How To Be A Man

I laugh at this discussion about transgenders. The very idea that a person thinks they can change their sex by adding parts or subtracting parts. There is so much, much more to it than that. So much more.

I’m struggling right now with raising my son. That darling little guy that loved me so much. My little cuddle partner. The guy who used to skip down the hall with me on our way to his classroom for Bible study. The little guy who stuffed his pockets with everything. When I washed his clothes, I had to make sure I cleaned out his pockets. They usually contained 3-9 Lego pieces, 3 or more candy wrappers, two or more small sticks and at least a teaspoon of sand or more. And sticks! What is it with boys and sticks? He would always find sticks and leave them on our front door. Big sticks and little sticks. One time he and a friend had a feud over a big stick my son had found. The friend took it and left it on his door step. My son went to claim it and his mother said that wasn’t right for him to take the stick off their front porch. Okay, people, it’s just a stick. But it’s not just a stick. To a boy, it meant so much more.

If I sat at the computer, my son almost always landed on my head. He’d climb me and sit on the back of my neck. Whenever I went to get him up for a nap, he would almost always have one leg flung over the crib, on his way out. One time I found him in the middle of the dining room table just standing there, in the center, looking around. New perspective I guess.

One day he picked up a purple purse owned by my daughter with pink feathers on the top of it. He copied me and put it on the crux of his arm and started walking around the house with it. My husband saw him and asked what he was doing. I shrugged my shoulders, but my husband demanded he take it off right now, boys don’t go around with purple purses. My son was okay with that. He moved on, probably looking for more sticks.

He declared to me when he was about three that he liked, “ladies, cake and spiders.” Alrighty then. He amused me. We didn’t think alike. He wasn’t like my daughter at all. My daughter and I are both females, so she just followed me.

My son is now almost 6’3″. He doesn’t cuddle with me anymore. He doesn’t climb on my head (which is really a good thing). He hasn’t said he liked “ladies, cake and spiders” in a really long time. He’s grown distant.

I complained to my friend the other day, who has a grown son. I complained that my little cuddle partner was gone. She very wisely told me that was natural and normal. This is what they are supposed to do. There’s a time, they pull away. I don’t know what it means to be a man. I don’t know how to be a man. He needs to learn from another man (his father). She said it was a good thing for him to do this. You don’t want him growing up to be like a woman. He’s not.

She remembered a homeschooling conference she went to, that had a workshop on raising your sons to be knights. She said there was a collective sigh in the group when all these mothers in the room, heard from the speaker that they needed to get out of the way. Women can’t teach their sons how to be knights.

My friend was right when she told me this was normal. I really have no idea what it takes to be a man. She did say they come back. But for a time, they really need to pull away. I’m having to adjust to this. I keep yearning for those days when I was my son’s whole world. But I know this is good. He does need to learn to be a man and I really have no concept.

God made men and women unique. He designed us, so there are ways men act and ways women act. We are so uniquely different. Our differences go deep into our genetic makeup. Every one of our billions of cells tells us whether we are men or women. No amount of body mutilating will change that.

I will never understand the fascination with sticks. I never had or ever will have the energy my son has. My son and I will never look at the world in the same way. But that’s okay. It’s how God designed it.

After I talked to my friend, I felt a sense of relief. My son doesn’t hate me, he’s just growing up. He’s learning to be a man and I need to get out of the way.