1. The boy is the father of the man
This is the second post in a series of four about marriage..... enjoy.
The boy is the father of the man, and as we are the product of the sum of all our parts I feel it is beneficial to go back to how a man learns to be a man.
In our secular society it has become more acceptable to highlight the value of the role a father has in a young boy's life. This is so true, and as a man I am deeply grateful that society is again demanding that more men step up and take up the challenge of training our boys to be healthy men.
But despite a new trend towards encouraging fathers to get more involved in their children's development, the majority of the developmental teaching a boy receives still resides with his mother and the second-tier women in a boy's life.
The female role models in a man's life begin with his mother and aunts during his pre-school boyhood, then he is usually given into the capable hands of caring female teachers, as the years progress these strong women are replaced by the new allure of the feminine charms of teenage girls, who eventually become the subjects of his first sexual fantasies and for most boys these fantasy females move on to become the literal girlfriends of his late adolescence, and then this field of potential and literal girlfriends finally coalesces into the wife of his adulthood.
It is only in the rare instance in this traditional male odyssey to manhood that the average boy is held to the same daunting standards as his female peers.
A boy tends to the apple of his Mother's eye and she cherishes and protects him ferociously from any danger or distress, dreaming of some far off day when he might finally become the great man she dreams he could be. His father is too often absent from setting real standards for his sons, so this doting mother has a clear field for setting the expectations a boy internalizes.
But that same mother acts very differently to a daughter. With her daughters the average mother takes an unwavering stance in what she expects from her daughters. There are very clearly stated ideals for what is considered to be the "correct" behavior for a young lady, and this same mother seems determined to use an unstinting application of unvarnished truth to ensure her daughter grows up to become the very real woman her mother knows she will be. This same doting mother of a boy, ensures her daughter is ready to put on the mantle of womanhood.
My own mother is still as misty-eyed and soft-willed about the very many and serious faults that are often to be found in her 4 sons, as she is clear-eyed and steel-willed about the rare and minor fault that is occasionally found in her 2 daughters and 3 duaghter-in-laws. God pity anyone foolish enough to actually speak "ill" of one of her "boys." And just as equally, God pity the daughter who has the misfortune to have anyone speak "ill" of that daughter to her mother!
With the knowledge that I am a man speaking about what women seem to do, I will still voice the observation that it seems to me that many women treat their husbands the same way as my illustration of how the doting Mother treats her only son. In this I think women need to consider how their mothers treated them. You see, I think wives should be treating their husbands in exactly the same way a no-nonsense Mother treats her only teenage daughter.
I'm blessed beyond measure to have a wife who demands much and excuses little from me. I'm doubly blessed that my wife has women in her life who are older, who also consistently demand much and excuse little from their own husbands and so she has role models to emulate. The fact that those particular husbands also happen to be successful leaders in their chosen fields and are sought out in any community where they live, doesn't hurt as an encouragement to my wife to persist in treating me by an equally demanding standard.
As a man in Christianity my experience has been that far too many people in my life act like a doting mother with an only son, all too willing to excuse any lapse on my part, and to defend me by blaming anything else for my failures. The message I have received throughout boyhood is that it is ok for me to fail to live up to God's ideal of me as a man and as a husband.
I am a minister of young men and women, and in the course of my daily life as a minster I have the privilege and responsibility to help late adolescents successfully enter adulthood. As part of that sacred duty I have the responsibility to speak into their lives the truths about what it means to be a man or a woman within Christianity and within our modern society. For the young women who are involved in our ministry I usually point them towards excellent examples of healthy women who are phenomenal role models for aspiring young women. I'll speak into their life affirming truths about their potential and their right to be treated with respect, but I am well aware that they need women to teach them how to be women.
But for the young men in my life, the classes for manhood are more personal and very much more explicit. For I can speak authoritatively and experientially about what it takes to be an authentic Christian man.
My wife and I have been feeling for some time that it might be helpful if women were to listen in on some of the subject matter of what I teach budding young men on what it takes to leave boyhood and enter manhood from the perspective of our Christian World-view.
The posts that follow will touch on some of the essentials I teach boys who wish to become men worthy of the title of Husband.
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22: 6 (KJV)
The boy is the father of the man, and as we are the product of the sum of all our parts I feel it is beneficial to go back to how a man learns to be a man.
In our secular society it has become more acceptable to highlight the value of the role a father has in a young boy's life. This is so true, and as a man I am deeply grateful that society is again demanding that more men step up and take up the challenge of training our boys to be healthy men.
But despite a new trend towards encouraging fathers to get more involved in their children's development, the majority of the developmental teaching a boy receives still resides with his mother and the second-tier women in a boy's life.
The female role models in a man's life begin with his mother and aunts during his pre-school boyhood, then he is usually given into the capable hands of caring female teachers, as the years progress these strong women are replaced by the new allure of the feminine charms of teenage girls, who eventually become the subjects of his first sexual fantasies and for most boys these fantasy females move on to become the literal girlfriends of his late adolescence, and then this field of potential and literal girlfriends finally coalesces into the wife of his adulthood.
It is only in the rare instance in this traditional male odyssey to manhood that the average boy is held to the same daunting standards as his female peers.
A boy tends to the apple of his Mother's eye and she cherishes and protects him ferociously from any danger or distress, dreaming of some far off day when he might finally become the great man she dreams he could be. His father is too often absent from setting real standards for his sons, so this doting mother has a clear field for setting the expectations a boy internalizes.
But that same mother acts very differently to a daughter. With her daughters the average mother takes an unwavering stance in what she expects from her daughters. There are very clearly stated ideals for what is considered to be the "correct" behavior for a young lady, and this same mother seems determined to use an unstinting application of unvarnished truth to ensure her daughter grows up to become the very real woman her mother knows she will be. This same doting mother of a boy, ensures her daughter is ready to put on the mantle of womanhood.
My own mother is still as misty-eyed and soft-willed about the very many and serious faults that are often to be found in her 4 sons, as she is clear-eyed and steel-willed about the rare and minor fault that is occasionally found in her 2 daughters and 3 duaghter-in-laws. God pity anyone foolish enough to actually speak "ill" of one of her "boys." And just as equally, God pity the daughter who has the misfortune to have anyone speak "ill" of that daughter to her mother!
With the knowledge that I am a man speaking about what women seem to do, I will still voice the observation that it seems to me that many women treat their husbands the same way as my illustration of how the doting Mother treats her only son. In this I think women need to consider how their mothers treated them. You see, I think wives should be treating their husbands in exactly the same way a no-nonsense Mother treats her only teenage daughter.
I'm blessed beyond measure to have a wife who demands much and excuses little from me. I'm doubly blessed that my wife has women in her life who are older, who also consistently demand much and excuse little from their own husbands and so she has role models to emulate. The fact that those particular husbands also happen to be successful leaders in their chosen fields and are sought out in any community where they live, doesn't hurt as an encouragement to my wife to persist in treating me by an equally demanding standard.
As a man in Christianity my experience has been that far too many people in my life act like a doting mother with an only son, all too willing to excuse any lapse on my part, and to defend me by blaming anything else for my failures. The message I have received throughout boyhood is that it is ok for me to fail to live up to God's ideal of me as a man and as a husband.
I am a minister of young men and women, and in the course of my daily life as a minster I have the privilege and responsibility to help late adolescents successfully enter adulthood. As part of that sacred duty I have the responsibility to speak into their lives the truths about what it means to be a man or a woman within Christianity and within our modern society. For the young women who are involved in our ministry I usually point them towards excellent examples of healthy women who are phenomenal role models for aspiring young women. I'll speak into their life affirming truths about their potential and their right to be treated with respect, but I am well aware that they need women to teach them how to be women.
But for the young men in my life, the classes for manhood are more personal and very much more explicit. For I can speak authoritatively and experientially about what it takes to be an authentic Christian man.
My wife and I have been feeling for some time that it might be helpful if women were to listen in on some of the subject matter of what I teach budding young men on what it takes to leave boyhood and enter manhood from the perspective of our Christian World-view.
The posts that follow will touch on some of the essentials I teach boys who wish to become men worthy of the title of Husband.
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