What's a boy to do?
So it’s Summer. What better time is there for a boy to discover, adventure, and imagine? As a little girl I spent all the Summer hours I could out of doors; cooking, cleaning, mothering, and living as a girl in pioneer days. There were no limits to my imagination when tramping through our woods and homemaking in our old sheds. As I now move onto other projects and use my imagination in other ways, I am eager to see my brothers display the same eagerness to create and imagine in their childhoods… only in manly ways.
And so observing my younger brothers’ frequent boredom or lack of creativity, I am attempting to coach their minds and activities towards adventurous things. But, being a female I often have difficulty coming up with something realistic, appealing, and at the same time masculine. As my imagination was not offering any tempting projects for them, I decided to search on the internet for any helpful websites, hoping to find an abundance of lists, projects, ideas, and Christian websites designed to encourage masculine productivity in boys. As a young lady there is no trouble finding old fashioned blogs and websites; modesty ideas, sewing projects, online Christian girlhood magazines, and the like. But I found no such helpful websites for the other, and often feminized sex.
I feel for the boys of our day, who have do not have families that encourage them in the pursuits of chivalrous and masculine deeds. At the same time I am angry with our fluffy pink culture that batters down a boy’s need to adventure, take risks, and do dangerous, exciting, fulfilling things. From kindergarten to college our feminized culture beats out the natural needs of a boy to be a boy.
As for my brothers, I will continue to search and think of ways to encourage imagination and masculinity, even while saddened at the lack of attention showed not only online but everywhere you look in our culture towards those people and traits that display the meaning of strength.
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11 comments:
It really is lame that men have been so "womanized" (for lack of a better word.) Now, my brother is different; there isn't a bit of femininity in him. However, he does seem to be in a growing minority.
haha...
Nice post. Sometimes it is tough for guys to find stuff to do on long summer days. Things I'd recommend...
Read a book. It's way more manly than playing video games. :) They never get old if you can get started on a good one.
If there are several guys, have a wrestling match. haha.
Build some type of fort and then add on.
Make a potato gun!!! (You'd have to supervize this if you got your brothers to do it, Jennifer). =]
Ella;
Yes, it is sad that men who have the strength to rebel against our feminized culture appear to be a minority. I'm expecting great things out of this next homeschooled generation, though!
Anonymous;
Thanks for the suggestions! :) We do not have video games, and they do like to read (thank goodness!). Sometimes it's just difficult to get them to use their imaginations in active ways, though. I suppose you mean some type of potato catapult? We have potato gun that break off pieces of potatoes and shoot them, but the smell of rotting potato everywhere soon ended that game... :)
Potato guns are a lot of fun when they work right. My brother, Joel, has made one or two and they were interesting. :)
I agree with all of Anonymous' suggestions.
Reading a book is one of my most favorite things to do ever! All of my brothers have enjoyed reading when they were younger and most of them still do. My youngest brother is just catching on to the wonders found in books and is reading more.
We have built so many forts and treehouses in the last 8-9 years...
We had woods that were fort-friendly. If you have dense woods, make trails.
About 6 years ago, our neighbor decided to have his woods logged, because his pine trees had a bug in them. Well, his woods were also 'our' woods. He had always let us play in them, make trails, and build forts. We were rather devastated. All the trails that we had made and played on for years were now gone.
After the logging was done, all that was left was huge piles of sticks, trunks, and brush.
Joel, the ever-creative brother, still found places to build forts. One of our most memorable forts was built between two enormous piles.
Anyway, I've run on without meaning to. But I agree with your post, Jen.
But it's not that boys need things to do, but they do need encouraged to do the things that are there for them.
I agree with the post about the potato guns.
Have you (or your brothers) read the Arthur Ransome books? They are rather old fashioned I guess, but they are about boys and girls who do all sorts of fun things during their summer holidays. And they are soooo funny. (My parents read them simply for the jokes.) Not only are they good reading material, they could give you some ideas. The only book of his I would caution you about is the one called "Swallowdale", as it has some rather weird stuff in the middle. But the rest are absolutely wonderful. The first in the series is called "Swallows and Amazons" and is about John, Susan, Titty and Roger (the Swallows) and their 'epic battle' against Nancy and Peggy (the Amazons)over the summer holidays. My favourite of all is "The Picts and the Martyrs". Exiled to the woods due to the evil Great Aunt's visit, Dick and Dorothea live a lifestyle similar to the historic Picts. Exiled to learning scales for hours on end (to cater to the Great Aunt's wishes) Nancy and Peggy are martyrs.
Inspired by these books my brother learnt Semaphore, Morse Code, made a set of bow and arrows, learnt how to use a compass and started to draw maps of the district we live in. (He also tried to make himself a canoe, but that didn't work so well.)
Have they tried wood work or model building. Both a a lot of fun, and very boyish.
Sport is always going to be one the list. What do they play? Cricket? ok just kidding about that one, You guys play baseball instead I think.
Try some hobbies like collecting stuff.
I Always loved collecting things.
I use to pretend the same way when i was a little girl. just some suggestions for your brothers:
bug collecting
leaf collecting
building forts
riding bikes
playing cowboys and indians
I loved the outdoors as a kid even though i'm a girl i would stay outside all day and just loved to play house with my baby dolls, and cook and make mud pies with the water hose, grass, and our dirt driveway. Of course i'm a teenager now so thats a long time gone but i still love to watch the little girls and boys at church play and use their imagination
Or even trying to see who can hold their breaths the longest.
Get a copy of the "American Boy's Handy Book" by Daniel Carter Beard ($1.48 used on Amazon). It is sort of the first boy scout handbook, written in the 1890s! It is signifigantly better than the modern "Dangerous Book for Boys"!
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