This month’s Parenting Magazine featured an article about raising a man(Parenting June 2013). I was obviously intrigued since I am raising four future men, so I quickly flipped to the article. What I found was the most serious case of Politically Correct propaganda that I have read in a long time. There is so much that has been stirring in my brain since reading it that I will have to break my rant/response into different blogs. So for today I will simply address the statement that “There are no gender specific traits” (Parenting June 2013 p. 89). Author of the article, Shawn Bean, states as truth that,”There is no scientific data or research to support the claim that men are less empathetic and nurturing than women.” No data huh, Shawn? Then this challenge is for you:
1. Find me five girls ages 16-25 who are carrying knives in their pockets?
2. Find me five moms who called their husbands at work asking them to come home because the baby threw up.
3. Find me five holes in drywall caused by girls rough housing.
4. Find me five boys who went back-to-school shopping with their buddies at the mall. You know-trying on clothes to see what looks best on them.
5. Find me five boys who made an eggplant or a water balloon into a “baby” and wheeled it around in a stroller.
6. Find me five boys who asked for an American boy doll for their birthday.
7. Find me five girls who bit a pretzel, pop tart, or carrot into the shape of a gun and then “shot” people with it.
8. Find me one group of middle school girls who get together on the weekend to shoot each other with airsoft guns.
9. Find me five girls who would whack a tree for an hour with a stick.
10. FInd me five little boys who would actually use a toy wooden golf club to hit the golf ball and nothing else for more than 10 minutes.
Obviously this is a list I will enjoy adding to for some time just to marvel at God’s infinite wisdom in creating boys and girl– men and women uniquely. One of the real dangers of this article is for the new moms who are seeking wisdom about their rough and tumble boys who now are insecure about their stick-wielding, tail-pulling, rock-throwing “human beings.”Take it easy, moms–they are little boys and that is EXACTLY how their creator designed them to be.
No Gender Differences? Really?
I want you to show me 5 guys that will sit over coffee for hours and hours, listening to one another cry and hold each other after a big blow-up with their wives. Actually, find me 5 guys that would even GO TO 5 other guys to TALK about it at all! There is the proof! Not across the board, certainly, but even getting these same men to ACTIVELY LISTEN to their own wives is a stretch.
Women are, by nature, relational. Men are not. And honestly, I wouldn’t want them any other way. We are made to COMPLETE one another, not mimic.