Proud Mama’s Boy

A man who treats his woman like a princess is proof that he has been raised by a queen.

Wiz Khalifa

In a world where part of what people assume they need to hide part of which they are, resulting in people walking around with social masks. Some of these masks are to protect themselves from being exposed and hurt by others. Other masks are to portray an image they think others will like. The result, either way, is that people are left not knowing what to expect from someone.

This has been a constant topic mentioned by most women I have spoken with, as they don’t know what kind of man they often have before them in social settings. These men present themselves as Gentlemen, yet later on show their true colors as being a lot less. This has led plenty of women to have issues trusting anyone who carries the Gentleman label. Other men present themselves as being stoic or irresponsible or even uncaring, yet when the lady allows them to open up, they are in actuality perfect gentlemen who simply carried their masks as a shield to protect themselves as a result of past heartbreaks.

So this leaves Ladies in a rather confusing situation. Is the gentleman an actual gentleman or simply a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Is he really that bad of a person or is he really just trying to keep safe a heart of gold? There is a simple way to know. It’s just that you need to know where to look. You want to know how a man will treat a woman after all masks and shields fall off? Look at how he treats the one woman who met him before he put on his mask.

Look at how he treats his mother.

Most Gentlemen learn how to behave like warriors and learn the ceremonial side of society from their fathers or male role models. Now days, thanks to the evolution of modern dads, they also learn that life isn’t just work, as they learn to have fun and enjoy life from their fathers as well. That is why I constantly promote the inclusion of a male role model within a boy’s development.

Yet from their mother, they tend to learn how to respect and care for women. Moms become the first woman a man will care for. Here is where he will learn respect and responsibility about words and action done in front of a lady. It doesn’t need to be his biological mother. We see this in men with close relationships with their stepmothers, grandmothers, aunts, or big sister. In her presence, they will carry themselves as they want to be seen by them. And these lessons become engrained within their soul. This is why having a proper female role is so important.

I have noticed this to be a recurring trait among those who live under the Gentleman code. Yes, they might stray from the code during part of their lives, as they forget those lessons at one point or another. Yet these very men, those who have lost their way, will even straighten up with a single though, “what will my mother think.” Ladies, you might at one point or another complain about a gentleman’s mother, but if he treats you with respect and lovingly, this is the woman you should be thanking. She forged that side of his moral structure.

So, if you ever want to know how a man treats women, what he thinks of them, just look at how he treats his mother. You will quite often see that any man, who treats her with respect, will often do the same with you. So next time you wonder about this, see if the gentleman in question is a Proud Mama’s Boy.

The Brotherhood Of Fatherhood

Being a father is a choice. Staying true to fatherhood is a duty.

Joan Ambu

Brothers, and I am honored to call you brothers, to you I raise my glass.

You have faced the most terrifying and exhilarating instant in your life, and stood firm in your position from the day you found out you would be a Dad. You might have stumbled from time to time, questioned yourself in every instant of solitude you have, questioned every action you have taken since that day. We all do, and will continue doing. This is the ultimate life path as it’s a journey that never has a final destination.

It will teach you respect as you teach respect.

It will teach you patience as you teach patience.

It will teach you perseverance as you teach perseverance.

It will teach you to be a better man as you teach someone to be a good person.

To you I raise my glass and call you my brother.

The Dad who can’t wait for his 8 hour shift to be over, just to see his kid.

The Dad who has taken on the challenges of a stay home parent.

The Dad who embraced being a father to someone else’s child.

The Dad who set aside any issues with his ex-spouse because… fatherhood.

The Man who chose to be a foster parent because someone needed a Dad.

The Dad who might no longer be with us, yet his memory still teaches us what a Father is.

I also raise my glass and call my brother,

The Mother who has taken it upon herself to be a father as well.

The Grandfather who came out of retirement when his grandkids needed a Dad.

The Older Brother who became a man the day he understood the importance of being there for his younger siblings.

And lastly I raise my glass and call my brother,

The Uncle, the coach, the teacher, the mentor, and every other man who has served as a father figure and male role model to every kid out there who needed a father at one time or another.

I am proud to call you all my brothers.

Moms Who Raise Better Men

Note: This is a rework of a previously published article I made for GMP. I thought it was appropriate to give it an update as it was deserved a re-visit and re-evaluation.

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.

William Makepeace Thackeray

With Mother’s Day rapidly approaching (Sunday, May 10th for those counting), I thought it might be appropriate to comment on a topic of interest to most of our women readers, how a mother can raise a better man.

Although I usually avoid telling women how to be women (I think the reason is pretty obvious as to why), many women have mentioned how they struggle with wanting to raise their sons to be gentlemen. Being women, they feel limited as to how to teach sons how to grow up into proper men, the kind of men this world so desperately needs. Just as a man’s eyes are opened about gender inequality and a Machista society women deal with every day as soon as they become a father to a daughter, women quickly realize the challenges men face as soon as they become mothers to sons. This is specially challenging to single moms raising boys.

As many women today challenge traditionally restrictive female gender roles most of their lives, they want to avoid imposing restrictive male gender roles onto their own sons. Yet, these moms are confronted with a world that offers few positive male role models, a culture that force feeds toxic masculinity to boys, and a society that judges men in a negative light simply because of their gender. To further complicate the issue for moms, social media reinforces the notion that proper manhood rests solely on the shoulders of men, as we are told time and time again that only men can fix what’s wrong with men.

To be honest, this is bullshit. Raising better children should be the responsibility of everyone, regardless of gender. We all have a responsibility to be role models to those around us. As a boy, I was taught to be a proper gentleman with a sense of respect, to myself and to others, mostly by the efforts of my mother, so it’s not something that only men can teach. It’s interesting that most gentlemen I know show the respect they do to women thanks to the women who helped raise them.

You see, as women you can give your boys the female perspective no man can properly give. You are the first impression your sons will have of how a woman is supposed to be and on how they are supposed to treat a lady. This is crucial to the formation of any man, if for no other reason than women make half of our society!

If you are unsure of your ability to help shape a boy into a better man, just consider the men you have met in your life and how they women. Now consider how just how much of what they know about treating women was learned by how they treat their mothers. So you must ask yourself: being the mother whose sons the next generation of ladies will have to put up with, what kind of son do you want to raise?

As I have said many times before, good parenting doesn’t guarantee a good man. But it helps. Most of the comments below will be generalizations to one degree or another. Some are about learned behavior and some are about breaking some of the social chains we have. Good kids can come from bad parents and bad kids can come from good parents. With all that cleared up, let’s look at five things you can do increase your chances of raising a proper gentlemen.

They Will Learn Respect By How You Respect Yourself.

You are the first example your son will have of what a woman is. In simple terms, you are the foundation of how your sons view the rest of the women in the world. If you want them to know the importance of respecting women, you must first respect yourself.

Consider how you treat yourself and how you care for yourself. Do your actions demonstrate a sense of self-respect and self-worth? Instead of telling your boys to respect women, start by showing them how a woman respects herself. Self-respect and self-love are contagious, but so is self-loathing.

Just think about the kind of woman you are. Is that the kind of person you would want your son to bring home?

Maybe it’s time to start giving yourself some love. Between life and kids, parents forget about themselves. I know that you have enough on your plate, but you know deep down that kids learn more from your actions than from your advice. How you treat yourself will be reflected by your sons on how they treat themselves. Be an example for them. Teach them respect by how you respect yourself. You have to treat yourself right, take care of yourself, and try to create some order and stability in your life. Your son’s behavior will follow suit.

They Will Treat Others By How You Let Them Treat You.

As I mentioned above, you are the foundation of their image of what a woman is. You will become the bar to which all other women will be compared to. Set the bar high.

Do you let your boys raise their voice to you? Swear in front of you? Let them make sexist comments in your presence? Allowed them to put up tasteless posters objectifying women in their room? Have you laughed off any of this off with “boys will be boys”? If you said yes to any of these questions, you can’t really complain about the kid of men we have today.

Everything you let them get away with is what they will expect others to put up with. Teach them to respect others, especially you as a woman and as their mother. They might have their room and their space, but it’s your home. They have to abide by your rules. They learn from you how to live with others and how to carry a home, as sooner or later they will move out to create their own niche in the world.

This way they will learn that they don’t have a personal maid or chef in the real world (and if they do, these services cost money). Make them realize that being part of a household means contributing to it. Teach them about the work it takes to keep up a home and their obligations of being part of a family. Teach them how to cook for themselves and how to take care of their own clothing. Too many men move out from living with their mothers, expecting to will find someone to fill that will that role. Teach them independence and self-reliance.

They Will Treat Women By How You Let Men Treat You.

The men you surround yourself will influence your boy’s behavior. If you are with a man who ignores and neglects you, your boy will see this as normal relationship dynamics. If you are with a man who is encouraging and supportive, your boy will see this, again, as how you treat your partner.

If your spouse abuses you, verbally or physically, stop reading this, get out, and look for help. (Here is the link for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Gentlemen, this link works for you too if you are being abused. Abusive behavior does not discriminate by gender) If you stay in that relationship (please don’t), your sons will learn that abuse is acceptable behavior and might even think that this is how love is shown.

Insist on respect and attention from your partner. Insist on them treating you like a lady. Whatever way your partner treats you, one way or the other, your sons will view this as what women ought to expect or, worse yet, what women actually seek in a man.

They Will Put Up With How You Treat Your Partner.

Take a minute and consider how you treat your current partner, how you have treated your past partners. Now consider how you would react if someone treated your son that way.

The same way I mentioned you might forget about paying attention to yourself because of life, you might end up doing the same to your partner. You might not have noticed just how you treat them, or might have noticed and don’t really care. Yet your son does notice, and learns from it. He learns that how you treat your partner is how he should expect to be treated. He will put up, expect, or even search out to be treated the way you treat your partner. With that in mind, what kind of daughter-in-law do you want?

Teach Them That Women Are Self-Reliant.

When you stay within a relationship because you can’t “be on your own”, you teach your son that women only are with them out of need and will put up with a lot out of that need. Teach your children that women are self-reliant. Teach them that no woman will stay with your son just because he is the “man” in the relationship. Teach them that a partner is just that, a partner. Boys have to learn that if they treat a woman badly, that woman will leave! Men who see their partners as dependent tend to stop appreciating them because they are convinced they can’t lose them.

As your son understands that a strong woman is self-reliant, he will learn to avoid women looking for a “sponsor” for their lifestyle and will stop being intimidated by powerful and independent women. They will look for a woman who is his equal, one they respect as they respect themselves.

The world, especially any future in-law, will appreciate your teaching them these vital lessons.

Teach Respect With Respect

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.

Albert Camus

A couple days ago, the net went into a buzz over the “Mother of the Year,” a woman who found out her son was involved in the Baltimore Riots. She went to where he was and started teaching the young man “discipline.” That wasn’t a lesson in discipline; it was a lesson in violence.

We complain about the violent nature of society, about men who resort to violence as a way to solve problems or to “inspire” respect. We see it in the police officer who enforces respect of the law through fear, the guy down the street who wants his rights respected through intimidation, the husband who expects respect in his home through domestic violence, or the mother who teaches her son respect by beating it into him.

And that’s where the problem starts. Most violent men learn to equate violence and respect, not in the streets, but at home while they were still kids. The belt or the “chancleta” (flip-flops) don’t teach respect, they teach fear. So we end up with men whose fear of getting caught doing the wrong thing is greater than their love of doing the right thing. We don’t want to create good men but simply to punish the bad out of them. 

That doesn’t work.

Unless men are taught about respect with respect, their view of what respect is will be distorted. We will end up with men who don’t really care about doing what’s right, but care about not getting caught doing what’s wrong. We will end up with men who think that you have to beat respect into your loved ones, as they assume that fear and respect is the same thing.

Does this mean we shouldn’t punish those who do wrong? That we should accept unacceptable behavior? No. Wrong should never be accepted or condoned. But as a man, I have no right to demean a person in their own eyes, I have no right to undermine a person’s self-respect in order for them to respect me.

Only my enemies should fear me, not my loved ones.

Maybe if we focused more on what a man can do right than what he is doing wrong, maybe, just maybe, we might end up with men doing more right than wrong. If we teach this lesson to our boys, we might end up with men who strive to be more.