Many men are afraid their sons will grow up to be "less men" if they do not raise their boys to be tough and independent and an early age. Men and women often teach their boys to reject feelings of being weak or fearful, even under circunstances that call for sensitivity and empathy. Being strong is not only about physical strength. We can teach our boys and girls to be intelligent, compassionate, strong, and respectful of others, especially the opposite sex. Here is an article about raising "tough" boys. I found it honest and refreshing. Hope you enjoy reading it. This topic will continue...
How to raise a tough guy
By Neal Pollack, Men’s Health
By Neal Pollack, Men’s Health
At dinner one day, my 5-year-old son, Elijah, took a bite of zucchini and said, "My ears are stopped up."
"That's okay," I said. "You'll be fine."
"But my ears are stopped up!"
"It's no big deal."
Tears began to bubble out, and his voice turned into a whimper. Within a minute he was in his bedroom, writhing on the floor. "My ears! Oh, God! My ears! I'm in pain! I'm in horrible, horrible pain! And I will never feel better ever again!"
At that moment, I realized that I'm raising my son to be a wuss. Just like me.
My dad was tough. He wasn't boxer tough or weekend-tackle-football tough, and he wasn't an outdoorsman. But he'd served in Vietnam, and his life was full of tragedy: His parents escaped Nazi Germany just before Kristallnacht and raised my dad in the Bronx. When my dad was 11, his father died of cancer. His mother remarried, and her second husband had a heart attack soon after. Then, when my dad (a graduate of an Ivy League ROTC program) was on the boat to Vietnam, his mother committed suicide, leaving him the sole guardian of his younger sister.
I, on the other hand, grew up in suburban Phoenix. Never once did I experience a second of want, tragedy, or grief. I was a skinny, sensitive, spazzy kid who had a weird sense of humor and received Fantastic Four comics in the mail, played D&D, and quoted Monty Python. On my Little League team, I was the statistician.
My father was confused by the son he'd produced, and tried to toughen me up. He bought me a set of plastic weights that I had to fill with water, but they started leaking all over my bedroom rug and ended up lost in my closet. He tried to teach me to ride a big-kid bike, but I kept slipping off the seat and banging my crotch, which made me cry and him turn grouchy. His lessons dwindled as I got older, and none ever really took hold.
On the playground, I was a favorite target of bullies. My only weapon: a shrill, prepubescent battle scream that erupted from my lizard brain when I was cornered. Sometimes it scared off the predators.
Back then, I would think ahead. When I have a son, I decided, he's going to be tough. Even if I had to make him that way.
Easier said than done.
My son is sensitive, skinny, and spazzy, and he has a weird sense of humor. While his friends are off skateboarding, he's in his room looking at his ant farm. He cries for half an hour after stubbing his toe. If he suffers any kind of a rash or cut or bruise, he howls as if he were being eviscerated for a crime he didn't commit. Compared with him, I was a childhood version of Jason Bourne.
My wife and I started to notice these tendencies when he was 3, after the time he threw himself on the floor of the local mall because of a leg cramp. Sure, toddlers aren't known for their toughness, but I found his intensity alarming. But nurture can trump nature, right? I'd passed on the wuss gene, so it was time for some gene therapy.
I enrolled Elijah in a karate class. My own martial-arts experience involved four completely incompetent weeks of aikido the summer after college. Still, I knew from the Ralph Macchio movies of my youth that karate was a great way for the ordinary milquetoast to morph into a Bronson-like beast of a man.
The first 3 weeks, my overenthusiastic "So how's he doing?" questions to the master were met with an under enthusiastic "Just fine." After that, I began hearing increasingly distressing reviews. "Elijah needs to concentrate better." "He needs to work on his kicks." "He's just not keeping up with the other kids."
The week before Elijah was supposed to graduate from level one, I went to pick him up after class. An assistant teacher was walking Elijah down the steps. The boy looked shamed, chastised.
"What's this about?" I asked.
"I put my fingers in the electric socket and got into trouble," Elijah said.
"You did what? Why?"
A shrug. "I don't know."
The master came downstairs.
"I don't think Elijah is ready," he said.
No shit, I thought. Perhaps leaving my boy's psyche to a stranger wasn't the best approach. I'd have to toughen him up myself.
Our training started that very evening, under the guise of "playing rough" on my bed, and continues to this day. Since our home is ruled by drama dorks, we begin each session with a call to battle. "Daddy," Elijah shouts, walking into my bedroom. "Do you know what that smell is?"
"No. What?"
"The smell. Of your inamint demise!"
The first 3 weeks, my overenthusiastic "So how's he doing?" questions to the master were met with an under enthusiastic "Just fine." After that, I began hearing increasingly distressing reviews. "Elijah needs to concentrate better." "He needs to work on his kicks." "He's just not keeping up with the other kids."
The week before Elijah was supposed to graduate from level one, I went to pick him up after class. An assistant teacher was walking Elijah down the steps. The boy looked shamed, chastised.
"What's this about?" I asked.
"I put my fingers in the electric socket and got into trouble," Elijah said.
"You did what? Why?"
A shrug. "I don't know."
The master came downstairs.
"I don't think Elijah is ready," he said.
No shit, I thought. Perhaps leaving my boy's psyche to a stranger wasn't the best approach. I'd have to toughen him up myself.
Our training started that very evening, under the guise of "playing rough" on my bed, and continues to this day. Since our home is ruled by drama dorks, we begin each session with a call to battle. "Daddy," Elijah shouts, walking into my bedroom. "Do you know what that smell is?"
"No. What?"
"The smell. Of your inamint demise!"
Since I have no fighting techniques to teach, I performed over and over the trick he finds most amusing. For weeks, he spent 20 minutes sliding down my back as I held him upside down by his ankles. Currently, he enjoys escaping my leg traps. Lately, he's grown more sensitive to injury, so he often stops after 20 minutes to bring in a board game instead.
"Oh, God," I say. "Not Candy Land again!"
That's the way he tests my toughness. I used to mind. Until . . .
A few months ago, I had a flashback. I was drunk and listless at a bar in Austin, Texas, 4 or 5 years ago, when I ran into a friend. He started giving me crap about something. My lizard brain stirred. I began to shriek, much like my son does when he's having a tantrum, and I flailed my hands crazily. I hit my ex-friend on the side of the face with a beer bottle, chipping one of his teeth. As the bouncer tossed me onto the street, I didn't feel tough. I felt like a drug-addled idiot.
I started thinking about what I'd tell my son in the future about that fight. Would he be proud of me? Probably not.
That's when I realized: Physical toughness is only a small part of a man's overall strength. You can be tough about more basic struggles as well, like navigating financial disappointments and keeping your family together during hard times. My father did that when I was a kid, and I watched him. Deliberately or not, he was teaching me important lessons about midlife toughness. Over the past few years, I've worried about losing our home, about putting food on the table. They were hard times, but we survived.
Life will kick your ass in ways that aren't physical, and you need to handle those moments with dignity. That's what makes you tough. In that way, I am a tough guy.
And, most likely, so is Elijah. After all, he's been watching me for 5 years now.
I do plan to give him the good news someday. But right now, he's wailing about the shampoo in his eyes.
Extracted from:
http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/family-parenting/articlebl.aspx?cp-documentid=8800299&page=1
