Raising Braves

This contrasts heavily with my own culture’s inclination to enable our sons and brings me back to a discussion I had with a teaching colleague. She said the greatest of American epidemics is that of the mama’s boys. We argued the nature of mothering sons and the very trend to do everything for our boys. We not only nurture, we baby, we not only condone, we excuse, and we not only love, we worship the boys that will become the men of our legacy. Thus, we raise boys to be...but boys. Maybe this is one of the many reasons as to why a Good Man is hard to find.

So how do I then move forward from this discourse? What markers will I set for myself to curb my own inherent enabling tendencies? How can I learn from cultures not my own and respectfully incorporate that wisdom into my parenting? When will I bend so as to allow my son to be the stronger and when will I resist to as to instill in him a suppleness of heart? I write not with answers but with the full awareness that if I am not in the practice of asking myself these questions, the arrow of my best intentions will fall far too short of the mark.