Why I didn’t learn to parent my sons from the world’s example.
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It’s 8:30 pm on a Tuesday night and I’ve just rushed home from working backstage at a musical in our hometown that my daughter is performing in. I received a call from my wife, just minutes earlier, who frantically asked me to come home quickly. In the background of the conversation I hear my three young sons crying hysterically.
That’s never a good sign.
In the middle of the commotion my wife is able to tell me that one of our bigger dogs attacked our smaller dog and cut her head open pretty badly. There was blood everywhere, and the little dog isn’t responding. She’s leaving to take the pup to an emergency veterinarian immediately.
“You need to come home,” she says.
I tell the director my situation, grab my jacket and keys, and rush out the backstage door toward my car. Minutes later I screech into the driveway like a police officer responding to an emergency, barely throw the car into park, and rush in to assess the situation. My sons are settled now, watching a movie with their older sister, and my wife has already left. From the redness around each of their eyes I can tell they’ve been crying hard. I can’t blame them though. While the little dog is often a pest and probably provoked our bigger dog until she snapped, we all love that little pooch. Sure, she may be a pest, but she’s a dog. I pull each of my boys close and tell the it’s going to be all right. Then, I wrap my arms around my daughter and comfort her.
Later that night I snuggle up with my youngest son who continues to cry over our injured dog. In a span of minutes he shares with me his fears, worries, sadness, and heartbreak …
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Later that night I snuggle up with my youngest son who continues to cry over our injured dog. In a span of minutes he shares with me his fears, worries, sadness, and heartbreak over the dog. I talk gently, almost in a hush, in the darkness of his room. To the best of my ability I try to sooth him with my words. His tears eventually dry up and he drifts off in a deep sleep.
I used to feel guilty about this, several years ago. Not the caring for my sons when they were hurt part, mind you. I would never feel guilt about that. It was the nurturing part. Every time I would nurture, something in me said that this was my wife’s job. Eventually that gave way to worry that I would turn my boys into wimps if I were gentle, soothing, mothering to them. Perhaps I was supposed to be something different for them—the man, strong, rough, tumble, you know … the typical MAN stuff!
And then one night it hit me. “No!” I thought. “That’s the lie that so many men, so many fathers buy into.” This false pretense that we must be macho, not show emotions, not be vulnerable, not nurture.
When we look at the world around us, there’s an idea of masculinity that goes something like this:
… man-up!
… act tough!
… never fail!
… and don’t you dare ever show any weakness!
If you do this, it means you’re a MAN!
But what if that’s really NOT what being a man is all about?
Fact is, I’m a sensitive person. I get emotional over things. There are times my heart is on the very edge of my sleeve. I cry at good movies. I’m moved by acts of generosity. I’m not afraid to admit weakness or say that I was wrong. I also love to love my sons. I love to wrap them in my arms, snuggle with them, kiss their awesome faces, and huddle up on our sofa for movie night.
Does this make me less of a man? Does it mean I’m weak? Does it mean I’m a wimp for treating my boys like this? Absolutely not! If anything, it makes me more of a man.
The world has done fathers (especially fathers of boys) an injustice by convincing us that masculinity is determined by how tough, emotionless, driven, strong and manly you are.
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The world has done fathers (especially fathers of boys) an injustice by convincing us that masculinity is determined by how tough, emotionless, driven, strong and manly you are. At times it seems that whether or not you like football, beer, hunting trips, or fixing cars determines your level of masculinity. Fact is, I do like all of those things (except the fixing cars thing … not a pretty sight), but that doesn’t define me as a man.
My heart does.
And my heart is wrapped around my four sons. I love them more than anything. I love being their dad. I love to snuggle with them at bedtime. I love to whisper how much I love them in their precious ears. There’s nothing wrong with this. I love to wrestle and play silly games with them, but I also love to hold them close when they’re afraid. Nurturing behavior like this won’t turn them into less of a man; it will make them more of a man. There are many reasons this is true. But the biggest, as far as I see it, is that they’ll grown up not being afraid to show their emotions … be vulnerable … or genuinely care for others.
Photo—Judith Doyle/Flickr
I agreed with you Mr. Brechlin and toughness is seem to be used as a tool by people (whether they are insecure or not) to show how big and bad they are. You are right about a loving world remaining as a distant dream. Mankind has not learn anything in getting along with itself.
Continue to show affection and nurture your sons. That’s exactly what the world needs are men who are self aware and are not afraid to be loving and to show love. It’s human and an integral part of intimate relationships that women so desperately need and desire. Keep nurturing … their future depends on it.
Nurturing isn’t a problem. I like DJs view that moms work so their kids survive and dad’s worry how they will. Nurturing to make them self aware, confident and caring is bringing out the best in a human. I don’t give a rat about how tough you are for yourself. I walked home on a broken leg twice big deal. I had to get home. I’ve used whatever was handy on myself and others to relieve pain. Big deal on that too. But to truly comfort someone else is one of the greatest experiences and measure of character that I’m… Read more »
Nurturing is a problem; otherwise, we would not be having problems with men expressing all sides of their emotions.
Right, Tom? Electrical tape is your friend. I remember being on the job some times and hearing, “Ok, who’s bleeding?” and we all start checking our bodies. Cuts and bruises were so common that it was felt that if you weren’t bleeding, you were not working. When I was just starting out and learning the business I shot a gun nail through my finger one day, just missed the bone and not up to the burr. I figured that I could go to emergency, wait while the feeling comes back, get a shot, have some rook doctor pull it out,… Read more »
Regarding the dogs … truly young and old, they are man’s best friend. I’ve learned how important these four legged family members are to us. I’ve lost some while growing up but besides the one we lost a couple of years ago, the one that hit us really hard was when our first Golden died back when my son was in grade school. As i consoled him in the parking lot of the vets, I’ll never forget what he said that brought me to tears. He said, “dad, you don’t understand, Billybob was my first best friend.” Even now I… Read more »
Well, we all know ole Chuck Norris, right, the famed tough man of internet jokes and quips? “Chuck Norris doesn’t turn on the shower, he just looks at it and it starts to cry”, “When Chuck Norris crosses the street, cars look both ways for him”. Right? Right. I watched a biography on him. In that he spent time with his sons talking about love and life. When they were leaving they both came up and kissed their dad (these are full grown hulking men), and they exchanged “I love you”. My own dad was about the toughest man I’d… Read more »
I wish this article and responses would have been left on he front page. Great stories like yours DJ come to light and should be shared. When you mentioned the nail gun incident it brought to mind something my dad did while we were camping. He’d slammed his thumb and the blood quickly engorged under his nail. We all know how that feels.Within moments he had his electric drill out and was putting in a small drill bit. He turned to me and asked that i drill his thumb nail. My hesitation had nothing to do with the act but… Read more »
Timing is everything … Just so happens I attended my grandson Noah’s kindergarten concert this morning. I got a little choked up when I realized that’s he’s already going into 1st grade, how time flies. That being said, I was raised by a guy who is similar to what you described. But what many of you leave out is that men “discern” when, where and why those stock comments are used. Iron sharpens iron. I am very similar to my dad. I remember a while ago when I was laying carpet with my son who was maybe 8 years old,… Read more »
Society by and large doesn’t encourage or support the soft nurturing side of men. Too much emphasis or overemphasis about being tough
I’m with G on the overemphasis point. My view is that so long as toughness is used (often unconsciously, and always unadmittedly) to disguise men’s deeper insecurity and fear, a truly loving world which works for all will remain a distant dream, while “might makes right” ultimately continues its pattern in the shadows to limit humanity’s greater, untapped possibility.