Boys to men. . .

No, this is not about boy bands from the past.  It is rather about the way that boys are raised to become men or, as we have found today, not raised to manhood.  I am not being sexist when I say that women struggle to turn boys to men.  They do well enough raising boys but they are missing the central ingredient -- example.  Boys learn best how to be men from men, by example -- that is what women cannot provide.  Obviously, men and women are different and the differences are not framed in good or bad as typically we frame things but as differences inherent to them and for the benefit of both.

I recall a meme showing a mom trying to teach her young boys to stand and use the toilet or urinal.  She holds a water bottle to imitate the way a man goes but it is forced and humorous -- as memes are meant to be.  The absence of fathers in so many homes is noteworthy for the lack of example to teach boys to become men.  This is not about how to use a urinal but rather how to love, lead, suffer, sacrifice, forgive, pray, and serve -- among other things.  These things come from men to boys so that those boys might become men.  Without example, the typical outcome is for boys to grow up in to boys.  But to remain boys is something women neither need nor want.

Competition and challenge may not be the prime ways that girls learn to become women but that is exactly how boys learn to become men.  Whether of physical or mental or of the will, boys learn from men to become men by competing and by being challenged.  Watching what to do, the boys either compete against each other or against themselves.  I can do that!  It is the cry of success learned from competition and defeat as much as by example and victory.  Through these the boy leaves the comfort of self and the things of self in order to venture into the unknown.  It works for physical feats like climbing trees or zip lining or bungee jumping but it also works for the selfless roles of husband, father, and civic leader.

Where manhood is valued and taught, family and community flourish.  What it also affects is faith.  St. Paul uses largely masculine examples for the growth and maturity in the faith:  fight the good fight of faith, walk worthy, be disciplined, be self-controlled, train for righteousness, suffering produces endurance and endurance hope, etc...  While they have appeal beyond men, St. Paul is directly appealing to men to become men.  This is the need of the marriage, the family, the community, but also the Church.  The sad reality is that when women step up, men step back.  That is not a good thing on any level.  Though some complain about it, different roles and different areas of serving is not sexism at all -- rather it is the acknowledgement of the obvious.  I wish that we had more common sense today but it seem we are willing to dispense with common wisdom in order to embrace extraordinary foolishness.  That is also true for the Church as well as for every other arena.  If we feminize the Church or even do something much less by de-emphasizing godly manhood, we will end up with a self-fulfilling prophecy and the Church will become almost exclusively for women and children.  Where manhood is valued and taught, family, community AND church flourish.