RAOK #27 - Knight-in-Training

If you have followed my blog from the beginning, it is pretty clear how much I adore my daughters.  I adore the son too but I haven't talked much about him yet, so in the never-ending and pointless quest of every parent to always appear "fair", I wanted to do a RAOK that would be special for him.

First of all, the son is a handsome charmer.  He can tell a story and has never met a stranger.  He's only 14 and is already 6'0" and 210 and obviously as a boy, he's not done growing.  I remember the day I noticed he was eye-level to me. I'd been watching for it to happen and it did, the last day of school 2 years ago.  Since then he has shot up almost 11 inches!  Amazing process, this adolescence thing.  Expensive too - I can't keep the boy in pants that fit!!

Thus far we have found that raising a boy in today's cultural climate is not easy.  Training a boy to be a man in a society that constantly undermines men is tough.  For example, you can hardly watch a TV program without the dad/husband/main male character being portrayed as a fumbling buffoon. 

This is probably not going to win me any points with whatever feminist readers I have, but I believe that the traditional roles work better than this mixed up "anything goes" point of view that our society seems to embrace.  I am not saying that women should not be afforded opportunities or fair pay. If you know me, you would know that it would be totally hypocritical of me to say after being in a successful career for years.

The point is, though, our young men need to be trained and empowered to be leaders of society, of community, and of family.  I believe that the traditional roles of men should be honored and men should be supported in what they do, not belittled.  Young men need to be taught the right way to be men, to be protectors, to be honorable, and to stand up for what is right. . .

So for RAOK #27, I designed a poster and ordered it for his room.  Our son loves history. He loves medieval legends, tales of dragons, King Arthur, the knights, and Civil War stories. He and his dad adore weapons and warfare history of all kinds - swords, daggers, and guns (Don't freak out now. We don't have a mini Waco compound here. However, do know if you break into our home, we are well prepared!!) I did some research on the "Knight's Code" and developed a good list of character qualities from it that we are trying to instill and that I would love my son to possess as a man.  The poster also has a really cool picture of a bad-boy Knight on it that he will love.  We'll frame it and put it in his room over his bed and I know he will read it over and over. 

Hopefully, this and our training will sink in and we'll have ourselves a real live Knight one of these days!!  Young ladies, watch out ;)