Parenting & Family Quote by John Dryden

Aphorisms like this smuggle a whole theory of power into a tidy moral. Dryden’s line isn’t primarily about childhood; it’s about status. “Treat” does the heavy lifting: manhood here is less an inner maturity than a role conferred by recognition. Act as if your son is already responsible, and he’ll start performing responsibility back to you. The sentence flatters the parent with agency while also warning against the soft tyranny of low expectations.

The subtext is transactional and a little severe. Dryden suggests masculinity is built through pressure and permission at once: you grant the boy dignity, but you also yank away the excuse of being “just a child.” That’s an invitation to autonomy and a threat of accountability. It’s also an attempt to short-circuit the anxiety of upbringing by offering a lever you can pull today. The sooner, the sooner: brisk, almost impatient, as if delay itself breeds weakness.

Context matters. Dryden wrote in a Restoration culture obsessed with rank, decorum, and the performance of social identity. “Man” in the late 17th century isn’t a neutral category; it’s a civic and economic designation tied to inheritance, honor, and public conduct. The line reflects a world where gender and authority were trained, rehearsed, and enforced - where becoming “a man” meant learning to command oneself so one could someday command others.

Read now, it’s both useful and revealing: a reminder that people rise to the roles we assign, and a clue to how tightly that era stapled virtue to masculinity.