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.
