As a father of two boys, I am coming to grips with a few fears of mine. Aside from their future roles as husbands and fathers, I worry about the caliber of men that they will become.
We live in a society that encourages boys to become sloths under the guise of what is now called "adolescence". In short, its a period of time in which a teenager ventures into a season of endless hours of video games, unrealistic professional goals and premature relationships to find out who he "really" is. The joke about it all (aside from it being an American thing) is that it seems to extend from about age 13 through almost 40 now a days. So what you end up with is a bunch of boys with facial hair, an Xbox controller in one hand and the TV remote in the other, filthy with the exception of the clean drawers their mommy just washed for them. It's quite disgusting.
Thankfully my father put me to work at a young age. In fact, I was convinced at age 12, that our 3 month summer trips to the Dominican Republic were really part of my dads plan to weasle me into free labor, except he called it vacation. Dad would wake me up at about 5:30 am to go milk the cows with my uncle, after milking the cows we'd go to his piece of land and cut down plantains and bananas for lunch. Following the endless hours in the Caribbean sun, we'd go to our home and chase some chickens for lunch, I then received the rewarding privilege of tying the bird upside down by its legs, extending its neck and swiftly decapitating its convulsing head. This was all done by noon, and the evenings were just as grueling with fetching water from wells, and maintaining the property with dad. I must say, I hated it then but now I rejoice at the work that I was taught.
Manhood in our country is looking more and more like an American Pie sequel. This is where you have a bunch of boneheads living for a "good time", avoiding commitment at all cost and finally when they do commit to a woman, their still avoiding true intimacy with their mate and in many cases becoming porn addicted, stay at home dads without having kids. And we wonder why the divorce rate is over at 50% both in the church and out of it. Its truly a joke. Now I don't believe for a second that I am the perfect man, ask Stac, I fall short... OFTEN. But I find it to be of God's grace alone that I constantly run across verses like Prov 6: 6-11 and Prov 10:4, where according to Prov 10:26, the consequences of a sluggard is not only detrimental to himself, but to those who trained him, or rather didn't train him, parents.
Give your boys chores, keep them accountable for picking up after themselves and let them see you exhausted at the end of the day from your hours of labor (BUT don't be pathetic). Reward obedience and disciple through the failures, but never let them slack off to the point where they become a burden to your wife and household. We're raising the next batch of husbands, fathers and preachers, Microsoft and Sony can NEVER prepare our boys for this task.
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