Part 1 is HERE.
Part 2 is HERE.
I was coaching a Mother. I explained that Mothers needed to treat their sons like the men they will be, not like the babies they are now. What kind of man does a woman WANT to marry?
- Strong
- Protective
- Wise
- A Good Provider
- A Committed Family Man
How would you treat a man like that? That is how to treat a son, even toddler sons.
What I am about to write sounds sexist, especially in this age of gay marriage, gender fluidity, transgender issues, it somehow sounds wrong to write about normal men and normal women. Nonetheless, normal men and women do exist and it should not be considered wrong to blog about the needs of normal men and women.
My Teddy Bear
When The Son was 8 years old, he was my little teddy bear. I found him awfully cute and he loved hugs and kisses, both of which I was more than happy to give. One day, we had the following conversation.
Me: Son, you are Mommy's teddy bear.
The Son (coldly and tersely): I don't want to be a teddy bear.
Me (a bit surprised because I thought I had given him a compliment): Why not? Teddy bears are cute and adorable.
The Son: I don't want to be cute and adored.
Me (now curious): If you could choose, what would you choose to be?
The Son: I want to be a tree.
The Son was thinking of a tree like this HERE, with roots twice the height of a grown man. I looked at my puny little 8 year old boy with his baby face and I asked why he wanted to be a tree. He said that a tree is strong. He wanted to be strong, like a tree.
A Little Man
At that time, I remembered thinking how much sense it made that my son would say this. From a very young age, my son was a little man. My little boy at 3 years old took it upon himself to inspect all the doors of our tiny apartment in USA, before bedtime, when his Father was travelling out of town. He even placed a pen knife under the bed, just in case there was a need to defend his Mother and Sister from home intruders. At 3 years old, he would push past my legs to lay his chubby hands on a grocery bag, and lift it to the car. To honour his 3 year old notions of manhood, I always made sure there was a bag with a loaf of bread for him to lift easily to the car. Then, I told him that I was a very lucky Mommy to have such a strong boy.
At that time, I did and said such things because I knew it made my son happy. I had some vague intuition that it gave him great pleasure to be treated like the man he thought his Father was, even if it was just playful on my part.
Now, I know that treating him like the man he thought his Father was, has helped him grow into the man he is now, like his Father in so many ways. I come across MANY such normal little boys in the course of my work. I did not know how to explain to Mothers that I coached (doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, private bankers, Vice Presidents, Accountants) that the moment they stepped through the doors of their homes, they needed to leave behind the mantle of Hard Strength that pushed them to the pinnacle of their careers.
Exchange Hard Strength For Soft At the Door
These Mothers needed to exchange that Hard Strength for the Soft Strength that allowed their sons the space to be mini-men. Remember that these Mothers are not only highly educated, they are also highly successful at work. A Mother like this has no time. She has a high flying job. She has KPIs. Her home must be managed like a tight ship because everything must march like clockwork. She has a task list at work. She has a task list at home. Unless these tasks are ticked off efficiently, this woman feels stressed.
I know. I was once a woman like that.
So, in response to a 3 year old little boy who reaches out in a manly way, to carry a bag of groceries for her, this Mother has no time to wait patiently for her son to slowly toddle to the car with a loaf of bread half his size. This Mother will say, "Get in the pram and give me that bag to carry. " In that one sentence and gesture, she has emasculated her son.
This little boy has just lost an opportunity to develop towards the man he naturally wants to be. He does not develop the drive to achieve. He uses his best energy to resist his Mother's bossiness and her best efforts to force him to perform. He fights his Mother's every effort to help him achieve.
Treat Your Son Like the Man You Want Him to Be
Parents come to me for coaching when their kids fail to perform in school or have behavioral problems in school. Very often (not always), if it is a boy, the root cause lies in the Mother failing to treat her son like the man he wants to be. I always feel a bit apologetic when I explain this to Mothers. It sounds so sexist, no? Especially in the face of people who INSIST that gender differences are not biologically hard coded. These people give boys dolls to play with. I did give my son dolls to play with because they were his sister's hand me downs. I read him Enid Blyton books his sister loved.
He yawned at both, and his eyes glazed over. I had lost his attention.
A Book
Actually, I not only feel apologetic about explaining this to Mothers in this modern day and age, I think I also do it very badly. Many Mothers fail to grasp my point because I have never been able to articulate it well. So there I was trying AGAIN on 20 July 2019 to clumsily explain this to a Mommy. This lady looked at me and her eyes lit up. She said, "This is what Willard Harley, Jr. wrote in his book - His Needs Her Needs: Building An Affair Proof Marriage.
Errrrr... we were not quite talking about extra-marital affairs but hey, why not? If there are ways to affair proof a marriage, then Petunia wants to know! So I read the book. It is an easy read. One day suffices.
This book asserts that one of the top 5 Emotional Needs a husband needs from his wife is her admiration. You can google for the other 4 needs if you are interested. I will focus only on how a woman's respect and admiration motivates boys to achieve (and Willard says it motivates men to find their wives irresistible). The question that begs to be asked, at this point, is - How do I admire my son when he has done nothing admirable yet?"
This requires a lot of Soft Strength.
Unconditional Admiration/Respect
To illustrate the notion of unconditional admiration/respect, I think Mothers will understand better if I surfaced an anecdote relating to husbands. Then, I will expand that reasoning to sons.
In the early days of my marriage to The Husband, money was in short supply. It took us ages to save $10,000. It required a lot of sacrifice. I could not buy the clothes, bags and shoes I wanted. I could not eat in nice restaurants. We scrimped and saved. We then invested our savings in the stock market. One day, our portfolio went down by $10,000. The Husband was devastated. He felt like a failure. You must remember how young we were then.
The Husband's mother lovingly told her son, "You are not made for investment. You are just not good at it. Just do your job. Save money. No need to invest."
This was The Husband's most vulnerable moment. You can even say it was a defining moment. If I too had said the same thing as his Mother did, The Husband would believe it and accept that he was just not good enough for the stock market. It would not have killed him, but it would have frozen him into the mould of a lesser man than he deserved to be.
My words to The Husband were sharp. I said, "You do mental math faster than I can press the buttons on a calculator. You have had the best education that money can buy. You have a good brain. Don't tell me you can't LEARN to invest. I can accept a husband who loses $10,000 to the stock market, but I cannot accept a husband who loses his guts and fighting spirit too. Money lost can be made back. If you lose your guts and fighting spirit then you are not worth being married to. Get back in that stock market and bring me back that $10,000 you lost."
I admired, respected and believed in The Husband even when he did not admire, respect nor believe in himself.
How Is This Soft Strength?
To be able to tell The Husband what I told him required every single virtue detailed in Beverley Lahaye's book - A Different Kind of Strength.
Purity: My motives had to be pure. I needed to love my husband more than I loved my money. Mothers need to love their sons more than they love his achievements.
Humility: I had to be humble. I could not be so arrogant that I take over the investment portfolio and invest on his behalf. Mothers need to know that their sons thrive on conquering difficulty on their own without an over helpful Mom.
Endurance: I bloody hell needed to endure even MORE years of material deprivation. Mothers must be able to endure the shame when their son fails at something.
Obedience: Ephesians 5:33 says, 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. The bible teaches that men should give their wives unconditional LOVE but women need to give their husbands unconditional RESPECT/ADMIRATION. I married a man who had yet achieved nothing in his life. God needed me to nourish him with my respect/admiration so that he would achieve something in time to come. I owed God my obedience. Mothers have to nourish sons' spirits with respect/admiration.
Courage: I needed to have the courage to risk even more money losses. Mothers need to have the courage to let their sons fail.
Fortitude: Fortitude is the quality in a person's character that is like the temper in steel, which gives it its ability to not break under pressure. Another way of seeing fortitude is in the strength of a silk rope. The tighter you pull it, the stronger it becomes. I needed to have fortitude so as not to crack under the twin pressures of material deprivation and shame. Mothers need fortitude so that they don't crack when faced with the pressures of school and social expectations, and end up treating their sons like shit.
Wisdom: I needed to have the wisdom to see that I had married a very intelligent man, who could LEARN to invest better. It was not the end of the road. Our lives together were only just starting. Mothers should have the wisdom to see that society needs giftings that go beyond 4 PSLE subjects. I read an article today about a man who earned $25,000 a month in his 20s despite leaving school at age 14 years, to become a cleaner. An ex girlfriend of his broke up with him saying that he was only a cleaner, with no future. I wonder what she must be thinking now, because he is now the CEO of a cleaning company with an annual turnover in the millions.
Boldness: I had to be bold in how I communicated my faith in The Husband - "Tarzan! You get back in there and hunt me $10,000!" said Jane. Mothers need to be bold in how they defend their sons - "My Tarzan Jr. just fell out of a tree and hit his head. If you diss him, I will hit yours!" said Mommy Jane.
Devotion: I had to stay committed and devoted to The Husband in his moment of failure. It would not have helped if I went out to date another more "successful" man. Mothers need to stay devoted to their own sons and not look around at other people's sons enviously.
Beauty: Shakespeare wrote, "She's beautiful; therefore to be woo'd. She is a woman; therefore to be won." Few want to admit it but there really is power in a woman's beauty. Men are strange creatures. They would do much and achieve much to win the love of a beautiful woman. The Husband had to woo me, win me and keep me with the investing prowess I was certain he had.
Ok, I am not all that beautiful. However, The Husband did pick me to marry so he must have thought I was pretty enough, even though he won't say it, unless under duress. In any case, whether beautiful or not, I am the only beauty he has been able to snag, so I had to make do.
If they decide to, sons too, will make miracles happen for the first beauty they encounter - their Mom. When they grow older, I am sorry to tell you this, these motivations are transferred to girlfriends and wives. Yes, yes... I know. There is no justice in this world. Just because a more beautiful and younger woman came along...
Soft strength is underrated. We live in a society where Hard Strength is prized. This puts everything off kilter and weakens our society, our bonds of community and family.
1 comment:
WOW! what an inspiring book? where do you get this?
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