A son is like a mother, but there is softness in the middle.
Many proverbs are summarized from people's daily life experience in the past, so they generally only conform to people's personality characteristics or living habits in the past, but not to people's personality characteristics and living habits now. Take the sentence "A child is like a mother, but a brick wall is built". The son looks like his mother, and his personality will naturally be soft and hard.
And "combining rigidity with softness" is a very good personality characteristic, which is very beneficial to men in the past. If a person is too outspoken, he will easily offend others. But if the character is too soft, it is easy to be bullied. And' combining rigidity with softness' is not only masculine, but also resilient. Such people naturally have many friends. With more friends, the natural cause goes smoothly. If you have a smooth career and a naturally rich life, it means "a child is like a mother, made of brick walls".
But this only applies to men in the past. We know that there is a very obvious change in personality between modern men and men in the past. It can even be said that there is no obvious difference in personality between modern men and modern women. Therefore, the phrase "a child is like a mother, building a brick wall" only applies to ancient times, not to modern times.
"My daughter is like Laozi, but she is wearing leather." In ancient times, fur coats were rare and good clothes, and most people could not afford them. This kind of clothes, leather clothes, used to be a status symbol. Anyone who wears leather clothes can keep out the cold and show his identity. But if the fur coat is worn backwards, it is "weak outside and strong inside"
As we know, the materials used for lining clothes are all common materials. No one will use good materials for lining. "The fur coat is put on inside out" means that the good leather is hidden in the bag and the thick lining is exposed. This is "weak outside and strong inside" and "soft outside and strong inside"
My daughter is like Lao Zi, soft on the outside and hard on the inside.
We know that in the past, people usually asked women to be "gentle and quiet" and never "too strong". If a daughter looks more like her father, her personality is often "soft outside and firm inside", that is, she looks weak on the surface but looks like a straight man in her bones.
In the past, most men were straightforward, so they asked women to be soft, so that they could be' soft' and then have a harmonious family. If a woman has an upright character and marries an upright husband, it will be difficult for her family to live in harmony.
Xia Jingui in A Dream of Red Mansions is a typical representative figure of "soft outside and rigid inside". Cao Gong described her as a typical soft-hearted person. Whether she tortured Xiangling or quarreled with Baochan, her only purpose was to win her husband's heart. However, she didn't know that "softhearted" just stuck it out. Finally, not only did the Xue family fidget, but she didn't have any choice but to go out to escape.