My son has a beautiful, kind heart and soul. Of course, he tries to mask it with boy toughness, poor personal hygiene, and the occasional bad attitude. But, deep inside, he has a beautiful soul.
Natually, as his mother I should believe in his kindness, his sweetness, his inner beauty. It's when I see him play with the little kids down the street, work with the little kids at karate, or look around at all the lovingly made art in my room and house, that affirms the beauty of my child. I think, "I've created him!" but really, I haven't, not completely. He has an innate kindness that allowed him, when my mother was in the hospital after surgery and not looking like herself, to crawl on her bed and cuddle her. Next to my bed is the Lego birthday cake he made me years ago. Above my head hangs the wood carving he made me for Christmas this past year.
Our world doesn't accept sweetly sensitive boys, which is a shame. We ridicule them, call them terrible names, and tell them to "man up." What will happen to my son as he grows older? Will he hide his true self behind a mask of toughness? So what if he isn't "athletic" or knows football stats? Why must we identify boys by the sports they play rather than the person they are?
Our boys are so much more than we allow them to be. We tell them not to cry when they're sad, to act like pigs with girls, and define their self-worth by the number of points they can score in a game. We expect them to go into "manly" fields like construction or engineering, and we laugh at them when they want to be teachers or nurses, traditionally "women's work." We expect our boys to be tough, rough and tumble, rather than gentle, and we mock signs of gentleness by ridiculing their sexuality. We make them fear being "gay" and force them to deny their sexuality. Should they accept their sexuality, and it doesn't fit with our idea of "normal," we mock them and shame them for what is biological. We instill a fear of homosexual men into our boys as perverts and child molesters, and our boys grow into men who need to prove their masculinity.
My kind, beautiful son is headed into the hormone-driven confusing era of middle school, where some of his best traits will be mocked. I hope we have given him the internal strength to withstand what is headed his way, but I worry. Teenaged boys kill themselves at greater rates than teenaged girls, and this concerns me as well. Teenaged boys are more likely to commit violent crimes as well, especially in an effort to prove their self-worth.
In the end, I hope he emerges a taller, stronger version of the person he is now.
