Daddy’s Rule – No Boys! It’s Not What You Think
From the time that I learned I was having a daughter (she’s almost 7 now), I began to formulate a rule for her. I now have 3 daughters, and the rule is the same for all of them. The rule… very simple: no boys.
As soon as this simple rule came to be, it was often laughed off by those who heard of it. They assumed it to be some silly new-dad sort of over-compensation for fear of raising a daughter in this crazy world. It was assumed to be sarcasm, and folly. Many who thought they knew me associated my burly, rough, sometimes crass and overtly confident exterior with this rule as if I simply wanted to lock my daughter(s) up in the basement, never to see the light of day.
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Men – if you’re a dad, you should know that there’s nothing more important for a father than getting his children to heaven. A major stumbling block for many of our children will be their life-choices, especially associated with choices about their relationships (friendships, intimate, romantic, marriage, etc.) This particular area is not one where we can sit on the sidelines and hope that our children naturally make good choices. We must be totally invested in them, from the word ‘go’, and know all the details as they grow.
How then do I justify this rule of “no boys”? It’s very simple. The opposite of manliness is childishness. Manliness equals virtue. So, when a man (read as “virtuous man”) comes into OUR lives… at a MUCH later date… and proves himself worthy of my daughter’s attention, involvement, affection, and potentially her ‘yes’ to marriage, it will be time for her to embrace her vocation to marriage (should it be so.) I’m not, in the least, afraid of her vocation, because it comes from God and will be a major contributor towards her sanctification. [FYI – I’ll discuss the topic of “courting” (versus dating) in a coming post.]
The “10 Rules to Date My Daughter” lists, and “Applications to Date My Daughter”, etc. etc. etc. aren’t where we should be. We also shouldn’t be on the “Her Body, Her Rules – feminist father” side either. (See a good post by Tom Hoopes in response to a recent pic floating around the interwebs.) These fail to honor our daughters and their abilities, which speaks poorly of us as fathers. We should be on the side of total investment in teaching our daughters that they are loved, that they are princesses (more on this below), and that they are worth the very best.
“That they are princesses” is important to explain. Disney has hijacked the princess for the past 20+ years, and it appears that they will continue to hijack it for many more to come. Our daughters don’t understand what “princess” truly means, they merely see bad examples of rebellious, poor-decision-making, spoiled little girls in those movies, instead of what a princess really is… the daughter of the King. Jesus is King, and because He’s God, and we are His (God’s) children, thus we are welcomed into His royal family, and therefore, we’re all princes and princesses. Princesses deserve the very best, by sheer nature of their birth, and that’s what we must instill in our daughters. If our daughters know their worth, and how to make good decisions, we won’t have to worry about their choice in a spouse because it will be right.
I could go on and on with this topic, but I won’t. Just make sure that if you’re a dad, that you spend time investing in your daughters each and every day. And remember, “No Boys!”
TrueMan up!
Good For You, Young Man
Have you heard of this story? A young man from Iowa, named Joel Northrup, declined to wrestle a young lady in the Iowa High School State Wrestling Tournament. He lost by default and the young lady he was supposed to wrestle, who won by default, moved on in the tournament. This was the first time in the 85 year history that a female wrestled in the state tournament in Iowa. This year, not only one girl, Cassy, but two girls made it. The other young lady was named Megan.
Joel said that he didn’t believe that boys should wrestle girls. I agree with him. It’s inappropriate. He said, “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cassy and Megan and their accomplishments.” For Northrup, it doesn’t appear to be a fear thing; he’s not afraid of these girls. He was 35-4 in matches this year and has already had success in Iowa in previous years. It’s a matter of principle for him.
“Wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times,” said Northrup. “As a matter of conscience and my faith I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most other high school sports in Iowa.”
Here’s a bit from his coach…
What does he mean by a “matter of my faith?” What does being a Christian man have to do with not wrestling a woman? (Just writing that sentence seems silly to me.) I’d say that it goes back to our creation as men. It speaks to the heart of a man. Deep inside every man is a sense of wildness, a rugged “warrior” drive and our natural inclination towards adventure. There’s nothing natural inside a man that says “I should my brute strength to pin a woman to the floor to win a tournament.” In the history of wrestling, dating back to the ancient Greeks, men and women never wrestled one another. In fact, women never wrestled at all. Females wrestling is a pretty new invention.
It’s a weird proposition, having to wrestle a girl. I should know… I wrestled two girls in middle school. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the courage that Joel had, to say “I default”. The young ladies that I wrestled in middle school were sweet girls, and pretty feminine, they also happened to like to wrestle. I’m not really sure why.
Some people would then ask, “Dave, what if your daughters came to you and said, “Daddy, I want to wrestle.”?” What would I say?
I’d say no. It’ll be a ‘no’ if they come and ask me to be a boxer. It’ll be a ‘no’ if they come and ask me to be an altar server at Mass. It would be ‘no’ to a lot of questions. It’s not authentically feminine for women to do things men are naturally inclined to do. I’ve written about this a lot – we (men and women) were created with equal dignity, but separate roles. It’s NOT a bad thing, it’s a GREAT thing! When men do what they were created for and women do what they were created for IT WORKS! If that gets all screwed up, everything falls apart.
When I write posts like these, I typically get at least one feminist email spewing hate towards me and this view point (which isn’t solely mine – but that of the Church as well). I get called all sorts of names and get blamed for being a chauvinist and hateful and harsh and intolerant and so forth. I welcome those emails because it creates good dialogue. It’s not about some notion of equality, that a woman should be able to do whatever a man can do. It’s about the notion of order. So, if you read this and disagree, let me know.
TrueMan up!
The Death of Masculinity Article
I came across this post and thought it would be good to post. (Find it HERE.) It backs up what I write. Virtue men, virtue!
Man up!
Masculinity is dying a quick death. It is attacked from all sides, for example:
-Radical feminists say that being masculine is anti-woman.
-The feminized man is esteemed (esp. those who have a same sex attraction).
-Fathers are portrayed as blundering idiots in media.
It doesn’t help that some modern cultures (e.g., China , Muslim countries, etc) revere the masculine to the detriment of women, just as our own did not so long ago. This is a macho-only kind of mentality which is truly harmful (warning: graphic images) to women and girls.
So, what is a man to do? Our modern world swings between two extremes that both tear down true masculinity – on the one side is the overly-macho crap and on the other is the emasculated feminization of masculinity.
The answer lies in the root of the problem, which started “in the beginning.”
Adam was given the commission by God to “to cultivate and care for” the Garden of Eden and all that was in it (Gen 2:15). Adam messed up soon after. He fails to protect his wife, because he is a coward. He then blames his wife and in doing so he relinquishes his masculinity. Notice that after giving up his masculinity he quickly falls into lusting after his wife, which is why they have to cover themselves – to protect themselves from the lust of the other.
We still suffer from the same issues.
The modern man has also relinquished his masculinity by failing to have self-control. The modern man is an emasculated macho fool who has given in to his pornified passions and lives a sterile and contracepted life – he bears no fruit, literally and figuratively.
These issues are not only killing masculinity, they are also killing femininity. Because only when masculinity is truly lived properly will femininity flourish.
So, where do we start? We start with discovering what a real man is NOT:
A real man is not emasculated ninny.
Neither is a real man a testosterone infused sack of passions.
A real man is this -> a man who desperately seeks to follow in the footsteps of THE MAN.
He will be courageous in the face of danger.
He will fight for and maintain self control.
He will put to death his lusts.
He will be in control of his emotions and yet not afraid of them.
He will find himself in losing himself.
He is humble, but sure of the gifts God has given him.
He is gentle when he should be and rough when necessary.
He is a man of strength of character and his word means something.
He fulfills his promises.
He isn’t ashamed of his Lord or either of his mothers.
He will put life in the proper order – 1 – God; 2 – His wife (if he has one); 3 – His children (if he has them) 4 – Others; 5 – Himself
A real man isn’t afraid of his masculine traits, but embraces them as a gift from God. He doesn’t abuse them, but understands the way to use them in service of God and others.
It is time we men resurrect true masculinity.
