Raising boys is an adventure toward maturity. It’s a contact sport, including physical affection and discipline. It is the glory of kings to search things out and the role of little princes to enter into that discovery with them. But kings must draw their princes into that curious endeavor.
This does not take place unless the environment is suitable for discoveries. A young son cannot see his dad pondering whether he should search things out. He must see dad hungering and actively getting his hands dirty by seeking the concealed things hidden by God’s happy providences.
The young men I have seen excel in his vision and continue in the curiosity degrees have fathers who refuse to coddle them. For that matter, he also has a mother who refuses to coddle him. And speaking of the coddling of the American sons, we need a magna carta contra coddling young boys. Fathers and mothers must be equally committed to the task of being firm and loving but never hindering boys from the task of moving from glory to glory.
At the very least, this means every single boy, from the greatest of them to the least of them, should have a daily routine of duties in the home. He should mow young, and he should follow daddy in a toy mower until daddy gives him the keys. He should be rebuked for laziness, spanked for disrespect, and allowed to fail at things without the ever-present hands–usually moms–to transform a moment of failure into a finger-pointing exercise. This is especially true in schools, which are always a good way to gauge these things. If moms are the ones always going to the teacher in the afternoon and offering the indispensable gift of justifying their son’s laziness, then she is a problem. Not the teacher. The mother. And the son, bless his heart, will likely enjoy the disease of assanineness throughout his life.
The spoiled son may stay in church, but he will be a pain to his minister. The parents may even blame the pastor or members for not doing enough for their sons whom they have brought near into their victimosity most of their lives. Now, of course, there are parents that are too harsh on their sons, and that breeds all sorts of frustrations. The harsh father often produces a mother who reacts to the harshness with assertive protectionism policies. And that is another level of contact sport. Kings and queens need to be on the same page so that when they vote on the “searching out committee,” they agree thoroughly with one another.
But the heart of the matter is that fathers must search things out. He leads the way by clearcutting in the forest. In the process, he needs to bring his sons along with his searching out. If he bleeds, make sure he has a bandaid or three to stop the bleeding. And when the searching party comes to a halt, a father must say, “Son, we did not find it yet, but we will try again tomorrow.”
