You'll Be a Man, My Son

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
Rudyard Kipling

In a society all too eager to point out any masculine gender differences as something bad, to be blamed on men, just who will teach our boys to be men?

That is the question posed by Mary Jacobs in her Dallas Morning News editorial. Ms. Jacobs who loves the qualities that makes her son different from her daughter is reading The Minds of Boys by Michael Gurian. It sounds like a book that I would read also if I had a son to raise.

Women have always attempted to rein in boys' reckless impulses, Mr. Gurian says, but feminism made maleness inherently defective. Think of two fictional icons of American boyhood, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. The Widow Douglas may have attempted to civilize them with starched collars and good table manners, but Mr. Gurian says, "If Huck and Tom were alive today, they'd probably be diagnosed with a conduct disorder and put on Ritalin."

The answer to that question is that real men are quietly teaching their sons in spite of society's message. In a post that dovetails nicely with this editorial, Joel at On the Other Foot had his sons in mind when he wrote this wonderful piece about what a man is and what a man does. Here's a bit but do go read the entire thing. It is not to be missed.

As a man, you are stronger physically than women. You are also bigger than they are and hence intimidating to them, if only on a subconscious level. Never loom over them, never yell at them, never treat them as though they were men. (On the other side of the coin, don't condescend to them either. They're small, not dumb.) Bear in mind that you have all the equipment and strength necessary at any moment to overpower and violate any woman. It's therefore vital that you conduct yourself in a way that makes obvious that you not only wouldn't do something like that, but you'd step in front of a bullet or a grizzly bear to keep her safe. This isn't something you say out loud, but an attitude that stays in the back of your mind.

Lucky sons to have such a wise father. And, Joel's wife, Christina, at Confessions of a Hot Carmel Sundae, shows what a difference it makes to be married to such a man.

My lessons in the qualities that make a man came from Tom's mother who never forgot that her husband and her five sons were men, different from women, and rightfully so. Her small asides here and there about these men in her life were touchstones for me, who really had soaked up all the propaganda that was handed out by society when I went to college. My often surprised rejoinders to her insightful comments would lead to a five or ten minute conversation about what men were like and how to support them in being themselves. I am lucky to have had that input from a wise woman who loved her men and helped me to appreciate the innate manliness in my husband.

Many are not so lucky. We can only hope that the pendulum is beginning to swing back to the middle and that once again manliness will be appreciated in our society.

UPDATE
This also can be found at Spero News.