A Real Man is Hard to Find

I’m married to a Real Man. You know the kind:  clean cut, stands up straight, takes off his hat indoors.

And I hope I am raising Real Men, three of them.

We teach them to look people in the eye, shake hands firmly, and do what they say they are going to do.  We make them work when it’s hot out, when it’s cold out, when it’s early in the morning, and when they don’t want to.  We make them do inside (read, girl’s) work as well as the outside work.  We make them do jobs that aren’t theirs to teach them that responsibility isn’t about doing their half of the yard and not an inch more.  Responsibility means the whole thing gets done and to heck with the splitting of hairs over who does what.

They resist at times, which is to be expected.  Life is about resistance. I resist every time I have to get up early, work out, put down the cake, or tell the baby a story when I’m worn to a nub.  Given to my own devices I would atrophy so badly that within a month I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed.  It’s about what my mother always says, ‘going against the grain.’

The other day we went to a fast food restaurant and one of my boys held the door for a couple on their way out.  We thought nothing of it.  Holding the door is something we’ve expected of them since they were about three.  But this lady went on and on, commending them for their ‘chivalrous’ act.  Have we come to a point where the mere opening of a door for a lady is so rare as to warrant such a response?

More to come on the subject of boys becoming men.  I’m all fired up now.