Sons Will Challenge Dads

Sons will frustrate you.  They will disappoint you.  They will concern you.  They will contest and challenge you.  They will reflect you.  They will listen to you.  They will please you.  They will follow you. 

From day one, until one of you dies, your son will cause you deep interest and perplexing thoughts… because you care.  As a newborn, lying in his crib, your son will draw from within you a deep sense of need.  You will look at him and know deep within your heart that he needs you… very much. 

While this is a good thing – actually a GREAT thing – many men are not prepared for it and respond to the challenge it presents by sort of stepping back a bit.  The draw upon our hearts will be a very powerful thing and if we are not trained ahead of time to respond to challenges with eagerness our first response might be to step back, but the next step matters most.  Men step forward to meet challenges.  Not to prove anything, but because they know it is the only response that is worth looking back on.

From the time your son can get a bead on you he will be sizing you up and trying to win.  He will compare himself and measure his ability, strength, toughness, intelligence, humor, etc., against your standards.  For him, the only measurement that matters is how he compares to you, his father.  While you are just doing your best at life, he is actually making a competition out of it. 

Some families make the competition a big deal with the father trying with all his might to win at every turn, raising the bar as high as possible.  These families will often produce high achieving sons because they have been trained their whole lives to increase, strive, strengthen, and overcome.  Other fathers step back from the competition and encourage their sons to not fall into comparisons; teaching instead that individuality matters most.  These families often produce creatively independent thinkers, contemplative men who are at peace with themselves and others.  

Neither is right or wrong and each camp can produce excellent sons, but there are things to take into account.  If you are using competition to strengthen your son, you might want to include lessons about internal acceptance, peaceful paths, and non-comparison.  You might want to clarify that you are each unique men who are supposed to be different.  If you value the non-competitive road you may want to include lessons of opposition, battling, and winning strategies. 

Sons will challenge us, not just to win in the moments, but to win over the long haul.  The long road of parenting includes many, many lessons for both.  Winning means excelling at finding those lessons, learning them well, and using them the best way you can, when needed, for the sake of your son’s development as a man.  In many cases, the moment needs to be lost so the bigger victory can be won.  I know that sounds strange, so let me explain.

For some reason your son has become mad at you and then doesn't do his chore.  He is trying to win.  You know this and want to win, too.  So, as most dads will do, you become louder, fiercer, and threatening.  Your son cowers, caves in, and does the chore.  Congratulations.  You just won the moment.  But, your son may have lost many possible steps he might have gained on his journey to become a man.  What if you had waited him out?  What if you had chuckled at his impish attempt to beat you?  What if you had stood beside him staring at the chore together?  The greater lesson may have been that you are with him, not against him.  The greater lesson may have been a quieter response about the good feelings a man gets for having handled his responsibilities, even pointing out how lousy he feels, how he has entangled your relationship into the idea of chores, and how his esteem is going to be negatively affected by both the anger and the refusal. 

As fathers we have to look at the long road and make our best decisions about the effects everything is having on our son.  When our sons are toddlers, they can’t be presented with the reasoning and strategies that a seventeen year old boy can handle.  But, the lessons can still be given with the same effect.  We can cross our arms and imitate his anger with a twinkle in our eye so he knows he is safe.  We can pick up a book and start to read, letting him know we will help him when he is ready. 

There are hundreds of ways to respond to any moment’s need for learning.  Taking the first choice we see is often a poor decision.  Caring for our son means giving him our best.  Taking time to consider the effect of our choice and looking for better and better options not only draws our caring into the moment, but more importantly strengthens our habit of infusing our caring into moments.  This means we will be more and more likely to take the “loving path” in our lesson moments over time.  This becomes something that he will grow to know with certainty.  He will see and know your love for him.  While there are no guarantees, it is most likely his certainty of your love will anchor him into a life of goodness and help him to become a loving father himself.