Parenting - What They Don’t Tell Fathers About Raising Sons

Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGz0Q-HhkRY&list=PLVOspl3tsfnqFED2ENKj51FJs_o-wmacE&index=3

The difference between obligations to a daughter and to a son

1. Every man learns very quickly that his obligations to his son are actually very different than his obligation to his daughters.
2. And you would think it would be easier.
3. But the secret that nobody actually tells a father is that, in many cases it’s actually much harder.
4. Because, with a son comes the inevitable knowledge that what you’re doing is training your replacement.

The Three Stages Of Growing Up

now Sons tend to go through three stages when they’re young

1. they’re a cub
2. then they’re a boy and
3. then they’re a young man

The son’s first lesson

1. One of the first lessons your son will ever learn about what it is to be a man is his observation of how you treat his mother.
2. When you properly love honor respect protect and provide for his mother, you are showing him what a father does.
3. You are creating a standard that will inform his own expectations and a sense of responsibility.
4. They pick up on it very young

What Just Happened To My Little Boy?

One day, when he was a little bit older, I remember looking at my wife and I said, “do you know what the agogi is?”. She goes, no. I said “the agogi is where the Spartans sent their sons when they turned seven in order to begin their training as Warriors for the protection of the city-state”. She kind of looked at me weird, like, why why are you telling me this? And I looked at my son who was used to wrestling and boxing with me whenever we watch shows that have boxing or wresting involved. I look back at my wife and I said let me show you what I mean. And my son and I start boxing. We’re boxing, we’re wrestling, we’re going back and forth and I get him. Not hard. Just enough to where it kind of surprised him. And instead of backing away, he let out his little boy version of a war cry, and brother, he just charged me. He came right out of my fist, just going nuts. He was going to show me. I remember my wife at that moment, looking a little bit horrified, and she said “what just happened to my little boy!”. And I looked up at my wife and I said “He’s not your little boy anymore. He’s mine now.” Now before anyone gets mad at me, he still desperately loves his mother.

When Things Began To Change

1. However, this is the point where things did begin to change because they needed to.
2. He was now entering an age in a world where his actions were going to expand beyond that of his mother, his father and his siblings.
3. Work had to take place so that he could begin to understand what was expected of him.
4. Because adolescence is confusing.
5. Your son is caught in this stage between being a boy and being a man.

Necessary Challenges

1. And if they’re not presented with challenges they have to overcome, regardless of discomfort, fear, or even pain, they’re going to remain a boy.
2. Now if they’re given the wrong kind of challenges, the kind which demean, confuse, or break them, they’ll become the worst kind of man.
3. So your job as a father during this time is to, not only prepare them, but to actually orchestrate challenges that will, by design, challenge them physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.
4. You have to judge carefully when to intervene and when to let them feel the pain and frustration of failure.
5. The most important thing for them to learn at this stage is that they have to get back up.
6. And they have to be able to distinguish not only from their objectives but right and wrong the just and the unjust.

Sacrificing For That Which Is Noble

1. You are teaching them that they need to have a willingness to sacrifice for that which is noble.
2. I can remember very clearly the first time my son found himself in a position where he had to stand up for something. Probably the most difficult part about it for him was that, he wasn’t standing up to a bully or somebody that he didn’t like. He was standing up to his friends, because they were all doing something that they shouldn’t have been. And they knew it and he knew it. But he was the only one that called him out for it. And he was ridiculed and he was ostracized for it. But he stood his ground. I didn’t find out about it until later.

The Lesson Taught By Example

1. But I took him aside and I was very intentional. It was just him and me. I looked him in the eye and I said “I need you to know. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you for that. Not simply because you stood your ground. But because you were willing to do it with your own friends. And in many cases that’s harder. But learning to stand for what is right, especially when it costs you something is the Hallmark of a good man and you have passed your first test”.
2. Keep this in mind fathers.
3. He is watching what you do every bit as closely as what you say.
4. And the lesson taught by example will reside with him far longer than the one taught merely with words.
5. and that is not a lesson you want to learn the hard way

Before You Know It…

1. Before you know it, he will be a young man. He’s no longer a cub. He’s no longer a boy.
2. And too many fathers believe that our primary role during our son’s youth was merely to provide to establish order to protect.
3. While all of those things are true, they are incomplete.
4. Your son will have been looking for guidance since he was very small.
5. He will glean what he can through observation.

The Final Stages Of Preparation

1. But he requires instruction. And if he doesn’t get it from you, believe me, he will get it from somewhere.
2. And what this part of his life should represent are the final stages of preparation.
3. Because up to this point, if you have done your job, your son should know that you love him.

It’s His Alone To Earn

1. But past this point, it’s your respect that he desires.
2. And he will know that, while the love can be given, the respect he will have to earn.
3. The burden at this point is shared between the father and the son.
4. Because your duty is to show him the pathway to respect. But it’s his alone to earn.
5. And there is no substitution for that process, because, he is going to encounter a world the way it is - not the way you wish it would be for him.

The Hardest Part Of Being A Father

1. And if you have done your job correctly, then in that moment of testing, when it matters most, he won’t let himself down. Because he won’t want to let you down.
2. And that’s perhaps the hardest part for a father.
3. It’s the knowledge that you’re merely preparing him for the test. One that is in the distance. It’s beyond your sight. It’s beyond your control. And it is most likely beyond your intervention. And that’s the way it has to be.
4. As his father, you know that one day the dragon is going to come. And it will be his responsibility to slay it.
5. Because manhood is ultimately a threshold that he has to cross alone.

One Of My Earliest Memories

1. One of my earliest memories was sitting in the den with my grandfather. And him sharing a story of threatening to run away from home at 16, if my great-grandfather didn’t sign the paperwork to allow him to join the Navy after Pearl Harbor.
2. Later long life, I witnessed my father’s retirement from the LAPD as a homicide detective.
3. It was the first time anyone could remember a family of victims coming forward to present him with a ring commemorating the lives of the mother and two children who had lost their lives at the hands of a murderer that my father had helped to capture and bring to justice.
4. And I remember those stories respectively as a boy and as a young man.
5. But I also remember something else
6. It was the change that took place when I returned from my first tour in combat, and I took my place alongside them, with my own stories of dragon slain, and scars honorably earned.

Legacy

1. And I think, what that reinforced to me in that moment was that, the raising of boys to become young men is not only a responsibility but it’s a legacy.
2. For those of us who were blessed with fathers and grandfathers who showed us the way, it’s a legacy that you preserve.
3. But for those who did not have that, it’s a legacy that you begin.
4. And there is something truly noble about the man who overcomes the absence of their own father, to ensure that their son does not experience the same loss.

When I Get Tired

1. Ultimately, it’s a difficult task.
2. And in many ways, it’s becomes even more so as you and the kids grow older.
3. But when I get tired and when I get frustrated, I imagine a future moment, maybe in in my den one day, where my time will come where I’m not the son, I’m not the father, but I’m the grandfather.
4. And I will have the opportunity to sit alongside my son and my grandson.
5. And I wonder what their stories of triumph and challenge might look like.
6. And when I think about that, I get up and get back to work in order to make sure that I’ve done my part to prepare them for that moment - a moment I very much want to experience one day.