This is a topic near and dear to my heart, considering I have 4 soon-to-be REAL men in my house (currently) in which I have been trusted to raise as such. My husband and I have been encouraged and inspired over the past four years, in large by the homeschooling community, but also pastors such as Voddie Baucham, Mark Driscoll and Matt Chandler and also several books we've read. We have also enjoyed much of the teaching from Raising Real Men, in which we got to hear speak at the last homeschool convention.
Our society has completely feminized, disrespected, defaced, dehumanized, and created an acceptable culture of masculine mutilation in which Women are at the top, men are idiots who act like overgrown teenagers and everything in the world is RIGHT if men would just be the work horse, bring home HALF the money for the home, and shut their mouths about everything else.
It is downright disgusting and I'm completely tired of it. I even know too many people within my large (not intimate) Christian circle who talk and act the same way, tolerating and/or perpetuating the cycle, or worse allow their husbands to follow this ridiculous trend by being hands off with the children, devoted to sports and video games, and rarely make time for any one but themselves or their buddies while barely lifting a finger out of love for their spouse. Mommas boys who don't put their wives first and make questionable decisions b/c they can't think for themselves...come off it.
This is NOT what God designed and it will be take the culture to the pit of hell (in my not-so civil or politically correct opinion).
I could truly go on for a very long time with examples of how we see this in our society today. But, I will save that for another time.
Instead, before I paste a great article I read today on this very matter, I'd like to profess that Justin and I will chose a DIFFERENT PATH for our boys. It will require much prayer, endless, on the knees, hours of prayer. That is step number 1. Secondary to that is the INTENTIONAL, hear that INTENTIONAL work of setting them onto the course of TRUE MANHOOD.
Leadership, sacrifice, protection, love, hard work, determination, chivalry, LEAVE AND CLEAVE (when that time comes), loyalty, dedication, fatherhood...qualities we just DON'T see in our culture today. Men today think it's cool to dress androgenic, behave effeminately, shy from hard work, drown themselves in hours of a world that isn't real while they play video games neglecting their responsibilities and their wife, and think they are entitled to something even if they don't work for it or earn it.
Really...
My daughter is supposed to marry someone like this?
No way in HELL...
We will go back to arranged marriages to make sure this doesn't happen. Dare me...
We desire for our children to reflect the maker, make a stand for what is right, while not standing too far outside of the culture so they don't impact any one. This is a challenging task...a heavy one as a mother...and all the more tricky to achieve in a society that operates in this effeminate manner.
There are so many "traditional" ways in which we castrated real manhood in our culture. Let me list a few things we do to keep this at bay:
1. We let our boys play with weapons and get DIRTY...God created them from the earth.
2. We try not to allow crying and being wimpy to determine any change (this robs them of accountability and learning the hard lessons that not everything is fair).
3. We expect respect (towards us and others especially adults and ladies).
4. We try (it is hard) to discourage the sense of entitlement. This is a rough task but we are prayerful.
5. We expect them to contribute, even at age 3,around the house. We want them to be hard working.
6. We discuss chivalry and being a Modern Day Knight
7. We try to teach them how to make decisions (when appropriate) and do things independently when possible. NO BABIES after they are done being babies. *smile
8. We don't let them give up
9. We intentionally parent with the knowledge they might get married young and they need to be READY even young. There are no excuses.
10. We intentionally look for their strengths and weaknesses to we can sharpen the iron and reinforce the weakness into strengths.
11. Allow them to be sensitive (not cry babies to get what they want) genuinely sensitive.
12. Allow them to express emotions.
13. Validate their differences.
14. Build them up about the things that are Good and God honoring.
15. Encourage character.
It is truly critical that we as mothers and also parents (team) trudge this glorious path with firm love and enduring strength. The enemy will not ignore it. He will try to distract us from it,confuse it with naughty behavior, entice us with distractions so we don't meet the issues head on. We must cherish the CALLING!!
Check out this awesome article, only 1 of so many wonderful articles concerning MEN.
I want to write about how there are no men. (Well, there aren't no men, there are just few men). And a lot of women don't even like real men; they like feminized men - - especially if they're gay. That's even better. And many women marry mama's boys because they don't want a real man. Then they get shocked when his mother can push him around better than they can. Well... his mother has had a lot more practice -- his whole life.
Betsy Hart, one of my favorite writers, recently wrote a great article about this topic. She begins:
Whatever happened to men? That's a common question today, being asked by social commentators, parents and single women everywhere. They are lamenting young men's shrinking status in academia, the workplace and, maybe especially, marriage....
She goes on to say:
...it's simply the case that too often today's males are living up to the low expectations the culture has for them.
This is true particularly since feminism arose with the attitude of "we don't need men." Gloria Steinem said: "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle". That was feminism. It rarely had anything to do with equal pay for equal jobs. It had to do with hating being a wife... hating being a mother... and hating men. That's what feminism primarily has always been about. Don't kid yourself.
Betsy Hart goes on to quote from Bill Bennett's new book: The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood. In it, there's an essay by:
David Gelernter, the renowned Yale computer-sciences professor who was injured in an attack by the Unabomber[. He] talks about how he is bringing up his own sons against the culture. He writes that 'a man's role in respect to women is to protect, to help, to support, to cherish as opposed to consume. We are a consumer society and the number one consumption is that of women.'
...Families need to teach young men what it means to be responsible, to work hard and to be prepared to someday get married and care for a wife and children....
I would argue that we also might teach our daughters to respect men. Real men, not the men concocted for treacly romantic comedies. And to respect themselves enough to wait for that man in every sense of that word.
Please take the time to read Betsy Hart's entire article: Lamenting the Demise of Manliness in America
And then my staff got me information on traits of real men and I want to share this article with you. It's from the blogger MochaDad:
Men were made to be bold, strong leaders. However, our society has attempted to repress these traits. (Sidebar: Look what happens in schools with little boys and girls. Schools are organized for little girls who can sit quietly and sweetly with their hands folded at the desk. Of course I was never one of those little girls, but generally speaking the schools were. And the little boys? Well, we say they have ADD and we drug them so they'll sit like little girls with their hands folded sweetly.) If you look at the way men (especially dads) are portrayed on TV, you'd think we were all a bunch of irresponsible, befuddled, nincompoops, who can only function with the help of a "smart" female partner, friend, or spouse.
He titles his blog: The 7 Traits of Real Men. Women -- I want you to read them because this is the guy you should look for. Men -- I want you to read them so you can stop being weenies and take back your masculinity, your parts, your giblets -- if you get my drift. I can't believe how many women who have called my show over the years who I've told they should have married another woman because the traits they wanted in their husband are not masculine.
Read it Here.
