I had an interesting conversation with a really charismatic man over the weekend, and he brought it to my attention that he noticed the lack of Rites of Passages for men these days. He had the opportunity to train and work as a firefighter/ EMT in his youth. During the course of this training he also had the opportunity to grow up, be hazed properly, and in fact be inducted into manhood by his peers. His comment to me was society as a whole is failing men as they don't have these traditional rituals which raise men to be men. In fact, these rituals which make men hard and strong. Hard being equivalent to powerful in a society where power is equated with success.
It was quite intriguing to hear someone in my same age range discuss subjects which I ponder as a single mom. I think often, it's hard to raise a man. I don't want my son to be soft. I hear myself telling him to "man up". My favorite is when he tells me, "it's not fair" and I respond, "life's not fair, get used to it". It breaks my heart sometimes to push him a little harder, to expect a little more, but I realize, if I don't, who will? I want him to spend as much time with his father as possible, to learn "man things". When it was time for him to be potty trained, I sent him to his dad. I don't know how to show a man how to pee while standing. Would that not be the greatest trick ever? I know when it's time to talk about the birds and bees, I would love to pass the baton on that one as well. There are some things men need to learn from other men.
I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by amazing women in my life. Smart, funny women who empower each other for the most part. At the least, great examples of what socializing and friendships should look like. But men...that's more challenging. I have great male friends; friends from college, my best friends boyfriends, even relatives that I don't see that often but show up just in time for some man-ley advice sometimes. I generally don't have men that I date spend time or offer advice to my children. But, I think often that there are always good qualities one could pass on to a child if the situation were different.
One of my male friends has confided in me that he would like to study nursing - pediatric nursing actually. My response at the time was "don't you need to be nurturing to have that career?" He was actually offended. Then in explaining my judgement of what I thought the definition of nurturing looked like and what I see in his personality as fun and smart, and moreso a man's man, I just didn't get it. I didn't feel he had ever shown me a nurturing side, and he almost yelled at me that I didn't need to be nurtured, as if he would be wasting that side of his personality on me. I had to contemplate this for weeks before I realized I put off the air that I don't need to be nurtured. My friends don't nurture me because of who I am not because of who they are. Yikes.
This led to the realization (again) that peception is reality. We put out into the Universe what we believe to be true. I treat men as the non-nurturers of society because my perception dictates that. I see this correllation between the downfall of strength in our society dictated by the over-exasperation of what is politically correct vs. what is base truth. I am certain I am doing a fine job raising my son...to be my perception of what a strong male figure looks like. But what stands to integrate these above mentioned traditions vs. my point of view?
I am interested in what my readers (males in particular) think about this topic and how they see the generation of men being raised in our society today being scutinized for their lack of traditional training.
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