Tuesdays with Daddy – A Kid Pouts, but a Man Shouldn’t
March 23, 2010 by admin
Filed under Blog, Fatherhood, Tuesdays with Daddy, Virtue
This morning, my oldest daughter woke up on the wrong side of the bed. From her nap this afternoon, she woke up on the wrong side of the bed, again. Nothing was right for her all day. She didn’t want to play when playtime was suggested. She didn’t want to eat, when meals were prepared. She didn’t want to clean up, she didn’t want to nap, she didn’t want to play, she didn’t want to pray. Then, to top it all off, a huge snow storm hit our region and is potentially preventing us from getting to the airport and flying to visit family – she was not happy about these details. She reacts and her reaction is to pout, throw a tantrum and fuss. A man shouldn’t react that way.
As a grown up (or as a “growing” up), we must realize that our reactions to tough situations should be even keeled. More properly put, our reactions should be “ordered”. I recently watched a program on prison inmates. The inmates seemed pretty calm and easy to get along with while on camera, but unruly, defiant and violent when someone made them mad. They looked like a little kid who wasn’t getting their way, and anyone in their way paid the price. A TrueMan reacts differently.
When I was younger, my reactions to tough situations were pitiful. As I’ve grown older with age, and as I’ve come out the other side of a really bad rage problem, it has become very clear to me that men of virtue, ie: TrueMen, don’t allow their emotions to determine how they act. TrueMen act out of truth… with responsible reactions. It’s a good thing to work on.
Man up!
In a World of Negativity, Think Positive
There’s a lot of junk happening lately and lots of bad stuff happening in the world. We’ve got gigantic problems in Washington, we’re
fighting a war in the Middle East where there hasn’t been peace, well, ever. We’re constantly facing persecution for being “moral, ethical citizens”. Babies are being destroyed for the sake of convenience and preference. A good deal of the time, it doesn’t seem like anything is ever going to get better.
Look on the bright side, we have lots to be thankful for. Someone, somewhere has it much, much worse than you or me. Belly-achin’ and complainin’ about stuff isn’t going to make anything better. Yes, there are plenty of really horrible things taking place in our world, but they shouldn’t effect our daily lives from being focused and centered on Christ.
Imagine how badly St. Paul had it… beatings, being stoned, imprisonment and so on! (Read Philippians 2:12-18.)
Thinking positively helps us take a bad situation and turn it into something decent. There’s serious power in the reality of the power of positive thought. I encourage everyone to try three things over the next three days, and see if your attitude changes.
- Refrain from complaining.
- Find a positive side to everything.
- Do something kind for someone else at least once a day.
After three days, after you’ve tried these three things, comment back, or email, or post on Facebook, or wherever. I want to know what you experienced.
Man up!
Happy Feast of St. Joseph! The Man!
Happy Feast of St. Joseph! Every year, I grow in deeper understanding of how great St. Joseph was. The man was chosen to be the “Most Chaste Spouse” of Mary the Mother of God AND God-made-man’s adoptive father. What a role to fill! I looked back at what I wrote about St. Joseph last year and thought it would be good to post here again. Enjoy the feast day!
“…Eliud, the father of Eleazar. Eleazar became the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Messiah.”
Matthew Chapter 1 “The Genealogy of Jesus”.
Today (March 19) is the Feast of St. Joseph. St. Joseph was Jesus’ earthly foster father, the husband of Mary (Jesus’ mother) and a faithful Jewish man. We don’t know much about St. Joseph from Sacred Scripture, but we can deduce many things about his character, his demeanor and his effect on the world. For men, we should strive to be like St. Joseph – holy, upright, honest, hardworking and just. He was also a faithful man, a man of prayer and he allowed the Lord to work through his life. Can you imagine being selected by God to be the foster father of the Messiah? Obviously, Mary was selected as special by God to be the God-bearer (theotokos), why would God not also select a special man to be her husband and the protector of the God-bearer? He knew the role he was undertaking and accepted it whole-heartidly. He never failed to set the example of manliness for his son, Jesus. As we look to Christ to learn what He taught us, we must believe that He learned a great deal of what He knew from his earthly father, Joseph; therefore, telling us a great deal about Joseph.
As a father, I see characteristics in St. Joseph that I know I must possess. His example of virtue is second to none. In order to pass on faith, tradition and a legacy, I must first act out of love – setting the bar high for my children – so that my actions always precede my words and never contradict them. St. Joseph, the model for men – father, husband, man of faith and prayer, worker, protector, servant to the Lord. St. Joseph, pray for us.
Man up!
It’s Not About Beer
For most people, the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the name of St. Patrick or St. Patrick’s Day is beer and/or partying. St. Patrick’s Day is about more than beer.
St. Patrick was an incredible man… a TrueMan. Most of what he did in life, including joining the priesthood, being ordained a bishop and working to free the Irish from Druidism, came after several hard years of slavery in then pagan Ireland.
To read more on his life, click HERE.
So today, as you celebrate, remember that just because other guys are being foolish and drinking themselves stupid, you don’t have to. Don’t fall into that trap. Embracing St. Patrick and what he did is wonderful, for he’s a great model of TrueManhood.
Man up!
A Man, His Wife, a Snowmobile and Wide-open Spaces
I’m a lucky man. I had the opportunity to get away this weekend with my wife. We got away for a half day on Friday, stayed overnight and had a whole day together on Saturday. With children, full-time jobs, a full-time ministry and life, we rarely get a full weekend together. A big thanks goes out to my brother, a friend of ours and to my in-laws for their help in watching the kids while we were gone.
The overnight date was perfect, just what we needed. A time with my best friend, a time of relaxation and rejuvenation, a time for some excitement and adventure. On Friday, we traveled to a small mountain town about 2.5 hrs away. When we arrived in town, the shop was ready for us. We signed in, grabbed a helmet for each of us, then traveled about 3 miles outside of town to start our back country snowmobile trip. We jumped on a touring sled and hit the trail. We couldn’t have asked for a better day – the sky was blue, the sun was out, the snow was pristine. It’s days like that when you really enjoy God’s creation… it was as if that day, God had created it all for us specifically. We toured around for a few hours, enjoying the scenery, the cool wind and each other’s company. The trip was incredible.
That night, we relaxed in a meager hotel room, enjoying each other’s company, the fact that we didn’t have to put any children to bed and the realization that there was no work in sight! The next morning, we got up early to hit the slopes, enjoying a day of skiing at a favorite ski resort. Again, God blessed us with an incredible day of blue skies, warm temps and time together.
What’s my point in telling you all about my wonderful overnight weekend getaway? My point is simple: take time to rejuvenate yourself. Find something – it doesn’t have to be snowmobiling and skiing – but find something that gives you life and make time for it in your life. As a man who is a glutton for a busy life, I can attest to the facts of life and what a busy, stress-filled life can do to a man. If you don’t have an outlet for your stress, your worries and your cares, they’ll catch up with you. If you don’t have a source of energy to fill you up, you’ll continually give of yourself until you run dry. For me, it was 1. time with my wife, alone without our children 2. time away from my computer, work and projects and 3. an opportunity to do an activity (2, in this case) that was life-giving! After this weekend, I’m ready to tackle my life and everything that life throws my way.
Whatever it is that you need in your life, be it a stress-reliever, a life-giving “fill up” or an outlet of any kind, make special time to make it happen. It will do you, and the others you are entrusted with, a great deal of good.
Man up!
Prove It
There’s an aspect to manliness that I haven’t mentioned on the site, to date, and I want to bring it into the fold. The aspect of “proving your manliness” is an underlying requirement to achieving TrueManhood. Throughout all of time, in great civilizations and in small, young boys have had to prove their ability to be considered a man by the rest of the men. Whether it was killing an animal, conquering a task, going on an adventure or enduring a trial of some sort, young boys weren’t considered a part of the group of men unless they accomplished the task. Proving one’s manliness is something that we have forgotten in America.
How can we get back to proving one’s manliness, especially in light of the requirements that our world puts out there for guys “to be manly”? How can we get back to this when what we talk about most on the site, in regards to TrueManhood, is virtue? I think the answer lies somewhere between the older men (fathers, grandfathers, senior men, etc.) setting an example of manliness and the young-to-middle-aged-men who have proven themselves as TrueMen to hold a standard of excellence as the requirements for boys and young men who have yet to prove themselves as TrueMen. 
Somewhere along the way, we let go of the standard of excellence and now we are faced with the cultural issues of boys acting as if life was a fast action, shoot ’em up movie or the opposite, where we have overly-effeminate males walking around aimlessly.
Why would proving manliness change anything? Well, if young boys/men knew that they had to prove their manliness (note: this must happen through a rigorous process of proving that their actions are consistently ordered towards the good) before they could ask a girl on a date, before they could have a job, before they could have any responsibility, etc. I think it would greatly change the level of importance put on manliness, which is needed in the worst way.
Man up!
Another Star-of-a-Commercial
Carl’s Jr is at it again, continuing to make smutty commercials. Most of the time when I see a Carl’s Jr commercial, I simply turn the channel. I can see them coming from a mile away, so can you. The latest is terrible. The commercial shows a young male sitting in an auto body shop, watching a crew of workers buff out spray paint on his classic ’60’s Chevelle. The narrator says, “Having three girlfriends is great, until one of them finds out about the other two.” This line is wrong on a number of levels, but highlights the acceptable behavior of a “cultural man”. “Cultural Manliness” is telling even the youngest viewer that “when one of your multiple girlfriends finds out about your other girlfriends, you can just sit around and sneer about it. Just shell out a few extra bucks for a few burgers and laugh as your defiled muscle car gets a rub down to remove the paint from your unstable ex-girlfriend. It’s only a little extra cash.”
The “star” of the commercial sits eating his burger and fries as if nothing happened. He obviously is unscathed from the breakup and could care less about how anyone else feels about what he did.
It’s not okay to date multiple people. That’s not dating, that’s being a swinger. And if a guy’s “just hanging out” with a few women here and there, the women don’t become ravenous and spray paint his car with the words “CHEATER”. Only a (slightly unstable?) woman who thinks her man is committed to her does that. A TrueMan states his intentions clearly to one woman and remains committed and faithful to her. As men, we must demand that other men know what it means to be a man, and then challenge all men around us to act and respond in a manly way.
Man up!
