: the more we single out the opposites and study them, the easier it is for us to understand how we can best join them together and what we gain through the joining. It is said: "The advantage of the light is out of the darkness," that is, we must set the opposites one against the other, understand what their oppositeness consists of and why they were created this way. There is always something in one form that is not in the other, and the other possesses that which is completely absent in the first, and therefore neither of them will, in the end, be able to succeed in anything if it does not complement its own qualities with the qualities of the second, opposite form. We still have to explain this to people. All the diseases of modern society — depression, drugs, mental illnesses — arise mainly from the fact that men do not receive the necessary complement from women. A man needs support, approval, help, the feeling of home and family. And instead of this he remains, until the end of his days, dependent on his mother.

Do you mean the biological mother?

It does not matter whether it is the mother or the wife. He is dependent on the woman who is beside him. He is attached not so much to the Father as precisely to the mother and to the woman. From the woman he receives a need, a desire; he passes it on to her and receives from her. A man exists between two women — the mother and the wife — and sometimes a third one, the mother-in-law. Thanks to this position of his, he can carry out the joining of opposites, and only in this way can he exist and develop spiritually — between two female forces. From this it becomes clear how much, even in our world, a man needs support from a woman.

It is not clear to me how separate upbringing can contribute to an understanding of the lofty interaction that you have just described.

We have built for ourselves an artificial world with all sorts of comforts and toys for adults, and we exist within it artificially. Living in such a world, for many years we have been accumulating, cultivating within ourselves a huge inner desire for something lofty — such a deep feeling of something missing. Today this manifests in a large number of depressions, in escaping into drugs, in outbursts of aggression, in suicides, and in other phenomena of the modern world. We must understand what the root of all this is. And the root is that a person feels himself to be a little cog in a huge mechanism, as Charlie Chaplin showed in his films.

A little and lonely cog — that is, the feeling of loneliness has a very great significance here.

Being in such a state, neither a man nor a woman can understand the full importance of correct relationships and of the lofty goal of their joining. We are not raised in this spirit. Today a man cannot be with one woman, live in one family, together with the children, although by his nature he is created precisely for this.

Is a man created that way?

A human being is created neither for loneliness nor for the constant changing of partners and family.

In the past, the reasoning of biologists was popular, to the effect that in a man there is by nature an aspiration to spread his seed as widely as possible, and that this lies at the basis of his polygamy. Hence all the fashionable theories that justify the behavior of modern men.

That is true, but it by no means means that a man does not need a home. He has the strongest instinct to have his own woman, his own home and family.

In addition.

Yes.

It is interesting that today there are quite a few studies on the growing loneliness among women and the depression connected with it. Can it be said that the same thing is happening with men?

In women this manifests more because a woman's purpose is family and children. By her nature she wants to be beside a man, and this aspiration manifests in her far more strongly. A woman, after all, has a greater need for a family. A man remains a child even after growing up. In a childish way he keeps on playing, and in the game he forgets about everything else. In a woman, on the other hand, from the earliest age a desire for family and home begins to manifest. Despite the fact that today society helps a woman and disposes her toward self-reliance and independence from a man, you cannot deceive Nature, and the inner female aspiration to be beside a man and to create a family is irreplaceable by anything. Therefore women are far more depressed, despite all the opportunities for entertainment and various activities that society provides today. In the end, all of this is only in order to somehow make up for the feeling of emptiness caused by the absence of a family.

That is, you believe that both sexes today feel an inner emptiness, and it is precisely at this that we must aim our upbringing?

In the near future we will be obligated to solve this problem.

To solve it precisely with the help of upbringing.

Yes. This can be done already today, for instance, through television. We need upbringing-oriented programs directed mainly at children from the earliest age, in which we would explain to children, and to adults as well, that correct relationships mean complementing one another.

But still, why is separate upbringing necessary in order to arrive, in the end, at complementing one another? What must upbringing be like so that there would not be that feeling of loneliness which is present today in so many people?

Since today upbringing is sexless, and in general it is not upbringing but merely education, it turns out that a man has no responsibility whatsoever; he changes women and does not feel a need for a permanent life companion.

Just as his teachers in the classroom keep changing.

Possibly so. He does not feel the difference between different women. And such an underestimation of and disdain for woman are born precisely out of boys and girls being together in school. If they were separated, they would value the opposite sex more, would be drawn to it, would sense its particularity and its difference from themselves. But now it is somehow taken for granted…

That is, as if it goes without saying and is uninteresting?

The level of interest depends on upbringing, but the very fact of being together erases the particularity of the opposite sex…

It is believed that in joint schooling children can better get to know and understand one another. I, for example, heard how fifth-grade girls, speaking about the boys in their class, spoke of them very negatively indeed, but nevertheless were engrossed in discussing how the boys behave, how they look, what they say, what reaction they provoke, and so on. It is believed that this gives them the opportunity to study one another.

Well, and what do they take away from this? What is the use of such studying if afterward they cannot build a family, if a man at the age of thirty does not stop changing women, does not wish to build a family because he does not understand what for? What is the use of such studying of one another? And if you begin to question such a man, you will become convinced that he has absolutely no understanding of woman whatsoever.

So you believe that we are not achieving real studying and understanding.

No, of course not. And women do not understand men. In order to truly understand the other sex, there has to be educational work. This is very far from simple. Here one needs the approach of a psychologist, a view of the world of the man and the woman from the outside, an understanding of what their natural oppositeness consists of. We teach something, but we do not give the correct approach and we do not explain that the ultimate goal is to complement one another.