4 quotes found
"Sadly for all of us, our culture does little to encourage boys to become great men. Television depicts men as stupid, or as sex addicts, and almost always intellectually and emotionally shallow. Men don't seem to care about these depictions, merely laughing them off. But I care about them, because our sons need good role models and given the amount of time boys spend with electronic media they need good role models on television. And of course, there is a bigger cultural fallout from the depreciation of masculinity and fatherhood, which is lower marriage rates, higher divorce rates, and the reality that many boys grow up in fatherless homes.This is a national tragedy, because boys need healthy encouragement from their fathers more than they need it from anyone else. In a boy's eyes, his father's words are sacred. They hold enormous power. His words can crush a boy or piece him back together after a fall. If a father is not there at all, there is a huge void in a boy's life — and as the depressing statistics remind us, boys who grow up without fathers are at a dramatically greater risk of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, and ending up in prison.Encouragement from a father changes a boy's life. His words can ignite furious passion in a boy that will help him achieve any goal he sets out to accomplish. To a son, a dad's words are the final truth. If they are positive, a boy feels that he cannot be beaten; if they are negative, however, a son feels that he could never win. If you are a son reading this, you know exactly what I mean."
"Every boy needs schooling in virtues in order to become a great man. And any parent can school him because at the heart of virtue is masculine intuition. Parents don't have to construct the virtues and then pour then into the heart of their son. The virtues are there, but in small fragments that must be cleaned, shaped, and polished.The great burden for parents is finding time. Haste is the enemy of virtue, because it gives us no time to discuss, think, wonder, or pray; it forces us to push our boys to perform when we should be working with them. Give time back to your son. Give him time to dream. Encourage him to question and to think. Boys must have time to think upon virtues before they embrace them. Otherwise, virtues become nothing more than a disposable outer layer of clothing. A man can put them on or off, depending on his mood. But real virtues are not so disposable — they become part of the boy."
"Boys will search for virtue, just as they will search for truth and self-worth, because in the heart of a developing boy is the desire to know the truth, to know what is good, and to know that he has some reason to do the right thing. This is why boys are famous for setting out rules, standards of conduct for themselves. They derive their moral code from those they admire (usually their parents). Once a boy sets out his rules, he holds them as the best and highest way a boy (himself) should behave. If a boy succeeds in following his code of conduct, he's able to respect himself, and he believes others will respect him as well. Respect and honor are important to boys (and men)."
"At the top of most lists of good behavior is honesty. Boys are keenly attuned to honesty in those around them. And they feel it immediately when people around them sway from it. If a boy has a strong conscience, his eyebrows, nostrils, hairline, and mouth will all betray him if he tries to lie, because he will know he is breaking the code of conduct. Boys consider honesty a masculine quality, so to betray it is to be less of a man. Heroes, in a boy's eyes, are deserving of honor because they stand for what is right and just, and what is right and just is honesty.Living honestly feels better to boys than living with deception, even if that deception is meant to get them what they want. Boys like feeling strong and courageous, and telling the truth demands strength and honesty. Lying feels grungy. Lying makes boys fearful because they know it is a weakness. The liar is someone who is afraid of the truth.This is why boys are so open to being trained to tell the truth. They know that if you teach them to be truth tellers, you're teaching them to be strong. They know good boys, internally strong boys, tell the truth; wishy-washy boys lie. No one needs to tell them this; they know it. So in teaching honesty you have a ready audience. Don't blow it by encouraging your son to tell white lies — even if they're well intentioned. Young boys think in black-and-white terms. A statement is either true or it is false. The younger the boy, the less gray he feels in his thinking. When a parent coaxes him to tell "white lies" he is confused. The term is an oxymoron. In order to accommodate his parents' wishes, he puts lies into the pool of acceptable speech. Beginning such ambiguous training so early on in life leads boys down a slippery path."